All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.
Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.
Many thanks for improving the English of your manuscript. Thank you for submitting your work to this journal.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by James Reimer, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section, who added "A bit of editing remains, but much better. A missing reference on line 95 of the tracked changes MS Word file as well." #]
Dear Authors,
While, as in the previous round, this paper is scientifically ready to be accepted, the English remains problematic in spots. Please either find a copyediting service or a colleague who can bring the work up to international standards. Failure to do so delays final acceptance.
Thank you very much for improving your manuscript. Although the scientific content of the submission is ready, the paper needs to be edited by a fluent English speaker, familiar with the subject area, or a professional editing service, before it can be accepted.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: The Academic Editor has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at copyediting@peerj.com for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title) #]
It is necessary and important to make minor changes in the manuscript. The results should be rewritten (see comments of reviewer one for more information).
Description of results need to be modified.
(1) Result of behavioral experiment is only qualitative but not quantitative. Number of trials and number of occurrence of feeding behavior should be provided in the manuscript.
(2) Line 178 needs to be rewrite because T-test is not applicable on this data. This case compares 10 pre-test IBIs and a Test-beat (see table 1&2) from an animal. Thus, in table 1 and 2, * denotes that the Test-beat is out of 95% confidence interval calculated using 10 pre-test IBIs.
No comment
Description of results need to be modified.
(1) Result of behavioral experiment is only qualitative but not quantitative. Number of trials and number of occurrence of feeding behavior should be provided in the manuscript.
(2) Line 178 needs to be rewrite because T-test is not applicable on this data. This case compares 10 pre-test IBIs and a Test-beat (see table 1&2) from an animal. Thus, in table 1 and 2, * denotes that the Test-beat is out of 95% confidence interval calculated using 10 pre-test IBIs.
Authors have made the necessary changes on the manuscript.
The experimental design was clearly explained and aligned with the objective of the study.
Findings are well discussed and concluded.
No comment.
Your manuscript has to be deeply improved and modified. The real interest of the study should be included in the introduction in order to make the paper more attractive. Tables 1 and 2 lack details and it is mandatory to include in them the number of samples, mean of the value, and statistic results. More comments have been provided by the reviewers. I invite you to revise and resubmit your manuscript.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review comments are addressed in a rebuttal letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. It is a common mistake to address reviewer questions in the rebuttal letter but not in the revised manuscript. If a reviewer raised a question then your readers will probably have the same question so you should ensure that the manuscript can stand alone without the rebuttal letter. Directions on how to prepare a rebuttal letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/ #]
This manuscript is written in understandable English.
Sufficient back ground is provided.
Article structure and figures are fine.
Table 1 and 2 lack details, number of samples, mean of the value.
Average and standard error of pretest and test should be shown in the table or in a graph.
Behavioral result is qualitative but not quantitative. Number of trials and number of observations of behavior of interest should be provided.
I did not find raw data.
The manuscript is self-contained.
This is an original primary research within Aims and Scopes of PeerJ.
Main research question is simple, "Do dactyl of swimming leg have chemo sensory function in the green mud crab?" and well defined. Since the swimming leg is one of pleopods that had been reported as chemosensory organ and thus, the question is not so novel. However, testing swimming leg in this species is novel.
The experiments were performed rigorously and to a high technical standard. Ethical issue is fine.
Method description is fine.
Quantitative information of behavioral experiments (number of trial and observation and statistical test) are missing.
Main conclusion, "Dactyl of swimming leg has chemo sensory function in the green mud crab." is fine, however, the experiments in this research can not conclude that a part of bodies tested does not have mechano- or chemoreceptor. The part should be rewritten.
The manuscript entitled “Swimming legs are chemosensitive and involved in feeding in the mud crab Scylla paramamosain as determined electrocardiography and behaviourally (#51510)” reports that the dactyls of the swimming legs of the mud crab have chemical sense. This finding is new and supported by the data presented. Electrocardiography is a reliable method when it shows positive response but we can not conclude that “the dactyls of swimming legs and the antennules are not mechanosensitive; the antennae are not chemosensitive based on the result. It is known that the antennule has mechanoreceptors in other decapods (ex. Kamio and Derby 2017). This is partially because electrocardiography is not direct measurement of chemosensory input in chemosensory neurons. It is a recording of changes in heart beat that is caused by input from the central nerve system that integrates multi-sensory inputs. Thus, negative data in electrocardiography does not mean that the crab is not sensing the stimuli. There might be sensory inputs that does not make changes in electrocardiograph. Overall, this manuscript has novel finding but need to correct overstatements. I recommend authors to rationalize the method, electrocardiography, explaining not only its strength but also its weakness. Behavioral result racks quantitative data. Please show data as table or graph. Please show number of crabs showed and did not show the response. I think this manuscript is publishable after revision.
Kamio, M. and C. D. Derby (2017). "Finding food: how marine invertebrates use chemical cues to track and select food." Natural Product Reports 34(5): 514-528.
The study characterises the sensory function of the appendages which is important and fundamental in understanding the feeding behaviour of mud crab. However, there is no clear problem or problem statement that emphasise on the needs or importance to perform this study, that is to determine the sensory function of appendages, hence making the study less interesting, and merely just characterising. It would be interesting to relate the problem of feeding of mud crab in nature or in aquaculture. For example slow eating behaviour of mud crab leads to nutrient leaching of feed that deteriorates water quality, hence reducing feed efficiency and increasing feed cost. By understanding the sensory function and feeding behaviour of mud crab in this study, feeds and feeding of mud crab can be optimized to cater its natural feeding physiology and behaviour. English is acceptable but there are some grammatical/typing errors that needs to be rechecked. Include more literature on the importance of the appendages and its sensitivity in feeding or daily activities. Also elaborate more on the fundamental concept of the methodology used especially on the electrocardiography and sensitivity so that readers have better understanding on the trend of the graph (electrocardiogram). The manuscript also lacks hypothesis in order to justify the results.
Experimental design should be explained in detail especially on the video recording of the feeding behaviour. What kind of feeding behaviour that was analysed? The chronology of procedure for stimulation of crab using touch and chemical is a little confusing. Was the cauterisation of antennules performed after touch stimuli and before chemical stimuli, OR even before the touch stimuli. Please be clear. Authors mentioned that all procedures were conducted according to the approved ethical standards, but was the cauterisation performed without any anaesthetic? Anatomy of mud crab showing the appendages will be helpful. At the current state of the manuscript, the only knowledge gap is that this study was conducted in some other crustacean species but has not been performed in S. paramamosain. As mentioned in the basic reporting, there is no clear problem or problem statement of the study, therefore the contribution towards filling the knowledge gap is not clear as well. In general, parameters studied in this work is insufficient as an original paper. Perhaps it is more suitable for short communication.
Authors claimed that the swimming legs were chemosensitive to sugarcane juice and salted fish, and the kicking motion was not triggered with a single touch stimuli. Just a thought, can it be that the single touch was just in a short moment (just a touch) and insufficient time to trigger a movement/reaction, while the sugarcane juice spreads throughout the water volume and stays for longer period of time, enough to trigger the chemoresceptor that is not from the swimming leg? Similar to the salted fish flesh in regards to the chemosense, with the addition to being placed at the swimming leg long enough to trigger a reaction compared to the single touch stimuli, hence may be related to the flaw of experimental design? Possibly, an object without smell should be placed similarly as the salted fish flesh and clear water should be delivered at the appendages using a pipette such as for the sugarcane juice in order to omit the possibility of rheotaxis effect. How confident are the authors to stand by the claims should be discussed in detail with supportive references since not much data were obtained from this study.
Most comment were covered by the 3 areas above.
All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.