Reproduction of Hatchery-Reared Pike-Perch (Sander lucioperca) Fed Diet with Low-Marine-Ingredients: Role of Dietary Fatty Acids
, Sylvain Milla 3, Zsuzsanna J. Sándor 1,*, Zsuzsanna Brlás-Molnár 1, László Ardó 1, Emese Bekefi 1 and Uroš Ljubobratović 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
L117 diets’？ TC？
L260 (n =number of fish).？
L353 check “.,”
Author Response
Point 1: L117 diets’？ TC？
Response 1: Thank you for noticing. We corrected this now, using only gross energy (GE) (LINE 136). in the version with “track changes” and the rest of the replies also refer to this version of the manuscript).
Point2: L260 (n =number of fish).？
Response 2: Thank you, we corrected this now by deleting parenthesis.
Point 3. L353 check “.,”
Response 3: Thank you. We corrected this now.
Reviewer 2 Report
Major comments
The paper entitled ” Exploring the Factors Affecting Reproduction in Hatchery-2 Reared Pike-Perch: Insights into Diet and Fish Physiology” aimed to ”evaluate the reproductive potential of hatchery-reared (F1) pike-perch broodstock, fed commercial diet with low level of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (Lc-17 PUFA), and wild (F0) pike-perch broodstock, fed forage fish”.
Reviewer consider that here we have 2 different factors: broodstock origin and feed type. Therefore, the design needed here is a 2x2 factorial. The authors compare only 2 groups of totally different fish, held in different conditions and fed different diet.
Diets used here are so different (not only from the perspective of fatty acid composition but also regarding other macro and micronutrients) that the analysis of the influence of the FA profile on the reproduction performance is not enough and is misleading. Moreover, the F1 fish has different metabolic patterns comparing with wild fish as authors demonstrated previously. Therefore, the authors should explain the reasons and drawbacks behind the experimental design.
The objective of the present study is not clear.
The conclusions are not fully sustained by the results presented here!
Minor comments
The scientific name of the pike perch should appear at least in the beginning of the draft.
The authors should decide if Pike-perch or pikeperch is used everywhere in the manuscript.
Table 1: n=10 means analyzed aliquots or replicates? Fopr COM diet n=2 is for analyzed aliquots. The authors should correlate the text with table information (see line 100).
Line 113: What RRF means?
Line 117: Define TC
Line 126. The age of the fish should be mentioned.
Line 177: space before formula
Line 232-243: The used statistical analysis are mixed with presentation of other indexes. These should be presented in different sub-chapters
Chapter 3.3. Table 6 should be presented first.
Line 305 : Erase %
154: Why six males were injected but only 2 were used for each group (line 168).
Author Response
Please see in the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Peter et al. have submitted a paper titled exploring the factors affecting reproduction in hatchery-reared Pike-Perch: insights into diet and fish physiology. The manuscript is well written and organized indicating that potential effects of fish physiology (such as stress response) and diets on oocyte quality and fish reproductive performance. I have no major comments on the manuscript. However, providing some of summary figures will be helpful to understand.
Author Response
Point 1: Peter et al. have submitted a paper titled exploring the factors affecting reproduction in hatchery-reared Pike-Perch: insights into diet and fish physiology. The manuscript is well written and organized indicating that potential effects of fish physiology (such as stress response) and diets on oocyte quality and fish reproductive performance. I have no major comments on the manuscript. However, providing some of summary figures will be helpful to understand
Response 1: Dear Reviewer, we are indeed grateful for your time invested in evaluation of our manuscript and grately glad you found our paper acceptable in the present form. We made an effort to meet your requirement in a form of improved summary figure.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors improved the manuscript and addressed most of the raised minor issues. However, the major comment regarding the experimental design and the comparison of the two groups remains unsolved. Of course, the authors justified the reasons behind using groups and feeding strategies but the justification does not cover the scientific purpose and methodological minimal exigence behind it.
The authors stated that, in a previous study, the comparisons between the wild breeders and breeders under the domestication fed high quality feeds rich in marine ingredients revealed impeded reproduction success of both groups. Although in the present study the comparison is between groups of wild breeders receiving natural food and aquaculture breeders receiving commercial feed having low levels of marine ingredients, the conclusion is:.
”This research has shown that poor reproductive performance and low ARA accumulation in the oocytes of hatchery-reared pike-perch is not significantly affected by the levels of DHA and EPA in broodstock’ diet, since the utilization of diet with reduced DHA and EPA levels, resulted in similar reproductive performance as broodstock fed high-quality diet with significant inclusion of DHA and EPA rich ingredients.” Therefore are compared results obtained in the present paper with previous results (obtained on different groups of fish)?
In the reviewer's opinion, the methodological flaws are quite significant leading to speculative conclusions.
Author Response
Please see in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors gave satisfactory explainaytions for the approch used in the experimental design and in the presentation of the results.
