Effects of Climate Events on Abundance and Distribution of Major Commercial Fishes in the Beibu Gulf, South China Sea

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors should revise the manuscript according to the PDF file submitted with the revisions.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

 

Thank you for your letter and the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript entitled " Effects of Climate Events on Abundance and Distribution of Major Commercial Fishes in the Beibu Gulf, South China Sea" (ID: diversity-2314083). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to another research. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval.

We have revised the format of the article as required. Please check the attachment.

Once again, thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us both in English and in depth to improve the quality of the paper.

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Xiaofan Hong

 

E-mail: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

line 121 this maybe an english language issue, in part, but you can not state that climate events are or are not "affecting" fishes, you are only determining correlations.

line 121, item (ii) - this sentence makes no sense as written, needs english editing

throughout text this appears "Error! Reference 130 source not found.)" so someting need to be fixed, see lines 130, 140239, 251, 272, 283, 295 etc etc

line 148 listing of fishes studied should include the family names of the fishes and be grouped by family.

discussion

line 317 item (1) is unclear as written

line 318 iten (2) is there a taxonomic grouping of the fishes that increased? ie are they related and similar life histories?

line 330 again unclear as writtenline 333 which specis were the few that did not decline?

lines 337-338 and 373  have grammar errors

 

Line 389 fishes should be analyzed by life history type and not merely species, speciies with similar spawning and larval habits would be expected to be similar etc etc

line 424 unclear wording

line 445 should read " On the contrary...

line 463 use the term "fishes" when refereing to more than one species and "fish' when refering to a single species

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

 

Thank you for your letter and the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript entitled " Effects of Climate Events on Abundance and Distribution of Major Commercial Fishes in the Beibu Gulf, South China Sea" (ID: diversity-2314083). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to another research. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections are in the manuscript and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are as follows .

 

1. line 121 this maybe an english language issue, in part, but you can not state that climate events are or are not "affecting" fishes, you are only determining correlations.

 

line 121, item (ii) - this sentence makes no sense as written, needs english editing

 

Response: Thank you for pointing out these problems in manuscript. We have re-written this part according to the Reviewer’s suggestion.

 

2. throughout text this appears "Error! Reference 130 source not found.)" so someting need to be fixed, see lines 130, 140239, 251, 272, 283, 295 etc etc

 

Response: Thank you for pointing out this problem in manuscript. We have fixed this issue.

 

3. line 148 listing of fishes studied should include the family names of the fishes and be grouped by family.

 

Response: Thank you for pointing out this problem in manuscript. We have classified and labeled all fish by family.

 

4. ine 317 item (1) is unclear as written

 

line 318 iten (2) is there a taxonomic grouping of the fishes that increased? ie are they related and similar life histories?

 

line 330 again unclear as writtenline 333 which specis were the few that did not decline?

 

lines 337-338 and 373  have grammar errors

 

Response: Thank you for pointing out these problems in manuscript. We have re-written this part according to the Reviewer’s suggestion.

 

5. Line 389 fishes should be analyzed by life history type and not merely species, speciies with similar spawning and larval habits would be expected to be similar etc etc

 

line 424 unclear wording

 

line 445 should read " On the contrary...

 

line 463 use the term "fishes" when refereing to more than one species and "fish' when refering to a single species

 

Response: We are appreciative of the reviewer’s suggestion. In fact, we do discuss mainly based on the life history of fish, but due to the limitation of the length and subject matter of the article, we cannot elaborate more. Therefore, we seek for the reviewer’s tolerance and understanding. On the other issues, we have revised them in accordance with the comments.

 

We have revised the problems of the article as required. Please check the attachment.

 

Once again, thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us both in English and in depth to improve the quality of the paper.

 

Kind regards,

 

Xiaofan Hong

 

E-mail: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see my comments attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

 

Thank you for your letter and the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript entitled " Effects of Climate Events on Abundance and Distribution of Major Commercial Fishes in the Beibu Gulf, South China Sea" (ID: diversity-2314083). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to another research. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections are in the manuscript and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are as follows.

 

1. Abstract:

• Line 14: “fishing ground is” should be “fisheries are”
• Line 18: “best predictors for fish abundance”, should it be changes/variations ins fish

abundance?

• Line 19: What measures the “increasing fishing pressure”
• Lines 22-24: As these statements supported by evidence provided by this study, or

simply hypotheses that need to be tested? The way you put it is little bit confusing.

 

Response: Thank you for pointing out these problems in manuscript. We have re-written this part according to the Reviewer’s suggestion. According to the content of the context, we can make reasonable conjecture mainly through the existing literature conclusion and the experience judgment, and draw the conclusion that the fishing pressure increases.

 

2. Highlights:

• Line 30: Vague. Decline in terms of stock biomass?
• Line 31: Vague again. Enhance certain fish stocks in what aspects?

 

Response: Thank you for pointing out these problems in manuscript. We have re-written this part according to the Reviewer’s suggestion.

 

3. Introduction:

• Overall: Might want to condense the first three paragraphs as some information is quite

redundant here. Instead, introducing some domestic study on climate change effects on

fisheries would better highlight how this study can fill the regional knowledge gap. I

would recommend the following papers:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144205

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2019.04.008.

• Line99: I failed to understand why we should concern about the climate change effects

in the Beibu Gulf. More justification are needed in terms of local species vulnerability to

climate change, previous observation of local climate change risks, or specific

management demands.

• Lines 108-113: These supportive studies related to the environmental risks to fisheries

in the South China Sea are sound and helpful. However, the study area in this manuscript

only accounted for a very limited scale of the South China Sea, and I am skeptical of the

magnitude of climate change effects projected there. The Beibu Gulf is more obviously

a semi-closed water body, presuming more sensitive to anthropological effects, which

was not mentioned in the introduction at all. A way to address this is to streamline the

hypothesis statement in this paper, to better highlight the tasks to reveal the potential

2

climate change and anthropogenic effects as major driver of the ecosystem changes in

the Beibu Gulf.

• Lines 114-117: I do not think mentioning EBFM is helpful to the narrative here. EBFM

does not necessarily address climate change effect. A good example of failure is the

Alaska fisheries where EBFM is well developed, however climate change effects are still

taking a toll on iconic fisheries like snow crab. Bringing up EBFM is also distracting to

readers, and not aligned with China's fisheries management mission.

• Line 119: Since fishing pressure was found to be more significant, it would make more

sense to include anthropological effects in the hypothesis statement as well.

• Lines 120-122: Please note that these questions and their answers were only for the

Beibu Gulf region and not universally applicable.

• Line 125: Might want to go easy with "predict". The models used here are mostly

exploratory, without any tests on their predicting power. Also the data size were too

small for any meta-scale projection.

 

Response: We are appreciative of the reviewer’s suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we’ve fixed most of the issues. In addition, the reason for mentioning EBFM in this paper is that this work may help guide fishing policy choices under climate change conditions to assess and manage marine ecosystems during ENSO events elsewhere, thereby contributing to the implementation of EBFM. To do this, we make certain changes to the draft to make it easier to understand. Therefore, we seek for the reviewer’s tolerance and understanding.

 

4. Methods:

• Lines 149-151: Need to justify the list of species studied. Ecological importance,

economic values, or combined considerations? I would say pelagic species make sense

to me here. And please use common names and photos (or icons) when possible,

otherwise Latin names do not make much sense to readers out of the region.

• Line 188: linear relationship is a wild assumption here. Climate change effect often

shows regime shift with stage-like variations in their patterns. More evidence is needed.

• Lines 191-192: linear relationship is a wild assumption here. Climate change effect often

shows regime shift with stage-like variations in their patterns. More evidence is needed.

 

Response: Thank you for pointing out these problems in manuscript. We sorted and labeled all the fish by family and added important information such as market value. In addition, this study does not use simple linear trend analysis, but judges based on seasonal trends. Therefore, we seek for the reviewer’s tolerance and understanding.

 

5. Discussion:

• Overall well-written. Very informative. The only thing, as mentioned earlier, is that

please do not diverge easily from "climate change issue" to "ecosystem considerations".

They are two separate topics unless this paper thoroughly pivot its narratives to

accommodate both.

• Lines 342-344: The most recent quantitative evaluation on China's fisheries status can

be found here https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12715. The cited paper here has leans more

towards a socio-economic lens.

 

Response: We are appreciative of the reviewer’s suggestion. We have made corrections based on the Reviewers' comments.

 

We have revised the problems of the article as required. Please check the attachment.

 

Once again, thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us both in English and in depth to improve the quality of the paper.

 

Kind regards,

 

Xiaofan Hong

 

E-mail: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.docx