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Dear authors, I am pleased to inform you that your article has been accepted for publication. I hope that you will continue research on this topic and publish more excellent studies on the biology and phylogeny of Lampyridae.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Nigel Andrew, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
no comments
no comments
no comments
The minor changes made improved the details that were missing in the manuscript.
I think that the revised version is completely satisfactory.
I think that the revised version is completely satisfactory.
I think that the revised version is completely satisfactory.
The authors considered all my comments and suggestions. I think that the manuscript is ready for publication.
In line 134 there is a missing "were" in the phrase in parenthesis. I suggest change
"(seven of which undescribed)" for "(seven of which were undescribed)"
Dear colleagues, I hope that you will carefully correct all the shortcomings pointed out by the reviewers and that your manuscript will be published as soon as possible.
The paper is written in clear and professional English. The references provided support the contextualization of the problems surrounding Lampyridae and the discussions presented in relation to the analyses performed. The figures are clear and easy to visualize the morphological structures photographed.
In fact, the tribe Lucidotinini, in which the proposed new genus is inserted, is indeed taxonomically problematic. Since it includes most of the species of Lampyridae, the problem is even worse due to the difficulty in reviewing groups with numerous species. Without a doubt, the present study and the discussions are relevant in contributing to a more stable classification of the tribe and delimiting genera based on phylogenetic analyses.
The species described in the work clearly form a genus apart from the phylogenetically closest genus and, at the same time, help to define the morphological limits of the other genera in the tribe. It is interesting to present two topologies originating from different phylogenetic analyses, both agreeing
with the creation of the new genus. Although the methodology is quite complete, one way to improve it even further is to explain how the topology in figure number (3) was obtained.
It is extremely important to expand the knowledge and description of groups with clear diagnostic delimitations in this tribe, especially with phylogenetic support. Due to the taxonomic impediments of these species in the tribe, the study is a further step towards improving the taxonomy of Lucidotini.
References
• Zeballos et al., 2023 is correctly cited in the references. Unlike lines 95, 102, 173, 280, 769, 786 which is cited as “Zeballos et al., 2022”.
• In line 99, is it not necessary to make it clear that Jeng's (2008) work is not published?
Words
• In line 252, “Tupi-granari” for “Tupi-Guarani”.
Entomological Institutions and Collections
• The correct name to be cited in lines 137-138 is Cláudio Ruy Vasconcelos da Fonseca. If the specimens come from Dr. Fonseca's Laboratory, the name to be inserted is “Laboratory of Systematics and
Ecology of Coleoptera”, if they are from the INPA collection, the name is “Invertebrate Collection”.
Material and methods
• It was not clear in the methodology how the topology in figure number three was obtained. If it was obtained through a maximum parsimony analysis, include it in the methodology and discuss or compare it in the results and discussions.
Suggestions
1. The most widely used classification was that of McDermott, 1964, but it fell into disuse with the publication of Martin et al., 2019, the most recent classification of the family. Neither of these two consider Lucidotina as a tribe. According to the first lines of the introduction, they are possibly following Bouchard et al. 2011, but their material and methods do not make it clear which classification they are using. It would be interesting to clarify this.
I consider that the presentation is clear, succint and professional. However, I have a couple of corrections and one suggestion:
Lines 127-153: I suppose that the names in parenthesis are those of the curators that gave access to the specimens. If I am right, this must be specified in the text.
Lines 701, 702, 745: The paper “Zaragoza et al. (2023)” should be cited as “Zaragoza et al. (2023a)”.
Lines 292, 293: There are some adjectives that I suggest not to use in a scientific paper (“incredibly” and “really” are two of them).
The design and the analyses correctly follow standard practices of taxonomy and philogenetics.
This manuscript is a solid contribution to the taxonomy and systematics of fireflies. The use of a novel set of traits allowed the authors to define a new genus and illustrates a potential way of solving the problematic generic taxonomy of this interesting and charismatic group of insects. The authors show that the traditional morphological characters are of little use for separating genera, whereas traits from the male genitalia provide a much more reliable set of traits. This is not surprising, considering that many of the previously used traits are associated with sexual communication, traits that are expected to be under sexual selection, a selective force responsible for rapid and divergent trait evolution.
Fve out of the eight species that belong to the new genus are described based only in male specimens. I think this fact must be recognized explicitly, especially in the discussion about the remarkable diversity of structures used in sexual communication observed in the genus. Some of the interpretations proposed depend also of the unknown morphology of females. Since these are hypotheses, I would suggest considering explicitly the expectations regarding female morphology in those species whose females are unknown.
The article is very well-written, being very concise and clear. The authors use a pertinent literature. This work will very useful in the study of Lucidotini taonomy. This manuscript deserves to be published.
I consider the methodology is correct. I am not sure if it is a recommendation of the journal, but I recommend to include the list of characters in the main text. It will be very useful to interpret better the figure 3.
This work will be very useful to improve the knowledge of the Lucidotini.
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