Diversity of Seagrass-Associated Decapod Crustaceans in a Tropical Reef Lagoon Prior to Large Environmental Changes: A Baseline Study
, Luz Verónica Monroy-Velázquez, Jaime Estrada-Olivo † and Enrique Lozano-Álvarez
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I congratulate the authors on an important and excellent manuscript on a tropical seagrass community. I really enjoyed it and it will be an excellent contribution.
I made no comments on the manuscript and have no suggestions for change. Please do not interpret this as a lack of interest or a hurry to get the review done. I read it thoroughly and with great scientific interest and enjoyment. A manuscript of this degree of interest and preparation is rare and a reviewer's dream (at least this one's). I can only encourage the authors to now go ahead and repeat the study in the near future so that the hypothesis of change due to human impact (development) can be fully tested and explored. I know from experience how time and effort consuming such a study is, but I hope that the authors involved in the 1990's planning, sampling and initial work will encourage their students (and themselves) to forge ahead with such a comparative study.
Author Response
(Reviewer 1 had no comments or suggestions for changes)
We thank Reviewer 1 for her/his review and kind words. Indeed, we intend to conduct the comparative study, provided we obtain a grant we are applying for and depending on when the current COVID-19 contingency ends.
Again, thanks a lot.
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall this is a very well-written manuscript that clearly describes the purpose of the study, the methods, and results. The publication of this data is a welcome contribution to the crustacean biodiversity literature. I certainly hope that it can be repeated to quantify any impacts of the eutrophication that has occurred in the past 20 years. I have found only a few minor corrections and did not see the need to edit for style because it was very consistent throughout the manuscript.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We thank Reviewer 2 for her/his thorough revision and kind words, and for catching the errors indicated in the revised ms that she/he provided.
Figure 3: Comment: “please describe what 'a' and 'b' are in the figure legend”.
Reply: “In each panel, the same letter indicates similar means (α = 0.05).” has been added at the end of the figure legend.
Line 257: “associated to Thalassia…”. “to” was changed to “with”
Line 301: “above-seagrass biomass…”. “above-seagrass” was changed to “above-ground”
Appendix A: the name of the species with Rank No. 37 was updated (i.e. Microphrys bicornutus was changed to Omalacantha bicornuta).
We do intend to repeat the study to test for changes in the community composition and ecological indices. We have already applied for a grant and have great hopes of obtaining it.
