PONE-D-24-07932Underwater paleontology inside cenotes reveals the Miocene-Pliocene fish diversity in the Yucatan Peninsula, southeast MexicoPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Cantalice,

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7. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Comments to the Author

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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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: No

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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

Reviewer #2: No

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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 manuscript presents a species inventory for a new Mio-Pliocene locality in the Yucatan Peninsula, expanding our understanding of the shark and teleost diversity. Of particular interest is that the locality is only accessible diving.

Results indicate that the vertebrate fauna recovered from this locality is consistent with invertebrate faunas, which predict an shallow shelf neritic zone of deposition. This work further expands the taxonomic diversity of the formation. It also points out that these specimens recovered are disproportionately smaller than from other Mio-Pliocene localities. This lead authors to hypothesize that the locality was a shelter for sub-adult individuals (aka, a nursery).

As a reader, I'd like to know more about the evidence supporting the sub-adult nursery hypothesis. It is among the most interesting aspects of the paper and should come earlier in the discussion. The species inventory and table 1 can be used to support that all specimens and taxa are in fact small. Then go into why all of these might be small due to ontogeny vs some other size-variability considerations. You currently have one example for Otodus megeladon, but what else?

In addition, the second most interesting thing is the new taxon of burrfish. This warrants more time in the discussion. To some extent, I'd consider moving some of what is listed in remarks (pages 34-37) to the actual discussion section for the entire paper, to get the most readership.

Other structural considerations:

The use of Table 1 sooner may help you organize the Systematic Paleontology descriptions. Then you can reduce the descriptions to only the new ones from this study - while validating why it isn't something that was previously published by Domning (1989/1990).

Taxonomy - I'm most familiar with batoids and teleosts, thus a bit of a heavy discussion on specimens in figure 8.

Pteromylaeus is a synonym of Aetomylaeus (Garman 1908). The description and morphology of that specimen is consistent with it's placement in Aetomylaeus as well. Incredibly fine tooth roots, as narrow as the space between roots, step like displacement of roots in the labial direction. No interlocking ridge and grove as in rhinobatos.

For the sharks teeth, I will need to defer to another reviewer to confirm synonymy and correct placement.

Discussion - The discussion is a little underwhelming. There is too much review of what was previously known and the significance of the fish biodiversity comes late. See notes above. I want to read more about the impact of these fossils and about the locality.

Figures - At minimum for Figure 9 of the new taxon, you need to add labels and point out any apomorphic trait. Ideally, you will do the same for the other teeth as well.

Specific Line Comments:

page 3, line 74. Change "evidence the presence" to "preserve"

page 30, line 643. Indicate what anterior and posterior.

page 31, line 659, add the word burrfish before the word specimens.

page 31, lines 658-661. This is a long sentence that can be broken up for clarity.

page 31, line 662. "last pair" - is this anterior or posterior?

page 32, line 673, change "opposite" to "antemere"

page 32, line 687, change "teeth' vertical series" to "vertical series of teeth"

page 32, line 690, add a comma after beak

page 37, line 791. Porrly known because... Add more information.

page 38, table 1: be consistent in the placement of the term "this study" so that it is always first before another reference

page 39, line 805: Change first word, "On" to "Prior work on"

page 39, line 817. change "presents" to "comprises"

page 39, line 821. The word "exposed" - this comes up in a few places and needs a better definition and label associated with illustrations/figures. Describe wgat that actually means and how you know that it is real morphology vs taphonomy.

page 41, line 853, delete the word 'interesting'

page 41, line 861. What does "posterior extinction" mean?

page 42, lines 878-883. Awkward sentence structure.

Reviewer #2: The authors describe the fish fossil assemblage recovered from the Miocene-Pliocene deposits of the Carrillo Puerto Formation located in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The analyzed specimens include shark taxa from the Mexican coast and a newly identified diodontid fish. The assemblage, along with the environmental interpretation of the deposits, suggests that these taxa inhabited a shallow water habitat, possibly serving as a nursery area.

I thoroughly enjoyed this paper and think this manuscript deserves to be published on Plos One, particularly for the sampling method. It blew my mind when I realized that you scuba-dived in caves to recover the specimens — an incredibly challenging and impressive feat. I here recommend this manuscript for publication in Plos One after minor revisions given the following general comments:

1) Use standard terminology to describe shark teeth and guide readers through each morphological and morphometric feature. Please include a schematic figure in the methods section to explain these traits. Additionally, the proportions you reported do not sum to 100%, which raises concerns about your measurement methods. Lastly, I have never seen a shark tooth dimension described as “depth.” Do you mean height? Please reword this.

2) You cannot definitively state that the Carrillo Puerto Formation was a nursery area without quantitative analysis to support this hypothesis. Include all measurements in the supplementary materials and reference this table to substantiate your interpretation. If you aim to corroborate this hypothesis, you must include body size estimates and the range of body sizes for modern analogs at different ontogenetic stages for comparison. Otherwise, stay general.

3) The main text needs polishing. Some words are misspelled, while others seem out of context. I have included suggestions to reword some paragraphs, but I recommend carefully reviewing the manuscript before the resubmission.

These are general comments, with more specific ones provided in the main text. Good luck with the revision and I look forward to seeing your manuscript published on Plos One.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-07932_REVIEWED.pdf

PONE-D-24-07932R1Underwater paleontology inside cenotes reveals the Miocene-Pliocene fish diversity in the Yucatan Peninsula, southeast MexicoPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Cantalice,

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 comprehensively addresses the remaining points raised again during the second round of peer review.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 24 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,

Michael Schubert

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: (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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

**********

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

**********

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: It appears that many of the suggested edits to improve this manuscript by myself and the other reviewer were addressed well, however, authors did not address the nursery hypothesis sufficiently. There is still no comparative discussion about why the locality specimens might be small (e.g., due to ontogeny vs some other size-variability considerations). There is still currently one example for Otodus megeladon, but what else? Because, there are only four specimens of Otodus megalodon, and two of them have cusplets - that cannot indicate predominance, rather only that some of these specimens appear to be juveniles among later growth stages. This section needs revision still - it can be reframed in a comparative way but currently cannot state that this is a predominantly juvenile location, only that specimens are smaller than one would expect.

Lines 828-834: “…compared with other fossil and extant adult species...” From where? This is a valuable discussion point to be more specific with references about other taxa. Small changes in the text to distinguish your work from other previously published work. For instance, do you mean the largest megalodon locally from your study or largest globally ever to exist? In fact, you could answer for both and describe the implications more. Check throughout about consistent change of the term depth. It was done numerous times but not everywhere. Make sure that is intentional, especially because depth is not a term in table S1.

Line, 854. Replace “wholly extinguished” with “extinct”

Line 710: The first sentence is still awkward. Whereas, before I wanted to know what it was poorly understood, I’m still left to wonder and told it needs to be better. I suggest a complete rewrite as, “As a result of this study, the fossil diversity from the Carrillo Puerto Formation is determined to be much greater than previously understood.”

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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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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.

Underwater paleontology inside cenotes reveals the Miocene-Pliocene fish diversity in the Yucatan Peninsula, southeast Mexico

PONE-D-24-07932R2

Dear Dr. Cantalice,

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,

Michael Schubert

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE