Ecological Half-Life of ¹³⁷Cs in Fish

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This was a very enjoyable read!  It was well prepared with an extensive literature review. The authors report a survey of several freshwater fish species from a variety of trophic levels that were effected by radioactive cesium from the 1986 chornobyl disaster. The span of the survey is  from 1986 to 2014.  The results indicate that RN is cleared at a faster rate from more heavily contaminated sites.  There is a tropical dependence with predators RN le els occurring later.  Regardless of mechanism, the fish species studied are resilient.

The authors are encouraged to consider more generalized population responses to stress.  One being the reduction in time to sexual maturity when populations are reduced.

 

 

 

 

levels from 1986 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Dear Editor and MDPI-Ecologies Team,

Thank you very much for considering our manuscript (ecologies-2453955) entitled “Ecological Half-Life of ¹³⁷Cs in Fish”. We sincerely thank the editor and all reviewers for their valuable feedback. According to the reviewers’ comments, we have modified our manuscript. The manuscript has been greatly improved due to the editor and reviewers’ efforts. Our point-by-point actions and replies to the referees’ comments are attached as separate pdf documents. We would be very grateful if the revised manuscript could be considered for publication in Ecologies.

Sincerely yours,

Nataliia ZARUBINA & Vladislav SEMAK

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is interesting and deals with environmentally important problems; however contains substantial errors and should be rebuilt.

The ecological half-life is the time required for the radionuclide to decrease in the environment. In the case of fish we can talk about effective half-life, based on the biological and physical half-life. I know there are many publications but toxicology is straight about this.

p3 l146 - 'radiocesium half-life in fish' - is it physical or biological half-life?; further Teco is given what suggests 'ecological'. This should be clarified. In the case of organisms, we can talk about biological, effective in the case of radionuclides, but not ecological.

This is not only a semantic problem. All information should be given clear and unambiguous. The readers need a clear view, and can not guess what the authors thought.

The maps should be better quality. The graphs are very good.

There are many references in Russian or Ukrainian, in my opinion, too many - there is no possibility to verify the papers. The authors used so-called 'Ukrainian' name of Chernobyl as Chornobyl, but in older papers in Ukrainian they used Chernobyl. Had Chernobyl a different name previously? Why was not it used in the papers in Ukrainian?

The Ukrainian names for fish species are unnecessary.

I was not able to check plagiarism.

English should be polished - there are some hard-to-understand sentences; some seem to be cut, like missing some words. Too many shortcuts.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Dear Editor and MDPI-Ecologies Team,

Thank you very much for considering our manuscript (ecologies-2453955) entitled “Ecological Half-Life of ¹³⁷Cs in Fish”. We sincerely thank the editor and all reviewers for their valuable feedback. According to the reviewers’ comments, we have modified our manuscript. The manuscript has been greatly improved due to the editor and reviewers’ efforts. Our point-by-point actions and replies to the referees’ comments are attached as separate pdf documents. We would be very grateful if the revised manuscript could be considered for publication in Ecologies.

Sincerely yours,

Nataliia ZARUBINA & Vladislav SEMAK

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript deals with an interesting topic with changes in cesium in fish living in polluted areas over time. I have only some comments or questions:

-          Why did you choose these fish species?

-          The sample preparation process is not too detailed, please complete it with the important details.

-          Fig 2 the y axis labels are missing

 

-          Do you have any information on how old the fish were? Can the Cs content be influenced by the age of the fish? Was there any investigation for this before? If not, what do you think about it?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Dear Editor and MDPI-Ecologies Team,

Thank you very much for considering our manuscript (ecologies-2453955) entitled “Ecological Half-Life of ¹³⁷Cs in Fish”. We sincerely thank the editor and all reviewers for their valuable feedback. According to the reviewers’ comments, we have modified our manuscript. The manuscript has been greatly improved due to the editor and reviewers’ efforts. Our point-by-point actions and replies to the referees’ comments are attached as separate pdf documents. We would be very grateful if the revised manuscript could be considered for publication in Ecologies.

Sincerely yours,

Nataliia ZARUBINA & Vladislav SEMAK

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

In the manuscript ID ecologies-2453955 the content of 137Cs in 7 species of fish in the cooling-pond of the Chornobyl NPP (CP) and the Kaniv Reservoir (KR) was investigated. The decline of 137Cs specific activity in fish exhibits various patterns. Ecological half-life (Teco) was determined for all studied species.

In general, I think it is worthy of publishing. However, there are a number of items worth considering to ensure 1) a comprehensive review of existing/alternative approaches, 2) detailed description of the methodology, and 3) pointing out the limitations with this approach and where future work should concentrate.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Dear Editor and MDPI-Ecologies Team,

Thank you very much for considering our manuscript (ecologies-2453955) entitled “Ecological Half-Life of ¹³⁷Cs in Fish”. We sincerely thank the editor and all reviewers for their valuable feedback. According to the reviewers’ comments, we have modified our manuscript. The manuscript has been greatly improved due to the editor and reviewers’ efforts. Our point-by-point actions and replies to the referees’ comments are attached as separate pdf documents. We would be very grateful if the revised manuscript could be considered for publication in Ecologies.

Sincerely yours,

Nataliia ZARUBINA & Vladislav SEMAK

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

After reading the responses, I would like to suggest accepting the paper.