A Rarely Reported Crustacean Species, Rissoides pallidus (Giesbrecht, 1910) (Stomatopoda, Squillidae), Caught in the Strait of Sicily Waters (Central Mediterranean Sea)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well written, easy to understand and highlights the importance of this species in an area of the Mediterranean of interest for fishing. The communication can be accepted in the present form as I have no remarks to make.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your kind comments and for accepting the quality of our work. In order to further strengthen the quality, we have added new pictures of specimens, new scheme and we improved the table of records

Reviewer 2 Report

The work needs major revision for several reasons:

- I suggest that the authors consult and cite these works:

https://www.lifewatchitaly.eu/iniziative/checklist-fauna-italia-it/checklist-table/

Froglia C., 2021. Crustacea Malacostraca Stomatopoda. In: Bologna M.A., Zapparoli M., Oliverio M., Minelli A., Bonato L., Cianferoni F., Stoch F. (eds.), Checklist of the Italian Fauna. Version 1.0. Last update: 2021-05-31.

Innocenti G., 2006. Collections of the Natural History Museum, Zoological Section "La Specola" of the University of Florence. XXIV. Crustacea, class Malacostraca, order Stomatopoda. ATTI DELLA SOCIETÀ TOSCANA DI SCIENZE NATURALI RESIDENTE IN PISA. MEMORIE. SERIE B, 113, 13-18. available here: www.stsn.it

The whole text could be shortened, as it deals with the finding of two female specimens, some parts are not necessary. The authors could improve the table by deciding on a criterion, e.g. temporal, or geographical, to list the information so far known about the species.

I have added comments and corrections directly in the attached file.

I am available for a re-reading of the text once it is made more streamlined.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The English language needs revision, the sentences are not clear and straightforward and there are also errors in the use of terms and sentence construction.

Author Response

I suggest that the authors consult and cite these works: […]

Reply: Thank you for your kind comment. Those works have been added to the text or the table. Further, we added the work of Massi et al. 1995 about the record of 10 specimens in the Ligurian Sea whereas incorrect records have been removed.

The whole text could be shortened, as it deals with the finding of two female specimens, some parts are not necessary. The authors could improve the table by deciding on a criterion, e.g. temporal, or geographical, to list the information so far known about the species.

Reply: Thank you for your kind comment. The text has been shortened by removing redundant or not necessary parts as suggested in the PDF file. The table has been improved following both the geographical and temporal criterion.

Line 30: what do you mean with this term?

Reply: Thank you for your kind comment. We mean the amount of organic material available to support the consumers (herbivores and carnivores) of the sea. The interaction of Atlantic Ionian Stream (AIS) with the complex topography of the Strait of Sicily and wind-driven currents results in a large cyclonic vortex, called Adventure Bank Vortex (ABV), which implies an enrichment of waters due to a stable upwelling that increases the marine productivity.

Line 141 How can it be improved?

Reply: Thank you for your comment. That sentence has been corrected, we meant that improving the communication between fishers and researchers could improve the records about uncommon/rare species in order to get a better mapping of the distribution of this species.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

A critical detail missing for such a rare find is the deposition of specimens in a museum collection. Like open data, open knowledge of where other researchers can examine these individuals is critical for rare species research.

Reply: Thank you for your comment. R. pallidus specimens of this study are deposited in the collection of our Institute (CNR-IRBIM of Mazara del Vallo) and examination of individuals is available at request.

Lastly, given the results, the discussion is quite wordy and would benefit from substantial editing to remove redundancy.

Reply: Thank you for your comment. The discussion has been shortened and redundancy has been removed.

Line 30: The biodiversity/productivity hotspot sentence needs to be clarified. The habitat type within erodible sediments is clear, but not how this links to biodiversity or exploitable resources. i.e., are you talking about fishing for the fleet mentioned or mining ships? How does this statement link to mantis shrimp ecology?

Reply: As for the biodiversity/productivity hotspot, we mean the amount of organic material available to support the consumers (herbivores and carnivores) of the sea. The interaction of Atlantic Ionian Stream (AIS) with the complex topography of the Strait of Sicily and wind-driven currents results in a large cyclonic vortex, called Adventure Bank Vortex (ABV), which implies an enrichment of waters due to a stable upwelling that increases the marine productivity. We are talking about fishing fleet. That is a sentence to introduce and describe the Strait of Sicily, where our specimens have been caught.

Lines 31-34: Many of these statements need to be revised as they are redundant. There is a dearth of information on the biology of mantis shrimp in the region, as there is no directed fishery for this group.

Reply: Those statements have been revised/removed.

Lines 42-45: [….] Stating why this natural history note is novel to the literature is a critical missing statement in the introduction.

Reply: A sentence has been added in the introduction (line 46).

Line 49: You have space for more details rather than forcing the reader to look at your citations. What is the target taxa of the trawl survey? What specific trawling equipment allowed this bycatch discovery? Is the species mentioned in the discussion in line 118 the targeted fishery?

Reply: Thank you for your comment. The information about target species of the trawl survey and the equipment have been added in lines 57-59.

Line 58: What taxonomic literature was used to identify these specimens?

Reply: The literature below has been used to identify the species.

Lewinsohn, Ch.; Manning, R.B. Stomatopod Crustacea from the Eastern Mediterranean. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology: Washington, USA, 1980; pp. 22.

Manning, R.B. A monograph of the West African Stomatopod Crustacea. Atlantide Report, 1977, 12, 25–181.

Manning, R. B., & Froglia, C. (1979). Description of a new Allosquilla with notes on other Adriatic stomatopod Crustacea. Quaderni del Laboratorio di tecnologia della pesca, 2(4), 177-190.

Given this species' rarity, can you comment on why no genetic work was done to help validate the species' identity, or were these specimens secondary verified morphologically by someone who is not an author? e.g., DNA barcoding, as this would provide more novelty and resources for eDNA discovery.

Reply: We do not have projects dedicated to the barcoding of the species; we have consulted the literature. Further, some co-authors of this note have a 30-year history of species identification.

This study occurred in the middle of the highlighted range of citation 28, the authors must explain further how the observations here differ from this study specifically.

Reply: The record of citation 28 is not close to the ones of our study. We added a sentence in line 131 -132.

Table 1 should go into supporting information. It would be clearer to take a metanalytic approach as you have already done with your map. Provide graphs (such as a histogram or dot plots) of literature values for depth, weight, and body size and plot color contrasting points for your measurements. This approach would allow the reader to assess the results more quickly. The reported values of depth, weight, and body size do not seem extreme for the literature, so it is not clear what is novel about these measurements. The only value of this paper is your literature summary of the species niche space, which was initiated by finding these specimens. Likewise, highlighting the total number of observations in the literature and the last study to report the species was in 2008. How far away is Sıgacık Bay from this study location?

Reply: Table 1 has been moved into Supplementary materials; Sıgacık Bay (Turkey) is very far away from the Strait of Sicily (Italy); A scatter plot with the relationship between TL and Depth by sex has been added in the result and discussion.

Line 51: I would suggest you add a locator map of the Old World and a more zoomed in map of where you found the shrimp (i.e., Sicily). Just because the Mediterranean is a well-known waterbody does not mean you should not follow clear mapping practices for global readers. Since you highlight lithology as important in the intro, it may help your story if you add geologic details to that zoomed-in map of Sicily if you can access the seabed geology shapefiles.

Reply: The map of record in the Mediterranean Sea has been updated adding other records we missed before and removing those that were not correct; As regards the map with the lithology of the Strait of Sicily, we didn’t mention the lithology in the manuscript. All the information about the “bottom” (supplementary table 1) concerns biocenoses of the Strait of Sicily that are already mentioned in the result and discussion section (specifically, in the areas of present and previous records).

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I ask the authors to review the text and follow my suggestions - just to improve the paper.

I am sorry to appear pedantic, but if they want to do as complete a paper on the species Rissoides pallidus as possible, they should also check the collections of the Italian natural history museums, at least the main ones. I am thinking for example of the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, where Giesbrecht studied. They certainly have data on the species, if only by asking the researchers there.  [see here: http://szn.i.hosei.ac.jp/HTML/prep_list.php?ScientificNameShort=Squilla%20pallida&ScientificNameShortC==]

Otherwise Genoa and Palermo....

I am available to provide the sizes of the Florence NH Museum specimens.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Again, I think the ms still needs the re read by an English mother tongue.

Author Response

I am sorry to appear pedantic, but if they want to do as complete a paper on the species Rissoides pallidus as possible, they should also check the collections of the Italian natural history museums, at least the main ones. I am thinking for example of the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, where Giesbrecht studied. They certainly have data on the species, if only by asking the researchers there.

Reply: Thank you for your comment. Researchers from the Historical Archives of SZN museum told us that the information we requested (TL, locality of the record etc…) are not available. However, they confirmed that those R. pallidus specimens were caught in the Gulf of Naples (we already added them to the map) and identified by Giesbrecht.

I am available to provide the sizes of the Florence NH Museum specimens.

Reply: Thank you very much. We appreciate it; it would be very useful to get other information such as the sizes, depth, and sex of the specimens. 

Again, I think the ms still needs the re read by an English mother tongue.

Reply: The ms was re-read by Dr. COR Okpala who is a native speaker. Now we believe English has improved.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for addressing most of my concerns with the present manuscript. Many sentences are still quite challenging to read, but that is the role of editorial revision rather than content for peer review. Nevertheless, I have three additional comments that should be addressed.

1. Nautical miles are not an appropriate unit of measurement in scientific discourse. Please convert your map scale and any text mentioning Nautical Miles to metric units for distance (e.g., kilometers).
2. While I appreciate the comment internally where the specimens are deposited (CNR-IRBIM of Mazara del Vallo). You need to mention in the methods that these specimens are deposited at this institution, and you should provide a catalog number. Many biodiversity researchers deposit specimens in external institutions to where they are employed, so it is not self-evident where your specimens are located. While catalog numbers are not critical, please state the institution that is the permanent home of these specimens without abbreviating. Using a random depository outside Europe as an example, "The specimens reported herein are deposited in the invertebrate collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa Ontario."
3. Your new Figure 3 needs to clarify what N in the ggplot legend and what size in the text represents (Length, mass, etc.?). Likewise, you do not define TL in the text or refer to your abbreviation female (F). 

 See previous.

Author Response

Please convert your map scale and any text mentioning Nautical Miles to metric units for distance (e.g., kilometers).

Reply: Thank you for your comment. The map scale has been corrected.

You need to mention in the methods that these specimens are deposited at this institution, and you should provide a catalogue number.

Reply: Thank you for your comment. We added a sentence about the deposition of our specimens in materials and methods; However, we can’t provide a catalogue number since our collection has to be catalogued yet.

Your new Figure 3 needs to clarify what N in the ggplot legend and what size in the text represents (Length, mass, etc.?). Likewise, you do not define TL in the text or refer to your abbreviation female (F).

Reply: Thank you for your comment. N has been clarified in the ggplot legend; TL has been already defined in Line 54 of the materials and methods whereas we added the abbreviation for female and male in the caption of the Figure 3.

Line 121: How? can you be more consistent while writing this affirmation?

Reply: Thank you for your comment. The sentence has been completed.

Lastly, the ms was re-read by Dr. COR Okpala who is a native speaker. Now we believe English has improved.