PONE-D-24-35103Fish community composition in the tropical archipelago of São Tomé and PríncipePLOS ONE

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“Fieldwork described here was undertaken within the project “Establishing a network of marine protected areas across São Tomé and Príncipe through a co-management approach” and was funded by Blue Action Fund and Arcadia Fund for Nature - a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Preliminary work was funded by the Darwin Initiative - a UK government grant scheme (Project 23–012), Forever Príncipe and Halpin Trust. G.P. acknowledges funding from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) doctoral grant nº UI/BD/151263/2021. A.N. acknowledges the support of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement SocioEcoFrontiers No. 843865. K.M. acknowledges funding support from the Darwin Initiative (Project 23-011 and 26-014), Waterloo Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society Congo Programme. G.P and T.C.L. acknowledge the support received from cE3c - Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes through FCT’s strategic project UIDB/00329/2020 (doi: 10.54499/UIDB/00329/2020)”

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“Fieldwork described here was undertaken within the project “Establishing a network of marine protected areas across São Tomé and Príncipe through a co-management approach” and was funded by Blue Action Fund and Arcadia Fund for Nature - a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Preliminary work was funded by the Darwin Initiative - a UK government grant scheme (Project 23–012), Forever Príncipe and Halpin Trust. G.P. acknowledges funding from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) doctoral grant nº UI/BD/151263/2021. A.N. acknowledges the support of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement SocioEcoFrontiers No. 843865. K.M. acknowledges funding support from the Darwin Initiative (Project 23-011 and 26-014), Waterloo Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society Congo Programme. G.P and T.C.L. acknowledge the support received from cE3c - Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes through FCT’s strategic project UIDB/00329/2020 (doi: 10.54499/UIDB/00329/2020). We further thank Fundação Príncipe’s marine team for their support during field work, especially marine guards Ibizaltino Ceita, Abduley de Pina, Pascoal Monteiro, Zelinho Maquengo and Carlos Sanches, and project coordinators Vanessa Schmitt and Jaconias Pereira. We also wish to thank the team that supported São Tomé’s sampling, including captain Juvêncio and crew members, as well as Bastien Loloum.”

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“Fieldwork described here was undertaken within the project “Establishing a network of marine protected areas across São Tomé and Príncipe through a co-management approach” and was funded by Blue Action Fund and Arcadia Fund for Nature - a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Preliminary work was funded by the Darwin Initiative - a UK government grant scheme (Project 23–012), Forever Príncipe and Halpin Trust. G.P. acknowledges funding from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) doctoral grant nº UI/BD/151263/2021. A.N. acknowledges the support of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska‐Curie grant agreement SocioEcoFrontiers No. 843865. K.M. acknowledges funding support from the Darwin Initiative (Project 23-011 and 26-014), Waterloo Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society Congo Programme. G.P and T.C.L. acknowledge the support received from cE3c - Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes through FCT’s strategic project UIDB/00329/2020 (doi: 10.54499/UIDB/00329/2020)”

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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

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Reviewer #1: 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: This is well-written manuscript describing assemblage of fish at Sao Tome and Pricipe in the Gulf of Guinea. The research approach and findings are not particularly novel, but this represents valuable data in a location where fish data are missing.

The BRUV methodology is executed very well and so are the analyses. I have minor comments and edits.

Line 35: change “whose” to “where coastal…”

Line 70: the writing is generally good, however this sentence was jarring. “Commonly used monitoring techniques to assess the health …” should read “Common techniques used to monitor and assess the health …

Line 108 and 109: you mention large fluctuations in SST but the mean values are 26 and 27 between seasons. This is not large, but I suspect this is because it is a mean. Maybe you could report the range or standard error or just say there are fluctuations in temperature, not necessarily large.

Line 134: the [11] is somewhat outdated. I understand the work was undertaken in 2019/20 but you should use:

Langlois, T., Goetze, J., Bond, T., Monk, J., Abesamis, R.A., Asher, J., Barrett, N., Bernard, A.T.F., Bouchet, P.J., Birt, M.J., Cappo, M., Currey‐Randall, L.M., Driessen, D., Fairclough, D. V., Fullwood, L.A.F., Gibbons, B.A., Harasti, D., Heupel, M.R., Hicks, J., Holmes, T.H., Huveneers, C., Ierodiaconou, D., Jordan, A., Knott, N.A., Lindfield, S., Malcolm, H.A., McLean, D., Meekan, M., Miller, D., Mitchell, P.J., Newman, S.J., Radford, B., Rolim, F.A., Saunders, B.J., Stowar, M., Smith, A.N.H., Travers, M.J., Wakefield, C.B., Whitmarsh, S.K., Williams, J., Harvey, E.S., 2020. A field and video annotation guide for baited remote underwater stereo‐video surveys of demersal fish assemblages. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 11, 1401–1409. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13470

This paper is comprehensive and your methods are very well aligned.

Section 2.3 is great to see.

Line 160: analysis is not often started five minutes after landing on the seafloor but this is acceptable. Sometimes this is a period where you find the most cryptic species which are visible before the bait attending specie arrive. Something to consider in the future.

Line 162: use original cite for MaxN Priede papers and Cappo papers. see BRUV paper suggested above for more detail.

Line 165: just call it MaxN not maximum MaxN. MaxN is already the maximum.

Section 2.5: I wonder why you have not used year as a factor too. I understand that you added more deployments after not getting enough reef in the first year, but it would be interesting to see if anything changed between years. Habitat and depth is still going to drive everything.

Statistics: good!

Results: thorough and reporting all the metrics I like to see.

Line 398: change “that” to “than”.

Discussion: good. You have focusses on the ecology, mostly. I would like to see more around the fisheries. I know you have not measured any fish, but I believe you could comment on size classes and if you observed any larger fish deeper or further away.

Fig 3: Depth by Richness RI = 1? These plots look too perfect for a GAM. Having points scattered on the plots would provide the reader with confidence that they are correct. Also, consider plotting your season facet in a polarplot. This joins up each end – see examples in

Bond, T., Langlois, T.J., Partridge, J.C., Birt, M.J., Malseed, B.E., Smith, L., McLean, D.L., 2018. Diel shifts and habitat associations of fish assemblages on a subsea pipeline. Fisheries Research 206, 220–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2018.05.011

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Reviewer #1: No

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Fish community composition in the tropical archipelago of São Tomé and Príncipe

PONE-D-24-35103R1

Dear Dr. Porriños,

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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Tzen-Yuh Chiang

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: (No Response)

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

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Reviewer #1: No

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