PONE-D-23-35441Tolerance of Placozoa for temperate climates: Evidence for known and new placozoan clades in the southern waters of AustraliaPLOS ONE

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3. We note that you have referenced 

(M. Eitel, Personal Communication, unpublished, sequence denoted as “New” on Fig 2a), 

(B. Schierwater, unpublished data),  ([1],Personal Communication, unpublished) and  (Eitel, unpublished)

which has currently not yet been accepted for publication. Please remove this from your References and amend this to state in the body of your manuscript: (ie “Bewick et al. [Unpublished]”) as detailed online in our guide for authors

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Reviewers' comments:

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: This manuscript presents new results relevant to understanding the morphological diversity, biogeography, and ecology of placozoans. Methods and results are appropriate and are presented clearly, and the discussion of relevant literature is thorough and informative. I recommend publication following minor revisions to address the following points.

The 16S sequence obtained for haplotype H20 animals has not been previously reported. It is not clear whether all the unique features of this sequence are documented in Figure 2a. If they are, the manuscript should make that clear. If they are not, the sequence data should be made available through submission to NCBI or in another way.

Lines 133-135. It would be good to mention what location or locations the algae-covered slides came from. Culturing newly collected animals on such slides seems like a potential source of contamination with placozoans from the location of slide collection (perhaps from one of the more northern sites shown in Figure 1b). It would also be good to mention how long the slides were soaked in sterile water. If there is a technique paper describing this approach as part of culturing placozoans, it would be great to cite that paper.

Lines 388-394. It would be clearer to replace “prefer culture conditions” with “show higher population growth rates under culture conditions” and replace “thrived” with “grew more.”

Lines 414-416. It would be clearer to change “are predicted” to “are predicted based on location data” This will make clear that these predictions aren’t based on experimental data.

The listing for reference 38 should be replaced with

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-01134-7

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Reviewer #1: No

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Tolerance of Placozoa for temperate climates: Evidence for known and new placozoan clades in the southern waters of Australia

PONE-D-23-35441R1

Dear Dr. Humbert,

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,

Robert E. Steele, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors have satisfactorily addressed the issues raised in the initial review.

Reviewers' comments: