Niphargus carolinensis sp. nov. (Amphipoda: Niphargidae), an Endemic Species in the Northern Distribution Area of the Genus
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors and Editor,
I read the manuscript with an interest. There are three major suggestions:
- reorient pereopod V, and correct reporting of setae on basis
- from Discussion, I strongly recommend omission of section related to intraspecific variation. In your study, you did not adequatly study it (3 individuals sequenced, 2 measured), hence conclusions are not supported by data.
- from Discussion, omit part related to age estimation. As long there is no appropriate and thoroughly calculated and calibrated phylogeny, the entire section is speculative.
I attached an annotated pdf with several minor comments.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewers, we thank you for the time spent reading and correcting the manuscript. We appreciate this positive evaluation of our work. Your comments were very helpful and we are convinced that they improve the quality of the paper.
The English was checked and corrected by Serban Sarbu, an expert in this field. As Serban lives in the US the manuscript was completely moved to American English.
We are sending the corrected version as well as a version in correction mode. The lines in the list below refers to the original summitted version/the corrected version.
reviewer 1 (Cene Fiser)
Pereopod V reoriented.
intraspecific variation re-formulated and softened.
chapter "age" deleted.
line 1st submission/line reviewed
21/21 changed.
29/29 changed.
34/35 moved
43/46 changed.
118/132 changed.
119/135 There were several comments from reviewers that data were missing or not clear. We have added tab. 1 as completely new with all data connected to the specimens.
158/200 added.
159/202 added.
176/220 deleted.
188/227 Thank you, fig. is new now with new root and everything fits. all comments of wrongly set N. irlandicus is deleted.
196/236 changed.
200/245 changed.
207/253 changed.
254/297 changed.
258/298 added.
302/343 changed.
326/367 newly oriented.
329/370 deleted.
339/380 corrected.
347/387 nothing to change.
395/435 re-formulated.
401/441 Re-formulated.
405/445 re-forulated.
408/446 deleted.
411/448 deleted.
417/452 reformulated, hoping it is clearer now.
419/454 Your comment is exactly what we intended to say, hoping it is clearer now.
421/457 re-formulated and added to methods.
423/459 see chapter 2.3. In 2.3 it is explained why we have added boulangei and irlandicus. We could leave our of course the sentence in 435/436, but in this case, the 2.3 stands alone without explanation.
428/468 done
433/473 added
442/496 I fully understand your requirements: I failed with geology. It is surely not a stone type that I as a semi-geologist can identify (sandstone, limestone, volcanic). It is a sediment type. I could not find anything about the geology in publications on the mine, probably caused by a complex geneses of the deposit. The geologic map of NRW does not have sufficient resolution.
No, I have not measured any chemistry, just hardness and temperature.
444/498 added on line 61.
449/503 deleted.
450 /504 re-formulated.
454/508 re-formulated.
477/530 Your comment is what we intended to say. Hopefully it is clearer now.
480/536 I softened the sentence a bit.
484/539 deleted.
489/544 it is hopefully clearer now.
495/549 deleted
502/549 deleted
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe submitted manuscript is very well written and illustrated. The new taxon presented is very well described and discussed, not only morphologically, but also in terms of molecular markers. Additionally, discussions regarding ecology, endemism, variability and age of the split enrich the submitted manuscript.
There are a few corrections that I feel need to be made before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. I made the comments directly in the attached PDF file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewers, we thank you for the time spent reading and correcting the manuscript. We appreciate this positive evaluation of our work. Your comments were very helpful and we are convinced that they improve the quality of the paper.
The English was checked and corrected by Serban Sarbu, an expert in this field. As Serban lives in the US the manuscript was completely moved to American English.
We are sending the corrected version as well as a version in correction mode. The lines in the list below refers to the original summitted version/the corrected version.
Reviewer 2 (Usuario)
line 1st submission/line reviewed
37/38 added
64/72 added
224/266 I have changed to decimal -Version of coordinates.
541/584 Thank you for correcting. Surprisingly, it is fully correct in my Zotero. Zotero translated it wrongly into the manuscript and I overlooked it.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI find the paper really nice, especially the morphology part. I would encourage some changes to the paper to make it clear and understandable. Please, check my comments in the review folder.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The language can be improved. I would suggest consulting with someone who knows English really well to improve the readability. Please, check my comments in the review folder. There you will find some suggestions for improvement, but might not be all that can be done.
Author Response
Dear reviewers, we thank you for the time spent reading and correcting the manuscript. We appreciate this positive evaluation of our work. Your comments were very helpful and we are convinced that they improve the quality of the paper.
The English was checked and corrected by Serban Sarbu, an expert in this field. As Serban lives in the US the manuscript was completely moved to American English.
We are sending the corrected version as well as a version in correction mode. The lines in the list below refers to the original summitted version/the corrected version.
reviewer 3
line 1st submission/line reviewed
L 7: Language not clear; "... studied in the examined species...". Phylogenetic markers are generally present across species, so they do not belong to this species. You are probably talking about haplotypes or detected sequences.
Thank you, fully right. Changed.
L18/18: "... in a radius..."
Changed.
L20/19: "... small- to medium-sized..." + language in the rest of the sentence.
Changed.
L21/22: "... of the genus Niphargus..."
Changed.
L22/23: I would suggest to adjust the final sentence, as it is extremely general.
Changed.
L29/29: Individual rich? Would suggest to find a better term or avoid.
Changed.
L41/44: Please define the search area concreter.
done
Line 46/48: Please, make the description more simple - how many caves were studied in total, how many finds were detected (individuals) and how many individuals were studied for this study (not only from NRW).
Actually, we prefer to leave this sentence as it is: There is no really "this study"; it is more or less ongoing, not a clearly fixed project.
L52, 53,58,59758ff: Language - adjust.
done. Language of all the text was corrected by Serban. Shoul now be a clear American English.
L54,136/60: which new species - you are talking about 135 specimens before. How many were found here?
we added a new table 1 with all findings
L52-63/58: A lot of redundant information or it should be connected to the previous paragraph better. I would to add a chapter on "Sampling site".
done
Fig. 1: A loit of information on one image. I would suggest to adjust the small frames and show the polygons of species distributions. Many dotts on the Germany image are not needed.
Polygons of 17 species seems nearly impossible. And especially, several of aquilex species are still not published.
We adobted the map: added "North" and Lat and Lon
L71/81: Describe the baits more precise.
done
L75/87: Adjust language.
done
L80/92: What are covered areas? Please adjust.
We made it clearer
L85/99: "... were found."
done
L88/101: Please adjust the sentence. It is not clear, whether the samples were pooled and which individuals out of many collected individuals were analyzed.
Fully correct, several information missing. We left the sentence as it is, added a new table (now tab. 1) with all information on all singe samples, and simplified the rest of the paragraph.
How were the samples stored (should be written in the previous paragraph…)?
now in table 1
L93/106: It sounds like only 1 PCR was done. Please write an overview first – what type of amplifications were performed and then continue with specifics.
This is now also clear with tab. 1
L95/108: Instead of ratios, the concentrations should be listed
added
L97/116: Which concentrations – but if it was not measured, it should be written.
added
L98125: What is a Qiagen Mix?
corrected
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for submitted edits. I would like to point out that I find this paper very nice and also a really important contribution to biodiversity research!
There are two minor things I still would like you to pay attention to and possibly adjust:
1. Labeling of titels is not correct (twice 2.1)
2. Fig. 1 is not really clear. The box on the right side is not the most informative- there should be some terrain background in the boxes.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you for reviewing again.
- We corrected it.
- We added terrain background to all three maps.
Dear editor,
we already added Genbank numbers for COI and 28S. Seems there is some difficulty with ITS. At least we have not received the number and must add it in next round.
Best regards
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
