PONE-D-24-25103Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bekkby,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please review the manuscript. Both reviewers have valuable comments, especially Reviewer #2 regarding the interpretation of the data and the data availability.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 11 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

José A. Fernández Robledo, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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The project (COASTFRAG) was funded (2021-ongoing) by the Research Council of Norway, grant number 342628/L10 (project number 314314), and the EU grant AQUACOSM-plus (TA-project MESOFRAG, H2020-INFRAIA-Project No 871081). Additional funding was provided by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research. 

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Thanks to the Research Council of Norway, the EU project AQUACOSM-plus and NIVA for funding. We are grateful to Benjamin Kupilaas (NIVA) for all the help getting the AQUACOSM-plus grant. The study took place at the NIVA Solbergstrand Experimental Facility, and we want to thank all the staff at Solbergstrand for their help and support. 

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The project (COASTFRAG) was funded (2021-ongoing) by the Research Council of Norway, grant number 342628/L10 (project number 314314), and the EU grant AQUACOSM-plus (TA-project MESOFRAG, H2020-INFRAIA-Project No 871081). Additional funding was provided by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research. 

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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: Partly

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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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 of Lukic et al et al. “Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm study”, submitted to PLOS One (PONE-D-24-25103).

The paper entitled “Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm study”, relates to a very simple study done in a mesocosm experiment in order to test the effect of different wave exposures on the mussel growth. The topic of study is not novel, but deserves our attention.

General Comments:

The paper is very concise and the results were not the expected according to the authors, however the experiment was run properly, despite the paper can be improved. I recommend major revisions.

Specific Comments:

1) In the materials and methods is not well described the experimental set-up. In the abstract the authors mention that from the 12 mesocosms, 6 were for the “high wave exposure” while the other 6 were for the “low wave exposure”, but in the M&M this is not mentioned. Also, in this section is not described the size or age of the mussels used for the experiment. This should be described also.

2) In the results section, surprisingly, are not shown any results, including graphs with the evolution of mussel measurements for the different treatments. It is just represented the statistical results. But in my opinion, it is missing some graphical representation of the results, that can be complemented with the stats.

3) In the stats tables, I do not understand the advantage of studying the percentage change of the different parameters from one time to the next over the 13 weeks (table 1) and from the start to the end of the study (table 2). This should be better explained.

4) The discussion is quite superficial. The authors could improve it with other case studies to compare with.

5) Figure1 legend appears in the middle of the text, apart from the figure. Please check.

6) In the discussion, line 130, please delete the word “these”. It should be read “influence on other processes” in spite of “influence on these other processes”.

7) Line 135, the sentence is confusing. Please rephrase.

Concluding, I suggest that this manuscript can be published in PLOS One after major revisions.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript summarizes the results of a set of experiments on the effects of wave exposure on the growth of the mussel *Mytilus edulis* in mesocosms. The authors found no significant differences between treatments. They attribute the lack of an effect to the low strength of the simulated waves.

The experimental design and statistical methods appear to be sound, but I have two major concerns about the manuscript:

My first concern is the absence of results in the manuscript. I am not referring to the lack of significant differences; publishing negative results is valuable. The problem is that none of the data from the experiments appear in the paper, either in table or plot form. Statistical tests are presented, but these are essentially meaningless without seeing the values on which they are based. The manuscript cites a link to a Zenodo database, but these data do not seem to be available to reviewers, and they should be included within the text of the manuscript rather than via an external link, preferably in the form of plots. The authors write that they "did not aim to study the growth patterns of blue mussels", but this is what was measured, and the results are needed to understand the conclusions of the manuscript and could also be useful in other contexts.

My second concern is with the interpretation of the results. There are two alternative hypotheses for the negative results presented. The first is that there really is no effect of wave exposure on mussel growth when the effects of other relevant variables, including predation and food availability, are removed. The second is that the waves used in the study were not strong enough to generate a measurable effect. These two alternatives should be explicitly explored in the discussion and conclusion section and included in the abstract. There is likely information in the literature supporting one hypothesis over the other. For example: How did the strength of your wave exposures compare to those from previous studies? How did phytoplankton concentrations compare? It is worth exploring this further because if there really is no effect of waves on the growth absent the other factors, this could be an interesting finding. Overall, more effort should be devoted to putting the results in the context of previous work.

I believe that addressing these two concerns could produce a much stronger manuscript. While no significant differences were found between treatments, this can still be an interesting and useful result if presented in the right way.

Minor comments:

Line 21: ..."a" simple, but controlled, mesocosm study...

Line 45: Should this be "remove sediment" instead of "remove sedimentation"?

Line 129: ...impact of "wave" exposure...

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-24-25103R1Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bekkby,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

Dear Dr. Bekkby,

I do acknowledge your efforts answering the reviewer's comments. I understand that the authors should consider to include in the main body of the manuscript the data plots as suggested by both reviewers. These plots will add the context for the interpretation and discussion of the results.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 15 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

José A. Fernández Robledo, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: No

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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: Review of Lukic et al et al. “Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm study”, submitted to PLOS One (PONE-D-24-25103).

The revised version of the paper entitled “Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm study”, seems to satisfy almost all points mentioned by the reviewers, however, I still recommend in the results section that the authors create a figure, including 4-5 graphs showing the evolution of the mussels measurements through time comparing the high wave treatment with the low wave treatment. Because the table S1 in the supplementary material is quite long, no one will pay attention to that. And in fact, despite there are no differences between the treatments, those are the results obtained and makes sense to present the results and not just the statistics. So, before the paper be accepted, I would like to recommend to introduce that figure in the results section.

Concluding, I suggest that this manuscript can be published in PLOS One after minor revisions.

Reviewer #2: The authors did not address what I believe is the most important issue with this manuscript, the lack of data plots. Providing the raw data is not enough. Reviewer #1 and I both raised this issue in our initial reviews.

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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

Reviewer #2: No

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While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-24-25103R2Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Bekkby,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Dear Dr. Bekkby,Please edit the figure 2 following reviewer 2 suggestions. Sincerely,

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 29 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

José A. Fernández Robledo, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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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: (No Response)

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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

**********

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: The final revised version of the paper entitled "Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm study" can be accepted for publication in PLOSONE.

Best Regards

Reviewer #2: Please use different symbols/colors to distinguish the data points from the two treatments in figure 2. The caption for figure 2 should identify what each data point represents (I am assuming each one is an individual mussel).

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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

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Low to moderate wave exposure did not impact blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) growth in a mesocosm study

PONE-D-24-25103R3

Dear Dr. Bekkby,

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,

José A. Fernández Robledo, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Thank you for addressing the last point regarding Figure 2 and Figure 2 legend.

Sincerely,

-j