A Review of Marine Viruses in Coral Ecosystem
, Shumpei Iehata 1, Rosanne Fletcher 1, Emylia H. Stevens 1 and Sandra C. Zainathan 1,2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The review takes a closer look at marine coral ecosystem associated viruses. Reef-building coral polyps are massive biological structures and most productive coastal ecosystem in the tropical biogeographic region, which is characterized by both high biodiversity from eukaryote to viruses and complex functional relationships.
The preparation of reviews is a difficult task for a scientist. It requires a broad outlook, expertise in not only the object of description itself, but also considerable knowledge in related fields of science. A scientist must have scrupulousness and special care in order to give reliable knowledge in the described subject, because reviews are popular with a wide range of researchers and students. All of the above imposes a high responsibility on the review authors.
Unfortunately, despite I highly evaluate enormous work and great efforts of the authors to prepare the review, I should note that the presented work has many inaccuracies, incomplete knowledge in some areas, unverified information, repetitions, a large number of errors in terminology, etc. that significantly diminish the value of the work done.
Comments:
Abstract
Line 12. “…food particles which include the viral communities". Particles are the morphological concept, while communities are ecological. Communities are not just particles.
Line 13 "both pathogen and symbionts." Then why do you write about mutualism?
Line 20-21. The authors included viruses that infected sponges in their paper «A Review on Marine Viruses in Coral Ecosystem”. Coral polyps and sponges belong to different subkingdoms and types of animals, they have similar biology, but they are very different in structure, therefore, in my opinion, the authors should confine themselves to considering the viruses of the coral polyps/coral ecosystem. In addition, the authors in the section on viruses of sponges delve into the description of viruses in freshwater sponges, in particular from Lake Baikal. Most likely, this information is superfluous.
Line 21. Further, the authors write that “This review is about marine viruses in the coral reef ecosystem”.
- Coral Ecosystem
Line 33. What did the authors mean by the name “coral animals”? The authors list the animals in this line.
Line 39-40. See comments to Line 12.
Line 41. Do the authors attribute Symbiodinium to algae or are they are dinoflagellates?
Line 42. Names of the genus should be in italics - Symbiodinium.
Line 41-53. The logic of the statement is violated in this paragraph. The authors provide information about Symbiodinium and its role in the life of corals, and then they describe the taxonomic affiliation of corals, or rather coral polyps. Finally, it returns to symbionts and considers Zooxanthellae. In my opinion, the taxonomy of Zooxanthellae and their relationship with Symbiodinium should be described in more detail. From the text it follows that these are different organisms, is this true? At the end of the paragraph, the authors insert a phrase about viruses and do not expand this idea.
Line 53. Why they do it if further there is a paragraph about sponge diseases, in which viruses are not mentioned.
Line 73-74 What is the meaning of the phrase? Is it correct?
Line 78-79 See comments to Line 13
Line 118-123. Unsuitable sentence. It is not clear what is associated with what. Why is a small subset of taxonomic classifications mentioned, although a number of families listed are high?
Retroviridae are RNA viruses.
- Progress of Marine Virus Research
Line 129-130…… in the benthic of the ocean such as sediment. Likely, here authors write about “benthos” (the community that lives at the bottom of the reservoir), sediment is not benthos.
Line 136. Spatio-temporal viruses. What does this mean? Usually, “the spatio-temporal dynamics of…..” is being considered.
Line 137-139 This sentence uses the word “marine” three times, and the text also repeats this word too often. From the title of the review and the context, it is clear that it refers to marine viruses.
Line 144…. (such as Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus). It should be better to clarify that we are talking about viruses that infect these picocyanobacteria genera, and not about the cyanobacteria themselves.
Line 145-146 “All RNA-containing viruses such as Picorna-like viruses and T4-like myoviruses (gene marker g23 and g20)”. T4-like myoviruses are DNA-containing viruses as well as all myoviruses.
- Marine Viruses and their Host
Line 171. “Eukaryotic algae” is a frequently repeated combination of words. What is prokaryotic algae, or doing this way authors separate prokaryotic cyanobacteria from algae?
Line 174-176. Eukaryotic phytoplankton and cyanophages infected by marine viruses were the primary focus of scientific studies due to their abundances and ecological relevance in the ocean. This sentence contains an error.
Line 177, 183. “The Southern Ocean”. Do you think this is the correct geographical name?
Line 206-208. Authors are encouraged to include the date when they received taxonomy information from the International Committee on Taxonomy Viruses (ICTV). Taxonomy data is constantly updated; by the time of publication they may become outdated and irrelevant.
Line 252. What do temperate virus particles mean? Is this the correct phrase?
Table 2.
Line 135, 136 Symbiodinium spp. cells. It is correct to write Symbiodinium spp. cells
- Coral Viruses
In my opinion, sections 4 and 5 are well written and easy to read.
Line 367. Here the “%” is written twice.
Line 385. Retroviridae are RNA viruses.
- Coral Fish Viruses
Line 405. coral polpys
Line 430. genus Lymphocystivirus. Italic is needed for genus name.
Line 431. Lymphocystis, Is it correct?
Line 434. Amphiprion percula. Please, correct the Latin names of the genus here and below in italic.
- Marine Sponge Viruses.See above.
Line 497-500 contains information on bacteria, is it necessary to include it in the review?
Line 506 in healthier Lubomirskia. Why is italic used for healthier?
Line 512-513. This is exactly taken from the article - (191).
Line 518. …the DNA viruses and bacteriophage (order Caudovirales). Caudovirales are also DNA-containing viruses.
Conclusion
The conclusion, like the review, leaves a complex impression. In my opinion, the authors gave a lot of information about marine viruses, but I did not find the main idea and specific conclusions. It might be better to divide the review by research method, for example, data obtained by genetic methods, including metagenomics, and then draw conclusions about the genetic and taxonomic diversity and structure of viral communities, etc. I lacked structuredness and conclusions in the review.
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
jmse-1232970_rev
The review manuscript entitled "A Review on Marine Viruses in Coral Ecosystem" addresses an interesting and under-published topic
The manuscript has problems throughout the text, as the authors did not respect the basic taxonomy rules, so, the manuscript will have to be profoundly revised at this level.
Some correction suggestions are suggested below.
Corrections needed:
line 10/23 - The abstract and keywords must not be bold
line 42 - Symbiodinium (in italics)
line 94 - Circoviridae (not in italics) (Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics)
line 122-123 - such as Phycodnaviridae, Mimiviridae, Poxviridae and Iridoviridae,as well as for Polydnavridae 122
and Retroviridae (not in italics) (Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics)
line 124 - In current classification systems accepted by the scientific community, there is no "protists" kingdom (remove this word)
line 125/126 - Geminivirdae, Nanoviridae, Tymoviridae, Potyviridae, Tombusviridae, Caulimoviridae, 125
Alphaflexiviridae, Endornaviridae, Partitiviridae and Reoviridae (Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics)
line 140 - ... including plankton and ...
line 145 - (such as Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus, Cyanobacteria)
line 179 - ... green algae known as Micractinium (formerly Zoochlorella) (Chlorophyta)
line 181 - ... phytoplankton and Cyanobacteria than ...
line 185 - ... abundance in the 200 m
Table 1 - Order/Family names (not in italics) (Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics)
line 292 - the correct is Acropora muricata and not Acanthus lobate
line 309/310 - ... Alternaria tenuis (Fugi, Ascomycota)
line 312 - ... Montastraea cavernosa (Animalia, Cnidaria)
line 314 - ... Symbiodinium (Miozoa, Dinophyceae)
line 319 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 330 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
Table 2 - Family names (not in italics) (Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics)
line 362 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 372/373 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 378 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 386/387 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 391-394 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 395/396 - Fungia sp., (Please correct!)
line 415 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 417 - Drupella rugosa
line 437 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
Table 3 - Clownfish, Amphiprion percula
line 467 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
lines 502/507/512/513 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 513/514 - ... in healthier (not in italics)
line 522/528 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
line 532 - (Escherichia ... in talics
lines 538-540 - Note: Only taxonomic categories below the genus are written in italics
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors did a great job and successfully corrected the text. I accept the answers of the authors. However, I have some comments.
Line 125. Please check the sentence. It contains an error.
Please check italics in the names of species and genera. Despite the comments, the authors did not correct these errors everywhere. For example, lines 479, 566, 579, 600, 603.
Line 258. Again, the South Ocean. it had to be corrected throughout the text.
Line 258. “Bacteria, Achaea and eukaryotic viruses”. In my opinion, it is best to avoid the term "eukaryotic viruses" in this sentence and in general. May be "viruses of eukaryotic organisms" or Eukarya viruses.
Table 4. The title of the table mentions marine viruses, the body of the table contains information about freshwater viruses of Lake Baikal (195). This is a contradiction.
Line 623. In situ - in italics.
Line 645. It is unnecessary to write about the 16S RNA gene in the review devoted to viruses. It is generally known that it is a target gene for the study of bacterial diversity. Viruses are not bacteria and cannot contain 16S RNA gene in the same way as the target eukaryotic gene – 18S RNA.
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors carried out an in-depth review of the manuscript in accordance with the reviewers' suggestions, so I am of the opinion that it should be accepted for publication.
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
