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Dear authors,
Congratulations on your effort and consideration regarding the corrections and suggestions of the reviewers. Please provide the last small adjustments to be included in the final version for editing.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Anastazia Banaszak, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
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See attached short report
Dear Dr. Ferreira,
The peer reviewers have returned your manuscript (2024:04:100369:1:1:REVIEW) with their decisions. In particular, I would like you to readjust the manuscript according to the considerations of Reviewer 2. Please note that some comments suggested in the first round have not been accepted, which prolongs the evaluation process and the final decision. Therefore, we ask you to make the corrections according to the reviewer and answer the questions he raised. At this point, the editorial decision rests with Major Reviews.
Best wishes.
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Based on the authors' implementation of all the suggested improvements to the manuscript titled "Techniques for Determining Elasmobranch Body Size: A Review for Evaluating and Enhancing Current Methodologies," I consider the manuscript suitable for publication.
Overview
This paper provides a review of 49 publications in which one of seven different techniques was used to determine elasmobranch body size (length in sharks and width in many rays). I commend the authors for their efforts to amend the manuscript based on the two previous reviews, but I still believe there are major shortcomings. They have reduced the reference to results of studies in captive situations, but not sufficiently. I would remove all mentions littered in the text and only have a paragraph dedicated to these studies, which this review clearly shows to be of very minor relevance, near the end to indicate how it has been able to plug a few gaps in our knowledge base. I have made numerous suggestions of rewording to assist the authors in their use of English, which is clearly not their first language.
See annotations in the pdf version of the manuscript
Title:
My suggestion would be to revise the title along the lines of:
Techniques for determining Elasmobranch body size: an evaluation of current methodologies.
I don’t believe that there is need for both review and evaluation in the title and it is not clear how the authors have enhanced any of the techniques.
Introduction
This section reads a lot better and has been shortened. I am not convinced of the need to introduce the term biometrics. The focus is solely on tools used to determine body length. Again, minor suggestions in the text.
Conclusions
I think this could be entitled Results and Conclusions. Again, I have suggested small grammatical changes throughout this section.
see comments in attached document
Tables
These are my biggest concerns. I recommend that the authors consider combining Tables 1 and 2.
Table 3 is huge with 49 entries and lots of information presented is irrelevant to size determination. Errors associated with any technique are important and must be acknowledged but I am not convinced that the reader can make meaningful judgements from the various values (% error, AE and CV) presented here.
I have been giving this issue considerable thought but I am not convinced that I have come up with a perfect solution to reduce its size. My current thinking is that each technique should be discussed in the text, each under its own heading. This would include the pro’s and con’s highlighted in Table 2, as well as limitations listed in Table 3. The text would also include a discussion of error with recommendations to minimise this. All this information would also be summarised in a combination of Tables 1 and 2, but because it has already been discussed in the text, the information in the combined table would be far more concise. Table 3 would then be reduced to featuring largely the species studied, together with the technique used (I like the idea of using the reference numbers 1-7 for the various techniques, as in Table 3) and the publication details. I am not sure if the order in this table should be based on the techniques (1-7) or the species studied. In the case of the latter, whale sharks would have 12 different rows, one for each of the studies conducted. Details of the naming authors are unnecessary.
While this is a review article, it is also an evaluation of the seven techniques and many readers will consult this article to ascertain what is the most appropriate technique for them to use in determining the body size of their study animals/species. Therefore, it is important to enable them to achieve this goal.
I want to thank you for submitting your review manuscript to PeerJ. Please consider adjusting the text in accordance with the reviewers' comments and suggestions. It is recommended that you address Reviewer 2's comments regarding including tables S1 and S2 in the body of the text, as these tables are only available to a few readers. One possible solution would be to reduce the size of the tables addressing the main contributions and include them in the body of the text.
Additionally, consider revising the introduction and general conclusion to align with your study's central focus. Once these revisions have been made, please resubmit your manuscript.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services if you wish - please contact us at [email protected] for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title). Your revision deadline is always extended while you undergo language editing. #]
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The manuscript titled "Elasmobranch Measurement Review: Stereo-DOV as a Promising Technique for Controlled Environments" has been reviewed and considered as requiring minor revisions before it can be considered for publication in the PeerJ Journal. This review acknowledges the manuscript's significant contribution to the field of marine biology, particularly in the study and measurement of elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates), and suggests minor enhancements to improve its clarity and impact.
Because none of the authors use English as a first language, I suggest they solicit the assistance of someone who can help them select better terms. For example, in line 249, the sentence starts: In resume,. It would read better as: In summary,.
See comments in attached file on the reference to aquarium studies, Animals kept in captivity do not necessarily grow at the same rate as those in the wild. They spend very little energy in obtaining food and escaping predation and the temperature of the water may not show the same seasonal fluctuations as in the wild, which will affect metabolic rates and hence growth rates. Mature females which do not mate will not have to channel energy into embryo development and can direct it into somatic growth.
Many of the findings listed in Table S1 have nothing to do with photogrammetry. I reiterate my recommendation not to focus on aquarium studies.
See attached file
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