The Crane Flies of Martinique, with the Description of Four New Species (Diptera, Tipuloidea)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
excellent work
formal comments in the pdf
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2023 !
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
All the format adjustments detected by the referee, comments and observations have been accepted and incorporated directly into the MS.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Review of
Journal
Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818)
Manuscript ID
diversity-2137634
Type
Article
Title
The crane flies of Martinique, with the description of four new species (Diptera, Tipuloidea).
Authors
Jorge Mederos * , Marc Pollet , Pjotr Oosterbroek
January 2023
This is a significant paper offering the first records of any crane flies from the Caribbean island of Martinique. Based almost entirely on pan trap sampling carried out in high and low elevation sites on the island during one season, the survey still recorded 27 species including 4 new to science, in two families, Limoniidae (all but 1 species) and Tipulidae. Likely there will be many more species as further sampling takes place using the same and different sampling methods, and there appears to be an entirely different set of samples that hopefully could be examined in the near future.
Introduction:
Martinique is part of a volcanic island arc in the Caribbean. In just recent few decades neighboring islands of Montserrat and St. Vincent suffered extensive volcanic eruptions with lava flows and ash covering extensive portions of the island’s natural environment. Martinique’s volcano erupted in 1902 and 1932 – I would think it might be worthwhile thinking about the impact of these types of major disturbances on the limited natural environment of Martinique – perhaps in impacting endemic species (the 4 described here are presumably endemic, and surprisingly all are in low abundance in the samples) and more dominant species which have more widespread distributions throughout the Caribbean (and might be more adaptable to disturbed environments).
Material and Methods
Line 79 – why is the title in “” and what is it exactly? It is a project title for a survey – is there a report somewhere to reference, or a website, etc.
Results
Why not include somewhere the percentage of species that were found to be new to science (and endemic) – I calculated about 22% (4/19) not including the species not identified to species (Geranomyia, Toxorhina)
Please offer a table of the species that are found on the island, including morphospecies, so that one doesn’t need to comb through the entire manuscript just to see what species are known from Martinique – compile the list for future readers and databasers. I would list number of specimens found for each, and their overall distribution. I had to look carefully through all the species listings to see the number of specimens for each. I am not sure actually that the percentages of total specimens per species added up to 100% but didn’t spend the time to do those calculations. But put that all in one table – species, number of specimens, % of total specimens, overall distribution
Species descriptions are excellent, detailed and the important structures are well illustrated for the most part. For the Limoniidae in particular, I would have preferred to see photographs of slide mounted genitalia allowing more magnified details but I realize in some of these cases specimens were limited. But what is presented here is adequate for identification.
In the descriptions, which are detailed, it might be helpful to the reader to have the section headings in Bold to allow the reader to scan through and find the description of the Head, Legs, Wing, etc. This is a note to the editor as that is set by the journal standards.
Line 122 – Teucholabis not italicized (may be a journal standard as this is the same throughout for each genus heading)
Line 168 – I might add that the bicolored abdomen might be a good diagnostic character to add (more important than overall general coloration).
Line 216 – the paler yellowish coloration – is that referring to tenella or carbetensis?
Line 217 – be specific please on how the form of the outer gonostylus differs between the two – we don’t have an illustration of tenella here to refer to.
Line 246 – scape looks brown, not yellow, in Fig 3-d
Line 259 – description of hypopygium linked to Figure 4. Admittedly the inner gonostylus is complex so I think some labelling of the figure might help with understanding the description. Fig 4a is an overall photograph and is a bit hard to distinguish the inner and outer gonostylus – they seemed rather fused together when viewing the image at the level of magnification (there are no scale bars on Fig 4 for some reason – seems an omission) – at least label each one (IG, OG). Also fig 4e and f shows the gonocoxite and the gonostyles, right? The figure legend just says right gonostylus but actually are the lobes shown those off of the gonocoxite – as the description mentions no lobes except that apex is bilobed. How about labeling 4f with lobes labelled – “subapical lobe”, “dorsal ventromesal lobe”, “basal ventromesal lobe”
Line 479 – and overall for any female descriptions – how about “As in male, except: “ which means you don’t need to repeat all the description that is exactly the same as the male, and the reader can focus on what is different between the sexes.
Line 532 – I would use tipulid instead of tipuloid
Line 548 – 22,000
Line 606 – not sure why there is a comment that the illustration of van der wulp is likely a Eumicrotipula. Although the wing proportions are off in the illustration, the pattern is similar and venation is also similar to the actual specimen and looks like a Zelandotipula (although cell R3 not shown so constricted as in the actual type specimen). If you think the van der wulp illustration is in error, you have provided an excellent photograph of the actual type specimen wing – just use that and forget about reproducing the vdw drawing.
Line 871 – just an observation – there are few specimens of Geranomyia overall, but high diversity, and all females! Really quite surprising.
Line 1024
Another observation – just amazing that Rhipidia willistoniana comprises 96% of the abundance for the 26 species. Islands are made up of skewed communities – have you seen any other studies of other habitats (not necessarily islands) where it is so skewed to one species? In my paper “Emergence Composition and Phenology of Tipulidae (Diptera) from a Tropical Rainforest Stream at El Verde, Puerto Rico” by J. K. Gelhaus, E. C. Masteller and K. M. Buzby
Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 160-166 – we found that Geranomyia virescens along comprised 47% of the emergence abundance, and 4 species of Limoniinae comprised 75% of the abundance (total community 20 spp from a stream). Not as extreme as yours but still skewed. It does appear from many island studies that Limoniinae often are successful.
Discussion
Line 1112. Note that lowland areas of islands were the first to be cleared and highly modified – as they were first to be cleared for agriculture by arriving indigenous people some thousands of years ago and/or by European colonists several centuries ago. Even if lowland vegetation has regenerated the environments may be substantially altered with introduced species. This may help to explain why the lowland sites are so low in species and abundance.
Line 1135. It is possible that your explanation of sex ration skewedness is part of protandry but you haven’t discussed seasonality in Martinique allowing us to understand that. Perhaps females are more atrtracted to the pans due to color, or being less willingness or ability to fly, or oviposition on ground, or shelter? I am interested in the seasonality evident in Martinique as we saw large fluctuations in emergence in Puerto Rico which might be due to climate seasonality.
Line 1137. I reiterate my comment on the Introduction. All the apparent endemics are extremely rare in these samples. Widespread Caribbean/Neotropical species dominate. I would think it might be worthwhile thinking about the impact of these types of major disturbances (lava flows, ash fallout) on the limited natural environment of Martinique – perhaps in impacting endemic species and providing more opportunities for species which have more widespread distributions throughout the Caribbean (and might be more adaptable to disturbed environments).
Appendix A
I love this format. I wish others would adopt this when having to rely on just published descriptions when identifying species.
Author Response
In response to the remarks made by the second referee: (Please see also the attachment)
This is a significant paper offering the first records of any crane flies from the Caribbean island of Martinique. Based almost entirely on pan trap sampling carried out in high and low elevation sites on the island during one season, the survey still recorded 27 species including 4 new to science, in two families, Limoniidae (all but 1 species) and Tipulidae. Likely there will be many more species as further sampling takes place using the same and different sampling methods, and there appears to be an entirely different set of samples that hopefully could be examined in the near future.
Introduction:
Martinique is part of a volcanic island arc in the Caribbean. In just recent few decades neighboring islands of Montserrat and St. Vincent suffered extensive volcanic eruptions with lava flows and ash covering extensive portions of the island’s natural environment. Martinique’s volcano erupted in 1902 and 1932 – I would think it might be worthwhile thinking about the impact of these types of major disturbances on the limited natural environment of Martinique – perhaps in impacting endemic species (the 4 described here are presumably endemic, and surprisingly all are in low abundance in the samples) and more dominant species which have more widespread distributions throughout the Caribbean (and might be more adaptable to disturbed environments).
Authors: We have reflected your comment in both the Introduction and the Discussion of the MS.
Material and Methods
Line 79 – why is the title in “” and what is it exactly? It is a project title for a survey – is there a report somewhere to reference, or a website, etc.
Authors: see Facebook page Etude Biodiversité Pitons. (https://www.facebook.com/Pitons972/) An inquiry for any published document is ongoing.
Results
Why not include somewhere the percentage of species that were found to be new to science (and endemic) – I calculated about 22% (4/19) not including the species not identified to species (Geranomyia, Toxorhina)
Authors: We have added a comment in the first paragraph of Discussion.
Please offer a table of the species that are found on the island, including morphospecies, so that one doesn’t need to comb through the entire manuscript just to see what species are known from Martinique – compile the list for future readers and databasers. I would list number of specimens found for each, and their overall distribution. I had to look carefully through all the species listings to see the number of specimens for each. I am not sure actually that the percentages of total specimens per species added up to 100% but didn’t spend the time to do those calculations. But put that all in one table – species, number of specimens, % of total specimens, overall Distribution
Authors: We have reflected your comment in Appendix B.
In the descriptions, which are detailed, it might be helpful to the reader to have the section headings in Bold to allow the reader to scan through and find the description of the Head, Legs, Wing, etc. This is a note to the editor as that is set by the journal standards.
Authors: We have followed the format of other similar papers in Diversity, but we see no problem in incorporating this suggestion in the MS if the editor agrees.
Line 122 – Teucholabis not italicized (may be a journal standard as this is the same throughout for each genus heading)
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 168 – I might add that the bicolored abdomen might be a good diagnostic character to add (more important than overall general coloration).
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 216 – the paler yellowish coloration – is that referring to tenella or carbetensis?
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 217 – be specific please on how the form of the outer gonostylus differs between the two – we don’t have an illustration of tenella here to refer to.
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 246 – scape looks brown, not yellow, in Fig 3-d
Authors: The scape of the specimen actually looks brownish yellow, this observation has been incorporated.
Line 259 – description of hypopygium linked to Figure 4. Admittedly the inner gonostylus is complex so I think some labelling of the figure might help with understanding the description. Fig 4a is an overall photograph and is a bit hard to distinguish the inner and outer gonostylus – they seemed rather fused together when viewing the image at the level of magnification (there are no scale bars on Fig 4 for some reason – seems an omission) – at least label each one (IG, OG). Also fig 4e and f shows the gonocoxite and the gonostyles, right? The figure legend just says right gonostylus but actually are the lobes shown those off of the gonocoxite – as the description mentions no lobes except that apex is bilobed. How about labeling 4f with lobes labelled – “subapical lobe”, “dorsal ventromesal lobe”, “basal ventromesal lobe”
Authors: All observations have been incorporated into the MS.
Line 479 – and overall for any female descriptions – how about “As in male, except: “ which means you don’t need to repeat all the description that is exactly the same as the male, and the reader can focus on what is different between the sexes.
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 532 – I would use tipulid instead of tipuloid
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 548 – 22,000
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 606 – not sure why there is a comment that the illustration of van der wulp is likely a Eumicrotipula. Although the wing proportions are off in the illustration, the pattern is similar and venation is also similar to the actual specimen and looks like a Zelandotipula (although cell R3 not shown so constricted as in the actual type specimen). If you think the van der wulp illustration is in error, you have provided an excellent photograph of the actual type specimen wing – just use that and forget about reproducing the vdw drawing.
Authors: Rectified on the MS.
Line 871 – just an observation – there are few specimens of Geranomyia overall, but high diversity, and all females! Really quite surprising.
Line 1024- Another observation – just amazing that Rhipidia willistoniana comprises 96% of the abundance for the 26 species. Islands are made up of skewed communities – have you seen any other studies of other habitats (not necessarily islands) where it is so skewed to one species? In my paper “Emergence Composition and Phenology of Tipulidae (Diptera) from a Tropical Rainforest Stream at El Verde, Puerto Rico” by J. K. Gelhaus, E. C. Masteller and K. M. Buzby. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 160-166 – we found that Geranomyia virescens along comprised 47% of the emergence abundance, and 4 species of Limoniinae comprised 75% of the abundance (total community 20 spp from a stream). Not as extreme as yours but still skewed. It does appear from many island studies that Limoniinae often are successful.
Authors: All observations have been incorporated into the Discussion.
Discussion
Line 1112. Note that lowland areas of islands were the first to be cleared and highly modified – as they were first to be cleared for agriculture by arriving indigenous people some thousands of years ago and/or by European colonists several centuries ago. Even if lowland vegetation has regenerated the environments may be substantially altered with introduced species. This may help to explain why the lowland sites are so low in species and abundance.
Authors: The observations have been incorporated into the Discussion.
Line 1135. It is possible that your explanation of sex ration skewedness is part of protandry but you haven’t discussed seasonality in Martinique allowing us to understand that. Perhaps females are more atrtracted to the pans due to color, or being less willingness or ability to fly, or oviposition on ground, or shelter? I am interested in the seasonality evident in Martinique as we saw large fluctuations in emergence in Puerto Rico which might be due to climate seasonality.
Authors: some observations have been incorporated into the Discussion, but unfortunately, there is no information on seasonal activity patterns of Tipuloidea of Martinique. So we can only formulate assumptions and hypotheses at this moment.
Line 1137. I reiterate my comment on the Introduction. All the apparent endemics are extremely rare in these samples. Widespread Caribbean/Neotropical species dominate. I would think it might be worthwhile thinking about the impact of these types of major disturbances (lava flows, ash fallout) on the limited natural environment of Martinique – perhaps in impacting endemic species and providing more opportunities for species which have more widespread distributions throughout the Caribbean (and might be more adaptable to disturbed environments).
Authors: The observations have been incorporated into the Introduction and Discussion, however our sampling strategy does not match this research question (which might have implied the selection of sites on a gradient from Mount Pelée in the north towards the south.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This well crafted contribution significantly expands our knowledge of Caribbean Tipuloidea. This represents the first manuscript in which stacked iPhone images were used; they are surprisingly sufficient! I recommend publication forthwith.
Author Response
Dear referee.
Thanks for your comments, please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
