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Thank you for your perseverance, and I look forward to seeing the published version of your work.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Diogo Provete, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Although the Academic and Section Editors are happy to accept your article as being scientifically sound, a final check of the manuscript shows that it would benefit from further English editing. Therefore, if you can identify further edits, please work with our production group to address them while in proof stage #]
Almost ready! I am sorry, but your new sentence mentioning the model selection is grammatically incorrect. Please ensure your edits are correct and proper before resubmission. As well, after some thought, I think you should change the common name to the genus name in the title (Ophioplinthaca), or else not capitalize the common name.
I am sorry for the last requests, but I wish for your paper to need as little editing as possible at the proof stage as it is a taxonomic paper.
I have heard back from one reviewer, and there are just a very few small revisions that are yet required. I imagine you can resubmit this work soon, and look forward to seeing your final version.
Thank you very much for preparing the revised version. I have looked at the revisions. All of the corrections meet my requirements and I think the manuscript has reached a publishable level. In particular, I think the comparison of the detailed morphology of the internal side of the lateral arm plate and the species character table of Ophioplinthaca are valuable data to be cited in the future.
I have no further comments if the following points are confirmed.
1. Please indicate the location the morphology of the lateral arm plate such as "beak", "digit 1", etc. in Fig 12 as clearly as possible.
2. Please make the "sp. nov" in Table 3 upright.
3. Please add the bibliographic information of Thuy et al (2020) and Na et al (in press) to References.
4. Please show "jmodeltest-2.1.10" and "AIC selection" as method in M & M.
No problem.
No problem.
Please see the "basic comment" above.
I have now heard back from two expert reviewers, both of whom have provided constructive comments to help you improve your work. Please consider these changes carefully, and I look forward to seeing a revised version of your work.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Reviewer 1 declared a potential Conflict of Interest, and the Editor was aware of this when making their decision #]
[# 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/ #]
The manuscript by Chen et al is of three ophiuroid species in the genus Ophioplinthaca that have been discovered on a seamount in the NW Pacific Ocean, one of which is described as new. I agree that the species is new and it has been well described (with some small exceptions – see on marked pdf). The genetic data has been deposited in Genbank and the new name lodged with ZooBank. The paper is in traditional taxonomic format and (with some minor exceptions – see pdf) the language is clear and concise. The genetic analysis is fine. The figures include light microscope and SEM images of good to excellent quality.
as above
as above
The manuscript by Chen et al is of three ophiuroid species in the genus Ophioplinthaca that have been discovered on a seamount in the NW Pacific Ocean, one of which is described as new.
I agree that the species is new and it has been well described (with some small exceptions – see on marked pdf). The genetic data has been deposited in Genbank and the new name lodged with ZooBank. The paper is in traditional taxonomic format and (with some minor exceptions – see pdf) the language is clear and concise. The genetic analysis is fine. The figures include light microscope and SEM images of good to excellent quality. The conclusions do not exceed the data supplied.
I would suggest publication with minor amendments.
I have marked up the PDF with some minor issues and suggested language changes. Some of the more important points include:
• The terminology for the oral skeleton has recently been updated and clarified in the paper Hendler, G. (2018). "Armed to the teeth: a new paradigm for the buccal skeleton of brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea)." Contributions in Science 526: 189–311. The author’s link to this paper is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lPF6wmyfdFVYxG8xs-WCzmLJ19V8n4Hy/view?usp=sharing
• On Fig. 5T, 8J, 11J, the arrow pointing to the tentacle notch is incorrect. It should be pointing at the concave border more to the right. See Fig. 1 in Thuy, B. and S. Stöhr (2011) "Lateral arm plate morphology in brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea): new perspectives for ophiuroid micropalaeontology and classification." Zootaxa 3013: 1–47.
• In all three descriptions you describe the ‘tentacle’. I presume by this you mean the tube foot. This is always only one tentacle on either side of the arm segment, so no need to describe this. There is also no point in measuring its size on the preserved animal as this is dependent on how it died. The tube feet are soft and retractable and can vary a lot in size.
• You use the term “moderate” a lot, but this is a relative term. It has to be moderate compared to something. You are better off replacing relative terms in descriptions with a more precise measurement.
This study is valuable in that it provides a classification for a poorly studied seamount animals. The deep-sea brittle star Ophioplinthaca was carefully examined and try to describe a new species. The methods used were generally correct.
However, the results of this study are concentrated on the description of only one new species, and it is somewhat questionable whether the scientific value of this study can be published in PeerJ. I would like to point out the following improvements that need to be made in order for this paper to be published in PeerJ.
The authors describe the morphology of the ossicles, but there is little discussion of them. Of course, I understand that there are few differences in ossicle morphology within the genus, but I would like to see an indication of what ossicles, for example, might be useful as taxonomic characters or not. The figures for SEMs (Figures 5, 8, 11) should show more of the orientation of each ossicle.
In the molecular phylogenetic analysis section, you mention genetic distance and species boundaries, but you do not take into account data from Boissin et al. (2017), probably one of the most recent barcoding studies for brittle star. In the current results, genetic distance differences of up to 6% are considered interspecies differences, which is inconsistent with Boissin et al. (2017). Is this due to differences between shallow-water and deep-water brittle star? It should be possible to discuss this. Also, in Materials and Methods, what algorithm or software did you use to select your model for molecular analysis?
There were a few terms in the description that are not commonly found in normal description of brittle stars. I think this paper would be better to be reviewed by expert on brittle star at its usage of English terminology.
You argue to have discovered a new species of Ophioplinthaca, but this study does not detail the morphology of all species in the genus. I recommend that a review of Ophioplinthaca is provided in this paper in order to increase its value as a taxonomic study. At the present stage, Ophioplinthaca grangisquama sp. nov., O. Semele and Ophioplinthaca sp. and their related species are only appearing in the manuscript, so there is little knowledge to be gained by the reader. If you have surveyed the literatures on Ophioplinthaca for all 31 species, you may be able to provide a table summarizing their taxonomic characters or a taxonomic key for all species. Then, please describe the diagnostic character of the new species.
Congratulations on your discovery of new species of Ophioplinthaca. Your discovery is probably true, but I think you need to provide more information on the related species of the new species.
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