PONE-D-24-41657Fighting for Favour: Sexual Dimorphism and Symmetry in the Hydrothermal Vent and Methane Seep Endemic Yeti Crabs (Kiwaidae).PLOS ONE

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 Overall the manuscript is  well written. However,  some major issues only with the methodology which with appropriate changes I think the manuscript could be accepted.

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Reviewers' comments:

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 present study is the first to show sexual dimorphism and symmetry of chelipeds in the Yeti crab Kiwa tyleri, endemic to hydrothermal vents and methane seeps. In addition, the authors re-analysed the allometric growth of chelipeds in another Yeti crab, Kiwa puravida, from published data and discussed interspecific differences in cheliped morphometry and functions. The manuscript is well written and will add new biological information on deep-sea Yeti crabs. Please consider the following minor comments.

Title: Please include the term "cheliped" or "claw" in the title.

L81-82. Please provide the scientific name for each Yeti crab photo.

L195. Does this require Bonferroni correction? Test for asymmetry index between sexes and laterality of chelae are independent.

L211-212. Again, is Bonferroni correction needed? You can use the 10 models shown in Table 2, but you estimated 40 coefficients including the intercept for 10 models. If you use the Bonferroni correction, you should adjust the p-values taking into account the number of parameter estimates. I do not think the Bonferroni correction is necessary for allometric growth analyses.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript in general is well written and brings important information on yeti crabs’ biology. I have some major issues with the methodology. The rest of the manuscript I have only minor suggestions.

Title: suppress “Fighting for favour” because there’s not enough evidence the all the analyzed species actually fight.

Introduction:

The introduction section is well constructed around these topics, however, to ensure a better readability I suggest removing these topics headings to create a continuous coherent text.

Line 60: remove “chirostyloid” or add somewhere before that these crabs belong to the Chirostyloidea superfamily.

Line 66: Figure1 � I suggest using only images of the species used the manuscript, and, if possible, pictures taken by the authors and not from some other publications.

Line 68: What SWIR means ? It is some sort of indication of the undescribed species mentioned earlier ? Clarify it.

Line 71: Remove figure 2 from the manuscript.

M&M

Line 152: JC080 – 02 December 2012 to 30 December 2010 ? Is this correct ?

Line 155: I guess here is Figure 4 ?

Line 163: Please explain “Kiwaids were not systematically or randomly sampled”. It is random or nor ? If it is random than they are not systematically sampled.

Line 173: Measurements:

Why did the authors took those measurements ?

The propodus length/height is understandable, but, the authors should explain why it was chosen.However, the carpus is not widely used in relative growth analysis. Thus, the authors should explain why the carpus was measured. The carpus has any biological/behavioral significance for the crabs ?

Line 175: Change “body parts” to “structures”. Change this throughout the text.

Line 181: distil ? or distal ?

Lines 200 – 212: The relative growth analysis here proposed are quite confusing. It is widely known that chelae x carapace relationships (and others) in crustaceans are not linear. In fact, it often assume an power function distribution and that’s why it is logarithmic transformed in these kind of studies.

Please see:

Huxley, J. S. (1950). Relative Growth and Form Transformation. Royal Society of London, 137(889), 465–469.

Huxley, J. S., & Teissier, G. (1936). Terminology of Relative Growth. Nature.

Hartnoll, R. G. G. (1978). The Determination of Relative Growth in Crustacea. Crustaceana, 34(3), 281–293.

Hartnoll, R. G. (1974). Variation in Growth Pattern between Some Secondary Sexual Characters in Crabs ( Decapoda Brachyura ). Crustaceana, 27(2), 131–136.

Hartnoll, R. G. (2001). Growth in Crustacea – twenty years on. Hydrobiologia, 449, 111–122.

These studies should provide a comprehensive knowledge on basic relationships in crustaceans’ relative growth.

Thus, using linear models (e.g linear regression) is a correct choice of analysis, however, there is some catch here. For bivariate relative growth, the residuals are important and a simple linear regression might sometimes provide a not accurate model. Thus, my suggestion is to change the analysis to the type II linear regression (major axis analysis) which are more accurate. This can be easily performed using the SMATr package built for R.

For a comprehensive discussion on bivariate allometric fitting lines please read:

Warton, D. I., Wright, I. J., Falster, D. S., & Westoby, M. (2006). Bivariate line-fitting methods for allometry. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 81(2), 259–291. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1464793106007007

Warton, D. I., Duursma, R. A., Falster, D. S., & Taskinen, S. (2012). smatr 3- an R package for estimation and inference about allometric lines. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 3(2), 257–259. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2011.00153.x

Lines 213-217: During the re-analysis of K. puravida, it was not considered the carpus measures ? Why ? Then, why did the authors chose carpus measures for K. tyleri ?

Lines 217-220: The thankful note should be on the acknowledgement section.

Results

Lines 225-226: add the standard deviation with the mean values.

Lines 227 – 228: Why mention that the 10 largest specimens were male ? Remove.

I suggest to add some sort of histogram by size classes for males and females to better represent and visualize their size distribution.

Line 233: “For the propodus asymmetry index (AI), negative values indicate a left skew and positive valuesa right skew.” This information should be at the M&M section.

Lines 252 – 275: See the comments for methodology on relative growth/allometry.

Discussion:

There’s a lack of discussion around the carpus relative growth which is explained by the lack of explanation of is use/importance during introduction and methodology sections. Add a discussion on carpus or remove it from the manuscript.

Line 323: The authors suggest that K. tyleri may not employ carnivory, however, during introduction authors said that there are teeth and such on these crabs’ claws which suggested predatory behavior. Thus, the sentence here seems inconsistent. I believe that claws functions to push/pull and squeeze, thus the symmetry may not imply that they are not predators. If their prey is not hard/complex to acquire, thus, they don’t necessarily need a dimorphic high specialized claw. I suggest rethinking this sentence.

Line 355: “difference may reflect sexual selection relating to male-male competition for females”. Since these animals are blind, doesn’t seem feasible a male-male competition for female since size may not matter if there is no visual signal, although, some experiments could be done in this matter, which I personally think would be great! Thus, this difference may be related to differential energy usage. Males are often found close to the vents which in turn may have access to more/better food, whilst females are found marginally. Also, males tend to allocate more energy towards growth than females. Females also use a lot of energy each reproductive cycle, directing its energy towards egg production and so on, which can hamper the chelipeds’ growth. Therefore, in this sentence, I suggest a discussion towards different energy allocation between sexes.

Reviewer #3: The manuscript entitled "Fighting for Favour: Sexual Dimorphism and Symmetry in the Hydrothermal Vent and Methane Seep Endemic Yeti Crabs (Kiwaidae)" presents very robust and novel data for science. In addition, it uses data from a congeneric species for comparisons between these organisms, which deepened some discussions about the results.

In my opinion, the article is very well written and deserves to be published. I recommend a minor review due to a few sections where I believe the text needs corrections or further discussion. The text has a deficiency related to meeting basic zoological nomenclature rules. There are several instances where species are mentioned without proper citation of scientific authorities. Moreover, throughout the text, species names are written in full, whereas they should be abbreviated after the first mention. Although these errors are consistent and repetitive, they are easy to resolve after a careful review by the authors. Once these issues are addressed, I believe the manuscript can be accepted.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-41657_reviewer.pdf

Yeti Claws: Cheliped Sexual Dimorphism and Symmetry in Deep-Sea Yeti Crabs (Kiwaidae).

PONE-D-24-41657R1

Dear Dr. Christopher Nicolai Roterman,

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Kind regards,

Murtada D. Naser

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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