Assessing the Effects of Physical Barriers and Hypoxia on Red Drum Movement Patterns to Develop More Effective Management Strategies
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
All my comments are in the pdf attached.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Assessing the Effects of Physical Barriers and Hypoxia on Red Drum Movement Patterns to Develop More Effective Management Strategies
N°: fishes- 2237929 by Baker et al.
The study explores how barriers to dispersal, specifically bollards restricting access to culverts, can impact the movement of red drum Sciaenops ocellatus, and how movement and habitat use can change as water quality deteriorates during a hypoxic event. It uses acoustic telemetry to track red drum movement patterns within the Integrate-Transfer-Launch (ITL) complex and impoundments located in the northern Banana River along the central east coast of Florida. The paper covers an interesting issue and is informative on impacts of man-made barriers and hypoxia to fish movement (interruption of fish migration and dispersal, hinders the ability to avoid deadly water conditions). However, this study still needed some improvements on the aspects listed in the comments below before any acceptance.
Authors should read the MDPI guide for authors to put the paper in journal format.
Similarly, the citation of authors in the text and in the reference list does not conform to the style of the MDPI journal.
Please italicize all scientific names used in the text (e.g. see L91; L141-142).
L92 I suggest to replace "project" by "study".
L90-97 Please clearly mention the specific objectives of the study for greater clarity and understanding of the manuscript.
L98-135 Please move this section which is an integral part of Materials and Methods and renumber it as sub-chapter 2.1. Subchapters should be italicized.
Please do not write figure captions in italics. (see figs1 to 6).
L171-172 Battery life of transmitters should be mentioned here.
L209-213; l240-271; l284-286 These are statistical analyses. I suggest adding a "Statistical Analysis" sub-chapter in the Materials and Methods, in which all statistical tests used in the study will be mentioned.
L 300 Please improve the quality of the figures (figs 3-6).
The tables should also be improved and presented in the standard format of scientific papers.
L322-331 I suggest that the authors clearly present the record of detection and loss of tagged individuals observed during their study.
L374-377 Fig. 6A should clearly indicate the trend resulting from these statistical analyses, but we are disappointed not to be able to follow it. Please improve it.
L378 Please check if "Fish rate of movement" is the correct term here.
L378-380 Please associate the results of statistical tests to the Figs to better understand the influence of Dissolved Oxygen class on the parameters analysed.
L431-435 However, the relationship between temperature and dissolved oxygen is missing from the results. Can we associate dissolved oxygen classes with observed temperature thresholds?
L383-533 As mentioned above, please conform the citation of authors to the requirements of the journal.
L484-495 Please propose solutions based on your results that improve the passage and well-being of migrating fish. L503-506 These implications of your study appear too late and yet they should constitute the main part of this sub-chapter. L509-533 These should be summarized or shortened.
In Appendix Please provide figure of mean temperature values.
L563-735 Please consult the MDPI guide for author reference list.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
GENERAL COMMENTS
The manuscript focuses on a issue of increasing interest, related to the effects of barriers and hypoxia on fish movements and habitat use. My major concern of this manuscript is that it is too local, too descriptive with hardly any key-messages for readers from other contexts. All the figures (including those of the appendices) are too poor and need replacement, they seemed to be taken from a report or other paper document. I believe innovation is also low here: authors are testing if bollards are passable by fish, but it seems quite obvious that any fish larger than the bollard spacing will not be able to pass. It would be much more interesting to assess how connectivity is affected according to different DO concentrations (i.e. those that authors studied, anoxia, hypoxia and normoxia), and I believe this should be the away, besides making the document more objective (less descriptive), while expanding and discussing the findings to other context, rather than this singular area.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS
L81 – I would not call fish ladders as physical barriers. Fish barriers are indeed constructed at physical barriers such as weirs and dams, to improve connectivity for fish.
L84 and throughout the manuscript – Scientific names in italic.
L98 – Introduction should end at L97. This section should be called 2. Study area
Figure 1 – This map presents very low quality, with small letters being hardly seen. An improved version should be provided. Indication of the 2 impoundments should be provided.
L112 – mean water depth?
L118 – Clearly more details should be given about this species, since it is key for the study. Family? Native species? Details about its ecology (e.g. reproduction, feeding, migratory?), conservation status, etc. What is the typical fish size range? This is important according to what is said on L133-135.
Figure 2B- The B does not appear on the image.
L202 – provide units for variables. Same on L206-207
L267 – How was moon phase and mean wind speed assessed?
L298 – please provide scientific names of species upon their first citation in the text.
Figure 3 – Very poor quality, please provide a better quality image. Which is A and B? There is no indication. The caption on the upper right corner of the upper graph lacks any values. What’s the point of presenting both horizontal lines? You already referred to the limits in the text.
L305-306 – You previously referred (and Figure 1 shows) that there were only two impoundments, not you refer 3.
L303-306 – Please provide values for these variable, e.g. mean+-SD.
L319 – What was the basis for this threshold (i.e. 13 cm)? Provide a reference. What about “equal to, =”, to which of the ones belong?
Table 1 – Provide contours for the table.
L328 – “Data suggest” – could you provide details?
L333- 335 – This is methodology and should be moved to the appropriate section.
L333- 354- This is too vague, and should be better seen (with values) on a table.
Figure 5 and 6 + figures in appendix – Same problems as the previous ones (low quality).
“Figure 6. Fish movement was reduced in periods of anoxia. Figure 6A:”. Please refer what the graph shows. Figure 6 is duplicated on the same line.
L387-388 – But where is this result shown? What was the proportion of exclusion?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments in the attached pdf file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I checked the revised version of the study N°: fishes- 2237929 by Baker et al., which has been considerably improved. I am generally satisfied with the amendments made by the authors who have adequately addressed all my previous comments. I must congratulate the authors for the effort done in reviewing the manuscript.
In my opinion, this manuscript requires MINOR revision before publication in Fishes.
The following minor feedback is listed below:
L105 I couldn't find Figure 1. See also L128 I couldn't find Figure 2.
L271-272 The dissolved oxygen concentration figure overlaps the legend. The quality of this figure is poor.
L311-313What does "NI Small 31(2n = 10)" mean in Table 1? Please check.
L269 I couldn't find Figure 3A
Please improve the quality of all figures. Please also number them correctly in the main text and captions.
An effort has been made to cite authors in the text and should also be provided to list authors in the list of references. For this, please consult the MDPI guide for citing authors in the reference list.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I am astonished with the lack of rigour by the authors on this review. I did not review the text, only examined the manuscript as whole, I came across this:
L105 - There is no figure 1!! The first figure in the manuscript is figure 3.
L128 – There is no figure 2!!!
There is a figure in page 7 with no indication on its number. This figure is hiding part of the text under! There is no caption to this figure and it is of poor quality.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Please find mine comments in the document attached
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
