Progress on the Impact of Persistent Pollutants on Marine Turtles: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Progress on the impact of persistent pollutants on marine turtles by Arienzo.
The topic is interesting and monitoring of pollutants on long lived animals such as marine turtles is very important.
Figure 1, 2 and 3 seems to be more general information that can be found everywhere and not necesseraly to be included in the manuscript.
Regarding the heavy metals it would be nice to compare them on species level, organ level and made a conclusion on its effects to sea turtles. I suggest to make similar structure for evey metal.
Author Response
Progress on the impact of persistent pollutants on marine turtles by Arienzo.
The topic is interesting and monitoring of pollutants on long lived animals such as marine turtles is very important.
Figure 1, 2 and 3 seems to be more general information that can be found everywhere and not necessarily to be included in the manuscript.
Answer: the scope of Figure 1 is to give the reader a general overview of the main threats impacting the life of sea turtles. Since factors and sources can be quite large, I do think that the Figure in its simplicity summarizes the main risks from different sources. Figure 2 was adapted from a recent paper of Yaghmour et al. of 2020 published on Marine Pollution Bulletin and from my understanding and searching it is not so common. It gives a nice and original view of POPs exposure paths for marine turtles. In the end Figure 3 gives the reader beside the scientific and common name and risk of extinction of each of the seven marine turtle species, also the idea of the dimensional differences.
Regarding the heavy metals it would be nice to compare them on species level, organ level and made a conclusion on its effects to sea turtles. I suggest to make similar structure for evey metal.
Answer: I do think that the discussion of metals accumulation is already well organized. This section is already divided in two main sections, biological and environmental factors. The biological section has many subsections whose scope is to help the reader to understand the role of species, body size, age, storage organ, etc. I preferred to compare metals all together as it can be seen in Table 1. I think that a separated discussion for each metal would be complex and less synthetic. Moreover, not all the metals are similar in terms of toxicity, as for example chromium that is one of the most dangerous.
Reviewer 2 Report
It is indeed very difficult to study the toxicity of sea turtles. Because sea turtles have lived in the sea environment for a long time, the accumulated pollutant content in their body, especially POPs and heavy metals, is relatively high. And it is also important of this research area, so even if there are still not completely, I personally think there is should be publish.
1. The title and keywords only mentioned PPs But there are also investigations of heavy metals in the manuscript. I suggest the title and keywords need to be revised.
2. Although the characteristics of different environmental factors are discussed in the manuscript. It is suggested that the habitats of different turtles also need to be analyzed, which will help to understand the characteristics of different sea environments.
3. If a standard assessment for research can be established. It will be more effective in assisting researchers from all over the world to understand the bioaccumulation and environmental pollution of sea turtles.
4. Discussions about arsenic are rarely mentioned in the manuscript. and the source of arsenic should be related to its food and sea turtle’s trophic level. Please discuss this part.
Author Response
It is indeed very difficult to study the toxicity of sea turtles. Because sea turtles have lived in the sea environment for a long time, the accumulated pollutant content in their body, especially POPs and heavy metals, is relatively high. And it is also important of this research area, so even if there are still not completely, I personally think there is should be publish.
- The title and keywords only mentioned PPs But there are also investigations of heavy metals in the manuscript. I suggest the title and keywords need to be revised.
Answer: I considered heavy metals as persistent pollutants that’s why there is no separation between metals and typical persistent organic pollutants, POPs. We can say that perhaps metals are even more persistent than POPs being the latter degradable at a certain extent.
- Although the characteristics of different environmental factors are discussed in the manuscript. It is suggested that the habitats of different turtles also need to be analyzed, which will help to understand the characteristics of different sea environments.
Answer: I do think that the discussion on the environmental factors is rather exhaustive dealing with different chronic and acute toxicity effects on HMs accumulation from foraging in different habitats.
- If a standard assessment for research can be established. It will be more effective in assisting researchers from all over the world to understand the bioaccumulation and environmental pollution of sea turtles.
Answer: the standard assessment comes from the upgraded version of the conclusions where short- and long-term needs are illustrated.
- Discussions about arsenic are rarely mentioned in the manuscript. and the source of arsenic should be related to its food and sea turtle’s trophic level. Please discuss this part.
Answer: the discussion on arsenic accumulation and distribution in different tissues species, and feeding behaviors was added in lines 193-205.
Reviewer 3 Report
It is an extensive revision well written. I have few comments
1. What is the importance of this review? Describe the originality, because it seems that you gather a lot of information and miss to include the contributions of all these data.
2. You need to include a section Methodology. All revisions have an analitical methodology. How did you get all the data? howdid you analyze them?
3. Conclusion section has to be more elaborated. Suggestion: include short-, medium- and long-term measures.
4. Title: include at the end - A review
5. Abstract: at the end you should conclude your review.
Author Response
It is an extensive revision well written. I have few comments
- What is the importance of this review? Describe the originality, because it seems that you gather a lot of information and miss to include the contributions of all these data.
Answer: the importance of the review has been added in lines 126-129.
- You need to include a section Methodology. All revisions have an analitical methodology. How did you get all the data? How did you analyze them?
Answer: the methodology has been added in lines 124-126.
- Conclusion section has to be more elaborated. Suggestion: include short-, medium- and long-term measures.
Answer. Conclusions have been modified and rewritten indicating short and long terms needs.
- Title: include at the end - A review
Answer: it has been added.
- Abstract: at the end you should conclude your review.
Answer: a conclusion has been added in lines 15-17.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
small comments are in the revised manuscript.
You did not explain haw didyou choose the papers in your methodology; by keywords? which one?
Most important you did not explain why is important your review? you need to improve the importance of the research.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
You did not explain how did you choose the papers in your methodology; by keywords? which one?
Answer: The selection was made by keywords as sea turtles, persistent pollutants, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants and toxicity. See lines 16-127.
Most important you did not explain why is important your review? you need to improve the importance of the research.
Answer: in the paragraph made by lines 124-130 the main aim of the review is illustrated and enlarged respect to the previous version. These aims link with the conclusions, showing how recently new organs have been found to be of paramount importance in contaminant accumulation as salt gland.
The following statement was added: The review does not to collect and summarize huge amount of data, whereas it has the scope to indicate few and important very recent gaps of the research on these amazing sea water reptiles at risk of extinction.
Minor changes made in the manuscript:
Line 13: biomarkers was formatted;
Line 16: synthesizes was amended;
Line 196: coma was added after the word ..adult
Lines 198-199 was rewritten as: An interesting study was made by Saeki et al. [47] on As accumulation by liver, kidney and muscle of green, loggerhead and hawksbill turtles.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
