Effects of Climate Variability on Two Commercial Tuna Species Abundance in the Indian Ocean

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is very important, first of all, in nature management for the assessment and forecasting of tuna catches in the Indian Ocean. In general, it is made at a good methodological level, has good illustrations and tables. The drawbacks, in my opinion, are very minor.
Remarks
1. In the section 2 Materials and Methods, Figure 1 is not based on this study, but was taken from literature sources [24] and [25], in which maps of the stratification of these two tuna species were published. Since the maps are taken from previously published articles of another authors, references should be made in the title: Figure 1. Regional stratification of bigeye tuna (a) and yellowfin tuna (b) in the Indian Ocean [24, 25].
2. I understand that the authors use generally accepted indexes, including Standardized CPUE, but it is desirable to give the formula used to calculate this index.
3. L146-150, Headline: ”Table 1. Results including estimate, std. error, t value, p-value, adjusted R-squared, which derived from the linear regression analyses of bigeye tuna and yellowfin tuna for the whole Indian Ocean...”, but in this table I see estimate, std. error, p-value, adjusted R-squared; but where are t value data?
4. not only in the table, but also in discussion the statistical significance of differences, p appears everywhere, and there are no specific t-test values based on which p was calculated. For example, L139-140 ...DMI had a significant effect only on yellowfin tuna (p-value equals 0.041 < 0.05). We certainly see that 0.041 is less than 0.05, but the t-test value is not specified. The same in the lines L144, L161, L166 etc.
5. there are minor typos, for example, there are no subsections in section 3 Results, so the headline “Subsection 3.1”, L133, should be removed. Typo in L134, the year is “20 06” instead of “2006".
The authors rightly point out that this is a preliminary study that needs clarification and refining, but at this stage the study is of great interest, I recommend it for publication and wish the authors good luck in further research.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have implemented all the suggested changes recommended in the first revision in this new manuscript version, adequately arguing the issues raised and adding the required Supplementary Material. As a result, the quality of the manuscript has improved enough. Nevertheless, I observed some typos that must be corrected.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of typographical or formatting errors. However, I strongly recommend reviewing the main text and references in detail because there may be a few more.

Line 23: Please change "correctly" to "correlated".

Lines 121-126: Please review the correspondence between the main text and Figure 1b:

The spatial structure of yellowfin tuna comprises of four regions (Figure1b): western tropical region (R1y), the eastern tropical region (R3y OR R4y?), the southern area divided into the southwestern area (R2y), and the southeastern area (R4y OR R3y?) [26].

Line 199: Figure 4 are cited before than Figure 3 in the main text.First, in this paragraph you could write about correlation with bigeye tuna (Figure 3a) and after yellowfin tuna (if you do not want to change the plot order).

Lines 222,226,228: Please change "effects" to "correlations". This is mandatory for me.

Line 237: I strongly recommend modify the subsection title. Softened the affirmation (due to this is a preliminary research): "The reasons why IOD could affect the tunas"

Lines 247,258: Please change "significant effect" to "significant correlation".

Lines 271-272: "C. capillata" must be in italics.

Line 299: The "p" should be in italics to maintain typographical consistency with the rest of the text, "p-value".

Line 301: Lan’s study was not made uniquely by Lan. Please change this to "In Lan et al."

Line 303: Please add an space character. Change "Figure1" to Figure 1".

Line 319:  Please do not use the short forms of negatives in the main text.

Line 349: If you agree I consider recommendable to add the SEAPODYM. Something like this: "Spatial Ecosystem And Populations Dynamics Model (SEAPODYM; https://www.spc.int/ofp/seapodym/)".

Line 361: Please change "were" to "seem".

Line 362: Please change "significantly negative effect" to "significantly negative correlation".

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf