Distribution Pattern of Coral Reef Fishes in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study on ‘Distribution pattern of Coral Reef Fishes in China’ by Shi et al., has focused on the systematic compilation and analysis of coral reef fish in China and provided a basic reference for the protection management and the biological geography analysis of global coral reef fish.  To me, it’s an interesting study and the MS is well-written.  However, the manuscript needs some improvements before considering for publication:

1.         Abstract: Please change the last three keywords.

2.         Introduction:

          - I would like to see some more statements about factors that control coral reef fishes –  missing.

           - Page 2, line 64-66: There are many citations, please consider deleting some. 

           - Page 2, lines 77-80: Please delete.

           - Elaborate on the terms ‘tropical rain forests’ and ‘restoration’ as these are keywords in the introduction part.

           - Page 2, lines 63-64: “The biological diversity of coral reef fish is often used as an indicator

             of the health status of coral reefs” need more citations.

4.         Materials and methods:

           - Please mention the period of data collection in this study.     

           - Page 3, line 107– 108: detrivore; herbivore; omnivore; carnivore?

           - Page 4, line 127 – 130: Re-write

           - Check the legend of the figure 2.

5.        Results and discussion: Perfectly presented with necessary evidences, tables, and graphs.

6.        Conclusion: Please add implications of your study.

 

 Overall, good structured MS, and enjoyed reading the contents.

Author Response

请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: accepted. reflect the whole study

Introduction: Well described

Materials and Methods

1. If possible to provide exact coordinate for each sampling area

2. Any data collection from interview among fishermen or fishery officer?

3. How reliable if data collection relied only from online?

Results

Clear and well elaborated

The authors can analysis and interpreted findings of the study

Discussion

 

 Accepeted

 

Conclusion

The authors may put more effort in this section by providing more information such as research gap, future work and etc

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript portrays the subject addressed reasonably well. Figures and tables are clear and well presented. However, it has a series of sentences that need some attention, as they are not correctly written, which makes it difficult for the reader to understand.

Some suggestions are:

Line 17: In the summary the authors should mention that “2855 species of fish were found in the coral reefs”, instead of the number of fish that exist there. There are for sure much more fishes…

Lines 21-25: This sentence is a little confusing. Please rewrite and simplify the sentence.

L 25: Replace “was” with “had”

L 27: “provides” instead of “provide”

Recurrently, a typo appears. To solve it, just leave a space between the last word and the reference in square brackets. For example, instead of “… environment[1].” it should be “… environment [1].”

L 52: Include “fish species” instead of just “fish”, otherwise it is not right.

Ls 53-5: Confused! Rewrite please.

L 73: “… Chinese coral reef fish” should be replaced by “… coral reef fish found in Chinese waters”

L 78: I don't understand what the expression “my country” does in this sentence. Rewrite please.

There are a number of other parts of the text that are a little confusing. For example:

Ls 154-5: The verbs must all be in the same tense.

L 168: “… coral reef fishes in China are…” this is strange because fish have no defined boundaries in the sea…

L 209: Looks like a situation similar to the one described above.

L 241: “integrats” must be a typo. However, to be noticeable, the correct word must be placed there.

L 265: add the word “waters” to the word “mainland” in order to get the expression  “mainland waters”.

L 269-70: the expression “… (far away from the mainland)” is unnecessary.

L 289-90: please rewrite.

L 294: “bait”??

Ls 299-300: Rewrite

Below are several references where there is more than one author. Therefore, the expression et al. must be added after the first author. Examples: Komyakova et al. [63], Coker et al. [15], etc.

L 316: “… love…”. This word seems to be out of context. Please rewrite.

Ls 324-5: Please rewrite.

Ls 332-5: Please rewrite.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript improved considerably.

Thus few minor things remain slightly confusing.

For example, please either rewrite or delete or change the meaning of the confusing expression found in now line 71 "The annual fishing was 14~4.2 millions tons...". What does that mean? 

Author Response

要点 1：手稿有了很大的改进。因此，很少有小事情仍然有点令人困惑。例如，请重写或删除或更改现在第 71 行中发现的令人困惑的表达的含义“年捕捞量为 14~4.2 百万吨......”。那是什么意思？

响应 1：谢谢你的建议。很抱歉我犯了一个粗心的错误，我在审稿人的建议下纠正了它。该句修改为“年捕捞量为1.4~4.2百万吨......”。

我们衷心感谢编辑/审稿人的热情工作，并希望更正得到批准。

再次非常感谢您的意见和建议。