Dataset for Estimated Closures of Scallop (Pecten maximus) Production Areas Due to Phycotoxin Contamination along the French Coasts of the Eastern English Channel

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper describes two data sets, only one of which is presented in this paper.  The first is the raw data on the concentration of three biotoxins in scallops off the French coast along the English Channel from 2011-2020.  The three toxins can make humans seriously ill and sometimes cause death; French agencies monitor shellfish and close them to harvesting when shellfish toxicity crosses a threshold.  The problem is that the shellfish harvesting closure database, which is entirely separate from the toxicity database, does not always indicate why the closure was decreed and there are other possible reasons for closures.  The second data set, which is presented in this paper, is derived from the raw data set using an algorithm to calculate how many theoretical closures there would have been from biotoxins alone.  Understanding when and where shellfish areas are closed due to biotoxins has implications for how shellfish areas are managed for public safety.  They have submitted a paper using this data, which was not provided.

I am a HAB scientist, not a data manager.  To the extent that I can determine, they meet the criteria laid out by the journal under Data description, Data quality and Data access, archiving and metadata.  However, I assume that the submitted paper describes the data and refers to the location where these data are deposited.  It does not seem that this paper provides additional content about these data nor will these data be reused.  The original raw data, from which these data are derived, may have a greater reuse potential as scientists search for archived data.  They also argue that the algorithm will be reused.  While it works for this data set, it is not especially innovative and to some extent, may be location specific.  Finally, they do not discuss how the change in methods (Table 1) might have affected the results.  Did it happen at a specific time or in different areas at different times?  Do the methods give comparable results?  Maybe this is addressed in the submitted paper, but it should also go here.

There are numerous small errors in the paper.  These included random insertions of letter or numbers, incorrect verb tenses, use of an incorrect word, and missing punctuation.  But it didn't seem like an English language usage problem, as much a  poor proof-reading.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

The data set and its description proposed here will be very useful, for fisheries management studies linked to HAB, but also for ecological research on HAB and on the link between HAB ecology and the societal consequences of these blooms. The precision on the data and in the vocabulary used could be improved. The data sets are original. The data sources and R script used to generate the data sets are available in open databases.

I recommend that this Data paper be published after some minor revisions listed below and a correction in one of the files (dates of beginning and end of closure, see below).

 

In the abstract, the purpose and the usefulness of the data set could be more developed: different science fields concerned, which kind of studies… The authors only cite analyse of management strategies when this data set could also be useful to study the link between HAB ecology and their economic consequences.

 

Line 39: “occurrences of HABs and their toxin production”, toxin production by HAB blooms is not monitored. Toxin concentrations in marine organisms (bivalves) are monitored. This should be corrected.

Lines 58-59: “REPHY and REPHYTOX are available since 1984”. Were all toxins monitored since 1984? If differences between toxins, this should be specified.

Line 66: "lack" instead of “luck”.

Line 85: "based" instead of “basing” ?

Line 113: “management area”, is that the same thing as “fishing zone” in the file (table 91595) ? A common name between the data paper and the file is essential.

Line 116: “supplementary data”, should it be “Figure 1” ? (I did not see any supplementary data with this data paper)

Lines 128-129: “4 These areas…. hereafter” the “4” should be deleted or the sentence rewritten.

Line 135: “closures due to … amnesic shellfish poisoning and paralytic shellfish poisoning”. Here (and at other occasions in the text) there is a confusion between actual “poisoning” (medical syndrome) and the presence of phycotoxines in shellfish. The closures are not due to the detection of illness (ASP or PSP) but to the detection of toxins in the shellfish. Precise vocabulary should be used differentiating the toxin from the poisoning in the text. Another example of this is lines 178-179 : “regulated toxins (ASP…..)”.

Line 142: two instead of “tow”.

Lines 145-146: “date of the beginning and the end of closures”. In the file, there are dates of beginning and end closure (and two different dates) even when there is no closure: e.g. line 2 of the file, week 39. How is it possible? This should be corrected.

Line 176 and line 186: “data were” instead of “data was”.

Table 1: Different methods for toxin analyses are presented for one toxin (or toxin family). E.g. for amnesic and paralytic toxins. The authors should explain why. Does the method changed during the time period studied?

Figure 2: This diagram is quite “empty” but present very small font size. There is enough room for a larger font size.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I think the authors presented their dataset and algorithm well.  There are many cases where the wrong word or a plural was used instead of a singular, those are listed by line # below.

 

 

37 – “and protect human health” – remove the

39 – “toxin production” – remove s

44 – “leading to economic” – remove therefore

54 – “HAB” – remove s

57 – “for better monitoring” – remove a

61 – “information is still” – add is

63 – “HAB” – remove s

66 – “This lack of data…..making processes and” – change luck to lack, add es

74 – “fishing area closures…… only covers closures” – remove s, add s

75 – “threshold exceedances and reflect the real risk” – remove s, remove then

76 – “valuable insight” – remove s

77 – “HAB” – remove s

80 – “HAB” – remove s

84 – “from an algorightm which calculates the” – change ‘on the bases of’ to ‘from’, add s

85 – “built based” – change ‘ing’ to ‘ed’

89 – “were created” – change ‘was’ to ‘were’

90 – “about phycotoxin thresholds” – remove s

93 – “phycotoxin monitoring” – remove s

99 – “beyond the occurrence of’ – remove of and simply

105 – “HAB” – remove s

128 – What is the “4” in reference to?  Why is it there?

142 – Is “tow” the correct word here?  Doesn’t really make sense

148 – “areas shown by” – change ‘ing’ to ‘n’

149 – “Closure data” – remove s

158 – “The grid lines” – change ‘This’ to ‘The’

176 – “Data on phycotoxin” – remove s

186 – “were filtered” – change ‘was’ to ‘were’

194-195 – First sentence in section 3.3 doesn’t make sense – not sure what you’re trying to say here, I think it reads fine if you remove it entirely.

197 – “consists of a binary” – change ‘in’ to ‘of’

201 – “case of the fishing” – add the

208 – “algorithm calculates” – add s

211 – “the phycotoxin tests” – remove s

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript “Dataset for estimated closures of scallop (Pecten maximus) production areas due to phycotoxins contamination along the French coasts of the eastern English

Channel” by Chenouf et al. is a good contribution to Data. Such kind of datasets are useful for the community. I suggest accepting the paper after addressing the following comments,

(1) I suggest a native English speaker read the manuscript as there are grammatical errors and typos such as on line 142, “tow variables”.

(2) The authors should also add a section introducing which new datasets should be collected to add to the utility of the existing dataset.

(3) The authors should add in the new section mentioned above (2), the type of numerical models (or impact models) which can be utilized or the applicability of such data for public service.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx