First Record of the Alien and Invasive Polychaete Laonome triangularis Hutchings & Murray, 1984 (Annelida, Sabellidae) in Italian Waters

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article by Bonifazi et al. provides the first record of a polychaete Laonome triangularis in western Mediterranean basin. The monitoring of invasive species is an important work and no doubt the presented record should be published after a minor revision. Below I attach a list of comments that could, in my opinion, improve the manuscript.

Figure 1. The quality of the images is low. I understand that all the necessary details are visible in the illustrations presented, but the photos themselves look "overexposed" and the details are difficult to see. If possible, please slightly improve the photos in terms of brightness / contrast. Is it possible to do something with the resolution in Fig 1A? If not, I think that the size of the image is too large and they will look better in a bit smaller scale (not for the whole page).

By the way I have a question, just out of the curiosity: Is it possible to provide a photo of the tubes? You write that they are fragile and I know well that in many cases it is impossible to extract the animal without damaging its tube, but this information would be very important, especially for non-specialists in annelid taxonomy.

Figs. 2 and 3 are practically devoid of any designations, and the arrows in Figs. 2B and C are not explained in the legend. It would be much helpful to provide some abbreviations for the reader could easily compare the figures with the description in the text. This is a standard practice for morphological articles and helps non-specialists to find the right details.

The legend tor figure 3 is too short and should be expanded. In my opinion the good practice is that the reader could understand the general idea of the images just by looking to the legend without reading the manuscript text. I understand that the article itself is short but anyway, I think that some additional information, e.g. the numbers of segments from which the presented paleate chaetae or uncini were taken may be important.

Author Response

Reviewer #1

The article by Bonifazi et al. provides the first record of a polychaete Laonome triangularis in western Mediterranean basin. The monitoring of invasive species is an important work and no doubt the presented record should be published after a minor revision. Below I attach a list of comments that could, in my opinion, improve the manuscript.

Figure 1. The quality of the images is low. I understand that all the necessary details are visible in the illustrations presented, but the photos themselves look "overexposed" and the details are difficult to see. If possible, please slightly improve the photos in terms of brightness / contrast. Is it possible to do something with the resolution in Fig 1A? If not, I think that the size of the image is too large and they will look better in a bit smaller scale (not for the whole page).

By the way I have a question, just out of the curiosity: Is it possible to provide a photo of the tubes? You write that they are fragile and I know well that in many cases it is impossible to extract the animal without damaging its tube, but this information would be very important, especially for non-specialists in annelid taxonomy.

Figs. 2 and 3 are practically devoid of any designations, and the arrows in Figs. 2B and C are not explained in the legend. It would be much helpful to provide some abbreviations for the reader could easily compare the figures with the description in the text. This is a standard practice for morphological articles and helps non-specialists to find the right details.

The legend tor figure 3 is too short and should be expanded. In my opinion the good practice is that the reader could understand the general idea of the images just by looking to the legend without reading the manuscript text. I understand that the article itself is short but anyway, I think that some additional information, e.g. the numbers of segments from which the presented paleate chaetae or uncini were taken may be important.

 

Response to Reviewer #1

Thank you for your corrections and for your valuable comments which will increase the quality of the manuscript. We have modified and corrected the manuscript following your instructions, in details:

• We changed the figure 1a with another images in a better resolution. In addition, we improve the photos in terms of brightness / contrast. However, the Figure 1 is not aimed to show the details of the worm, but in this image we want to show the entire worms with a macroscopic focus on the anterior and on the posterior part of its body;
• Unfortunately we have not photos of the tubes. In fact, they are very fragile and were too damaged when opened to pull out the worms;
• We improved the figures 2 and 3, changing some photos or improving the photos in terms of brightness / contrast. We also provide some abbreviations explained in the captions;
• We apologies for the typos: we wrote the caption of the figure 3 in another version of the manuscript, but for and oversight we didn't included in this version. Now we provided the correct caption. We also improved the figures, changing some photos or improving the photos in terms of brightness / contrast. We also provide some abbreviations explained in the caption.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This short communication presents valuable information on the occurrence of an alien sabellid species in Western Mediterranean. The provided manuscript is reasonably structured and readable. The presented data are interesting and worth publishing. However, the species identity is not supported by molecular methods, which is highly recommended given that a different species of Laonome might occur in the region (e.g. Capa et al. 2014). It should not be a major issue, given that the specimens are ethanol-preserved.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Minor edits were made directly in the manuscript.

Author Response

Reviewer #2

This short communication presents valuable information on the occurrence of an alien sabellid species in Western Mediterranean. The provided manuscript is reasonably structured and readable. The presented data are interesting and worth publishing. However, the species identity is not supported by molecular methods, which is highly recommended given that a different species of Laonome might occur in the region (e.g. Capa et al. 2014). It should not be a major issue, given that the specimens are ethanol-preserved.

Minor edits were made directly in the manuscript.

 

Response to Reviewer #2

Thank you for your corrections and for your valuable comments which will increase the quality of the manuscript. We have modified and corrected the manuscript following your instructions, in details:

• We agree with your observation on the necessity of a molecular methods support. Unfortunately we conserved the specimens in ethanol not suitable to molecular analysis; moreover, there aren't technical times to carry out these analysis. However, in the first record of this species in the Mediterranean Sea (Cinar, 2009), the author have been indicated some morphological traits useful to distinguish L. triangularis from the other similar species. Anyway, it will be our care preserved the possible future specimens with ethanol suitable to molecular analysis;
• We considered your minor edits made directly in the manuscript. In the lines 47-50 of the submitted pdf, we added further diagnostic features, specifying that we used the combination of these characteristics.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting short note about a sabellid annelid that seems to have invaded the Mediterranean from Australia. I think you should mention in your report that it is unclear whether the presence in the western Mediterranean basin is the result of introduction from populations in the eastern Mediterrean or a new introduction from Australia (or possibly elsewhere). Genetic data would be necessary to address this question.

I am not a sabellid taxonomist, but you seem to have done a thorough job in documenting the characteristic morphological characters. The images and descriptions are clear.

Your conclusions that the worms were most likely introduced with ballast water may be too strong. Could they have been introduced with hull fouling communities? 

Please change the term "polychaeta" to "polychaete" or "polychaete annelid" throughout the manuscript. Polychaeta is no longer considered a monophyletic taxon. 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The quality of the writing needs some improvement. There are lots of long run-on sentences that should be restructured. I have made a number of comments in the manuscript.

 

Author Response

Reviewer #3

This is an interesting short note about a sabellid annelid that seems to have invaded the Mediterranean from Australia. I think you should mention in your report that it is unclear whether the presence in the western Mediterranean basin is the result of introduction from populations in the eastern Mediterrean or a new introduction from Australia (or possibly elsewhere). Genetic data would be necessary to address this question.

I am not a sabellid taxonomist, but you seem to have done a thorough job in documenting the characteristic morphological characters. The images and descriptions are clear.

Your conclusions that the worms were most likely introduced with ballast water may be too strong. Could they have been introduced with hull fouling communities?

Please change the term "polychaeta" to "polychaete" or "polychaete annelid" throughout the manuscript. Polychaeta is no longer considered a monophyletic taxon.

The quality of the writing needs some improvement. There are lots of long run-on sentences that should be restructured. I have made a number of comments in the manuscript.

 

Response to Reviewer #3

Thank you for your corrections and for your valuable comments which will increase the quality of the manuscript. We have modified and corrected the manuscript following your instructions, in details:

• We agree with your observation on the necessity of a molecular methods support. Unfortunately we conserved the specimens in ethanol not suitable to molecular analysis; moreover, there aren't technical times to carry out these analysis. However, in the first record of this species in the Mediterranean Sea (Cinar, 2009), the author have been indicated some morphological traits useful to distinguish L. triangularis from the other similar species. Anyway, it will be our care preserved the possible future specimens with ethanol suitable to molecular analysis;
• Our final assumptions are based on the hypothesis proposed by Cinar (2009). In fact, he speculates that the records of this species in areas adjacent to a commercial port may be due to ballast water, so we supported these thesis. Moreover, we do not believe that this species have been introduced with hull fouling communities because it is a species typical of soft bottom (sandy or muddy);
• We considered your minor edits made directly in the manuscript;
• We improved the writing.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf