The Present Genetic Structure of Vendace (Coregonus albula (L.)): Populations in Latvian Lakes as a Result of Its Management and Conservation^†

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, I have found "The present genetic structure of vendace (Coregonus albula (L.))populations in Latvian Lakes as response to its translocations in the past" to be a very interesting study but the abstract has dificult to read due to its english. Please check my suggestions in the text bellow. 

"The European vendace (Coregonus albula (L.)) is often treated as one of the glacial relicts of the animal world, and it is a widespread species in the waters of the Holarctic. Together with whitefish and salmonid, vendace belongs to the list of economically valuable fish species. In Latvian lakes its share in the fishery is not big, being insignificant and unstable. The objectives of this study were to reveal the genetic structure and variability of the vendace gene pool in Latvian Lakes and to evaluate the influence of vendace translocations on population flourishing and following a decline. The present research used nine microsatellite markers to study vendace populations from nine Latvian Lakes. The indices of genetic variation: number and frequency of alleles at a locus, occurrence of private alleles, observed and expected heterozygosity levels, the richness of alleles and private alleles were determined. Additionally, the genetic structure and differentiation of the populations were accessed. Investigated vendace populations have a high level of expected heterozygosity, with a high mean allelic richness and private allelic richness in Lake Riču suggesting that this vendace population is indigenous. Three clustering methods reveal similar grouping into three genetic groups. At the present time, the vendace populations of investigated Latvian lakes seems to be a “mixture” of several populations and therefore may not be fully indigenous. The level of genetic variability differs among the studied populations. Such differences may be caused by the consequences of the translocations and genetic drift, which influence the allele frequencies in different ways and could be driven by some environmental factors. The results of the study allow the acceptance of each of the studied populations as a different management unit and prompts for the development of an optimal strategy for their effective conservation and management."

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

We are very grateful to you for your careful reading of our abstract.

Especially grateful for the correction of our English. Indeed, the corrections significantly improved the perception of the abstracts.

We would very much like to replace two words in the title of the abstract. namely:

The present genetic structure of vendace (Coregonus albula (L.) populations in Latvian Lakes as response to its translocations in the past    a result of its management and conservation

We hope that this title more accurately reflects the essence of this publication

Author Response File: Author Response.docx