Diversity and Phylogenetics of Freshwater Mussels (Unionidae) from Southern Thailand with the Description of One New Genus and Five New Species-Group Taxa
, Vachira Lheknim 2, Rujinard Sriwoon 2, Alexander V. Kondakov 1, Alena A. Tomilova 1, Mikhail Y. Gofarov 1, Ilya V. Vikhrev 1 and Ivan N. Bolotov 1,*
Simon Schneider
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I have enjoyed reveiwing this manuscript. It is well organized, flows well and I have no suggestions to improve the paper
Author Response
Thank you very much for your kind words about our manuscript.
With kind regards,
Ekaterina Konopleva
Reviewer 2 Report
All my comments and annotations are included in the attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Dr. Schneider,
We are very grateful for your substantial comments regarding our manuscrpit. Your suggestions and corrections have greatly improved our taxonomic part and presentation of result in general. We emended the text and tried to consider all your comments.
With kind regards,
Ekaterina Konopleva
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript described a number of freshwater mussels from Southern Thailand, including six new taxa. From the perspective of regional biodiversity, this paper is worth publishing. However, some issues should be addressed.
1. The sample size of the new taxa was small, and genetic distances of COI from these new taxa were mostly less than 3%. I have doubts on the necessity of creating so many subspecies. I personally did not see much evidence on the genetic support of these subspecies, even though the authors contended that “fixed substitutions” mattered in subspecies/species delimitation. Why do you think they are subspecies instead of unique haplotypes from different localities? Please state more clearly.
2.The authors should add more relevant references the validity of species concept, other than only citing their own published papers. This can be strengthened in the Discussion.
3. Species delimitation: where is the ML tree based on 140 COI haplotypes? Not included in the supplementary files. How do you handle the incongruences between these three delimitation methods?
In future studies, I suggest that the authors should have more comprehensive evidence when describe new taxa. In particular, the establishment of new genera should be based on fuller and more comprehensive molecular evidence.
Author Response
Thank you very much for review and valuable comments, that you provided (please see the attachment).
With kind regards,
Ekaterina Konopleva
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
