PONE-D-24-13211Recent range expansion and lineage idiosyncratic population structure of Liodessus diving beetles in the high Andes (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae, Bidessini)PLOS ONE

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In the initial phases of this project, Adrián Villastrigo was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through a Humboldt Research Fellowship and by the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation at SNSB-ZSM, and this stipend is greatly acknowledged here. Michael Balke acknowledges support from the EU SYNTHESYS program, projects FR-TAF 6972 and GB-TAF-6776, which supported this research during visits to Natural History Museum in London and Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris in 2017 to study historical type material." Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. 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In the initial phases of this project, Adrián Villastrigo was funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through a Humboldt Research Fellowship and by the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation at SNSB-ZSM, and this stipend is greatly acknowledged here. Michael Balke acknowledges support from the EU SYNTHESYS program, projects FR-TAF 6972 and GB-TAF-6776, which supported this research during visits to Natural History Museum in London and Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris in 2017 to study historical type material." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 6. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. 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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: Review | Manuscript: PONE-D-24-13211

SUMMARY AND OVERALL IMPRESSION

The current study presents a novel integrative approach to resolve the taxonomy and population genetic structure using the genus Liodessus Guignot 1939 as a model system. Further, this work explores unique ecosystems, namely Páramo habitats that are good models for investigating population genetic structure due to intermittent geographical isolations and connectivity in the past. Therefore, the work will significantly contribute to advancing the field and will be of interest to the broad community.

GENERAL COMMENTS

Overall statistics: In the methods section, it will be helpful from the readers' point of view to describe statistics relevant to analyses performed. Similarly, please describe in detail the statistical results in the results section. It will be useful for replication and repetition of the study.

Population genetic structure: This work includes 147 specimens of L. quimbaya and 59 specimens of L. quillacinga to explore population genetic structure. Which test/tests were used to check data adequacy prior to analysis?

Correspondence analysis: It will be interesting to investigate the patterns of distribution based on wing morphology using the relevant high dimensional data reduction method, namely correspondence analysis. It’s a simple analysis based on frequency data to study species distribution based on vestigial and normal wings. Authors already have this data using a huge number of specimens that are reflected in the material examined section under taxonomy.

Trait mapping: As mentioned in the introduction section it will be fascinating to explore the relation between elevation gradient and wing size of Liodessus specimens. Have the authors observed any patterns of reduction in wing size based on elevation gradient? This trait can be further mapped on the phylogeny using Phytools in R.

Have authors also found a mixture of normal-winged and vestigial-winged specimens in the same population?

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

The specific comments are marked in the pdf file. Therefore, those are not listed here to avoid redundancy.

DECISION

Major revision

Reviewer #2: Congratulations on a well written and interesting piece of work, providing deeper taxonomic and biogeographic knowledge on predaceous diving beetles of the northern Andes as study system. Overall subspecies appear to be useful in this taxonomic group, however it seems in some cases they may not be that easy to detect based on morphology, which may pose difficulties for the average entomologist or biomonitor of ecosystems. This may be an intrinsic problem of the group, if some subspecies are in essence cryptic. I recommend in further publications, authors may provide recommendations to biomonitoring professionals and aquatic biologists interested in conservation on how to cope with difficult or cryptic subspecies complexes, either through user-friendly molecular protocols or lower morphological resolution alternatives.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Sayali D. Sheth

Reviewer #2: Yes: Atilano Contreras-Ramos

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Recent range expansion and lineage idiosyncratic population structure of Liodessus diving beetles in the high Andes (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae, Bidessini)

PONE-D-24-13211R1

Dear Dr. Villastrigo,

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.

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Kind regards,

Łukasz Kajtoch, Ph.D.

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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Thanks for taking care of my comments, indeed, my concern is more on future grounds regarding work in the study area and conservation efforts for these interesting ecosystems and their biota, so that identification of the beetle subspecies may be accessible to the biomonitoring entomologist or conservation biologist, given the cryptic nature of some of the subspecies. Yet, justification on molecular grounds is valid and well sustained. Again, congratulations on a nice piece of work on this complex taxonomic group of aquatic beetles.

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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.

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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: Yes: Sayali D. Sheth

Reviewer #2: No

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