PONE-D-23-28066Modelling microplastic bioaccumulation and biomagnification potential in the Galápagos penguin ecosystem using Ecopath and Ecosim (EwE) with EcotracerPLOS ONE

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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[A special thank you to V. Christensen and S. De la Puente Jeri for the FISH 501, an ecosystem modelling course carried out in 2021, which included phenomenal instruction and support. Authors thank and acknowledge the creators of the Bolivar Channel EwE Model, D. J. Ruiz and M. Wolff. A special thank you to D. J. Ruiz, who provided access and support throughout. Access to D. J. Ruiz and M. Wolff’s model made this research more robust. Thank you for your data transparency. Thank you to B. Hunt for offering constructive comments and feedback. K. McMullen and J. J. Alava thank the Nippon Foundation for providing funding to support fieldwork and research in Ecuador via the Nippon Foundation-Marine Litter Project at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia. Dr. Wilf Swartz proactively helped to manage funding and financial resources allocation and administration to support the Nippon Foundation-Marine Litter Project. This research was partially supported by the NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2014-05107 to E.A.P. We humbly express our gratitude to the local people of the Galápagos Islands and the unique endemic and native species of the archipelago, who continue to inspire our desire for conservation.]

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 [This research was partially funded by the Nippon Foundation via the Nippon Foundation-Marine Litter Project at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, awarded to J. J. Alava. https://oceannexus.uw.edu/about/

This research was partially supported by the NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2014-05107 to E. A. Pakhomov. https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/professors-professeurs/grants-subs/dgigp-psigp_eng.asp

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript entitled “Modelling microplastic bioaccumulation and biomagnification potential in the Galápagos penguin ecosystem using Ecopath and Ecosim (EwE) with Ecotracer” is an interesting piece of work and provides a new direction to research. There are certain points to be considered by the authors. Hence it is suggest for Minor Revision.

• The term microplastics is not defined at the first instance in the introduction.

• The overall manuscript is well written.

• The methodology is clearly written, however is very lengthy. Some information may be shifted to the supplementary section.

• Results section is very lengthy and loses focus of the primary aim of the article.

• There are numerous tables, some of which could be shifted to the supplementary material.

• Some figures have been misquoted. For example, Figure 16 A, Figure 18 B. However, such figures are not provided in the manuscript.

The manuscript can be accepted for publication after these minor revisions.

Reviewer #2: No Comments required because they organized everything very clearly. This manuscript is very interesting and it will be helpful to the science community. The authors mention everything according to the aim and objective.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Modelling microplastic bioaccumulation and biomagnification potential in the Galápagos penguin ecosystem using Ecopath and Ecosim (EwE) with Ecotracer

PONE-D-23-28066R1

Dear Dr. McMullen,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Arumugam Sundaramanickam, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have addressed all the comments satisfactorily. The number of tables have been reduced and the figure numbers have been quoted appropriately. Hence it is recommended that the manuscript be accepted for publication.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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