Integrative Redescription of the Minibiotus intermedius (Plate, 1888)—The Type Species of the Genus Minibiotus R.O. Schuster, 1980

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of Minibiotus intermedius

Paper and work are excellent, and deserves to be published when finished.

The re-description is incomplete and not very useful to a students or researchers looking through their microscope trying to identify a specimen on a slide.

1. Lack of a Diagnosis as part of re-description. (Winston, J.E. 1999. Describing Species. Columbia University Press, NY, pp. 518). Authors should provide a concise, short description that allows the specimen under my microscope be classified as belonging to this species without specialized equipment. It should replace, correct, expand, or clarify the current diagnosis supplied by the previous re-description (9: Claxton, 1998).

3. Table A. presents excellent structural measurements of the specimens observed but continues to follow president without thought to the meaning of the data presented. Range, mean and neotype measurements are good data but standard deviation of a moving mean is invalid, regression is required. Because the data represent organisms that grow and change size over time. In this case, 20 animals that range from 149 to 245 µm in body length are presented. The authors should review Bartels et al, 2011 and replace their standard deviation columns with the allometric exponent (b) and the Y intercept (a*) of the regression of Thorpe normalized traits versus body size for each character presented. This will provide a far better picture to which we can compare measurements of the specimen under our microscopes scope. (Bartels, Nelson & Exline. 2011. Allometry and the removal of body size effects in the morphometric analysis of tardigrades. J Zool Syst Evol Res doi: 10.1111/j.1439-0469.2010.00593.x)
4. The authors do not in either table or paragraph form offer a Differential Diagnosis for the re-defined species. They do not state or show how the re-described Minibiotus intermedius differs from the 53 other members of the same genus. Or suggest how it may be visually separated from them. Minibiotus is a common and widely distributed genus that in some cases is the dominate species present. It is critical to be able to identify and separate species.

 

Discussion

In their discussion, the authors state:

“A new integrative re-description of this species stabilize situation in the entire genus Minibiotus for which M. intermedius is a type species.”

The sentence has English problems, does not make sense nor is it accurate. At best it re-establishes the type against which other species can be compared.

Abstract

In their abstract, the authors state:

 “… fixes Minibiotus taxonomy and prevents further misunder-standings in the future.”

They do not fix the taxonomy of the genus only a species which adds to the mis-understanding in the future.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. All our responses for your comments you will find in attached file.

Kind Regards,

Łukasz Kaczmarek

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments

The paper is well written and offers numerous and precise information to those who study the taxonomy of tardigrades. The redescription of Minibiotus intermedius appears opportune because new data are reported on material coming from the type locality. Important are the data on the eggs collected in that locality, which were missing in the redescription of the species carried out by Claxton. However, the designation of a new neotype does not appear appropriate. The neotype from the type locality already exists and is available. On the other hand, molecular data are very opportune which allow to compare M. intermedius more easily with the other species of that genus and the paper does not lose value with the cancellation of a new neotype. The hypothesis that Minibiotus is a polyphyletic genus needs to be evaluated and more in depth investigated.

 

Other comments and suggestions

Title: why “ a type species”? Minibiotus intermedius is “THE type species”

Line 27: “fixes Minibiotus taxonomy” is excessive. Maybe it helps to better define the Minibiotus taxonomy

Lines 32-34: My suggestion is to delete the first three lines of the introduction. These are two very obvious phrases that have already been repeated many times

Line 40: delete “solely”. Claxton's redescription appears to be flawed, but it isn't, even if, obviously, there is much more information in the paper proposed here

Lines 188, 191 and 281: Apart that the word “neoparatype” is not included in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, my suggestion (as already written) is not to designate a neotype. It is sufficient to mention the material as coming from the type locality (the same in line 194).

Lines 232-233: “striae” is plural, therefore “are” and not “is” and “form” and not “forms”

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. All our responses for your comments you will find in attached file.

Kind Regards,

Łukasz Kaczmarek

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is well written and presents valuable results.

But it needs some improvements in the Introduction, Results,  and Discussion sections. My comments can be found in the attached file.  

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. All our responses for your comments you will find in attached file.

Kind Regards,

Łukasz Kaczmarek

Author Response File: Author Response.docx