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Congratulations on your great work!
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Anastazia Banaszak, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Dear Dr. Lyford,
Your manuscript has been reviewed by three experts in the field, all of whom recognize its valuable contribution to advancing Zostera spp. research, conservation, and management. However, they have also provided some suggestions for improvement, which I kindly request you to address before we proceed with publication.
Please revise the manuscript accordingly, incorporating the reviewers’ feedback, and resubmit it for further consideration.
Thank you for your significant contribution to the field. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.
Best regards,
Guilherme Corte
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
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Well done. The authors have put in a great amount of effort to improve the revised manuscript, particularly in the Results and Discussion sections. Their responses in the Rebuttal document were sufficient and I think they have adequately addressed reviewer concerns.
This manuscript summarises the extent and global distribution of previous Zostera research within literature from Web of Science database. With a focus on Zostera species stressors, this work captures the geographic extent, study type, publication year and response variable measurements used in existing literature. Through this review, the authors have constructed an interactive map and centralised dataset of Zostera spp. and their associated stressors. This open-access resources will serve as a valuable tool for researchers and practitioners alike. This research shows the breadth and extent of literature that has been reviewed and explains how this work will facilitate future Zostera spp. research, conservation and management.
This manuscript is much improved, and I commend the authors on addressing many of the previous comments. The structure of this work now clearly links the aims to the analysis undertaken, the results and discussion that follows. In general, the text is clear, and the figures compliment the writing.
I have a few comments and revisions suggested below that would bring more clarity to text and figures and a few amendments to alter errors in the document.
The main revisions I suggest are regarding the display of data in figures, and the references to Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and research-practitioner spaces. I would like to see the nuance of co-design and integrating knowledge systems better reflected in the text, particularly as authors aim for this review to be used as a tool in future management decision-making.
Introduction is much improved. A few sentences and small sections of text could benefit from extra detail are highlighted below.
Lines 116 – 188: What is meant by basic science?
Lines 133- 136: This seems a little convoluted, please could you clarify ‘a better understanding’, of what?
Lines 137- 152: Though these statements may well be correct, perhaps consider that there are differing perspectives on this topic and that simply translating scientific knowledge into management language does not result in implementation into management, and that this is in fact highly nuanced. Perhaps consider re-wording to more clearly acknowledge this complexity and that the failings of conservation management are multifaceted and include a variety of stakeholders. Some extra citations: Maas, B., Toomey, A., & Loyola, R. (2019). Exploring and expanding the spaces between research and implementation in conservation science. Biological Conservation, 240, 108290; Sutherland, W. J., Taylor, N. G., MacFarlane, D., Amano, T., Christie, A. P., Dicks, L. V., ... & Wordley, C. F. (2019). Building a tool to overcome barriers in research-implementation spaces: The Conservation Evidence database. Biological Conservation, 238, 108199.
Aims: The structure of the results of this review now fit with the defined aims. The exploration of ‘stressor’ papers is now more evident in the text and better represented in the results and discussion.
Methods are easy to follow with clear titles. The supplementary material supports the statements made in the text.
Lines 233-238: The addition of information on the Web of Science searches make the methods and the limitations of the study clear.
Line 257 – 263: Really great to see the clarity you have brought to this which is reflected in the results too.
Line 344: Was there a reason for this list being four, what happened if there were more response variables than this?
Results are clearly set out and easy to follow and reflect the aims set out for the review.
Main considerations for this section are the display of data in figures.
Lines 373 - 375 Perhaps remove the ‘conversely’ or change to ‘measuring two or more stressors’ (based on your results from table 2: model = stressor 3, n= 27, 34.6%; tech report = stressor 2 & 4+, n= 2).
Table 2: Adjusting the titles of the ‘total’ row and column to better reflect what those numbers represent would make the table easier to understand.
Line 446: There is a double full stop in this sentence
Figure 4: Looks good, you mentioned in the text that Chile was the only country included with one article, was that so that S. America was represented on the graph? If so, perhaps clarify this in the manuscript text too.
Figure 5: There is an incorrect point on your map for Herterozostera tasmanica. This species is not found in Greenland. This point is not located on your interactive map and from your raw data it appears that the interpretation of the Mazarrasa et al. 2019 paper has resulted in the misplacement of this point. Perhaps consider how other species and studies are represented/mis-represented on this map – I would suggest removing this figure, particularly as the interactive map provides both geographic and research information.
Figure 6A: The caption needs more clarity to describe the figure, perhaps consider re-phrasing the first line “Frequency of all 23 stressors recorded” to be more descriptive and allow the figure to be understood without the rest of the manuscript text.
The umbrella term y-axis label is not clear, what does this percentage represent – is the percentage showing the proportion of all reported stressors that are represented by each umbrella category?
Figure 6B: This caption could use more detail to allow the figure to be understood and interpreted as a standalone item.
Line 464: Missing a bracket around Fig. S6B).
Line 479: What do you mean by top 8, please just expand in the text.
Figure 7: This description should be in the methods, not just the figure caption.
The discussion is thorough; however, the text could be streamlined to reduce repetition and make the text more accessible.
Lines 548 – 566: Though it is good to see that IK has been included for consideration in this study, I would recommend some adjustments to this section of the text. Firstly, Indigenous Knowledge is not a tool, but rather a different way of knowing and acquiring information. Simply, IK can be an asset to management. Perhaps consider including Indigenous and local knowledge, where Indigenous peoples are few (e.g., Europe – where much Zostera research is conducted) and local knowledge can help to fill knowledge gaps.
Line 756: There are two full stops in this sentence - before and after the reference.
Line 800: Why would this be discounted? Perhaps consider re-phrasing to capture what you later go on to say, that these are important stressors to continue to examine and examine alongside other, more studied stressors.
Line 876 – 882: Consider re-phrasing as this it come across as though Indigenous Knowledge is to be used as a researcher’s resource, instead of having co-design as an underpinning feature of research and management planning with the aim to interweave knowledge systems. At this point, perhaps also include other knowledge systems such as local and expert.
Lines 888 – 890: This being your concluding sentence, perhaps make it clearer and more concise.
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Dear Ms. Lyford,
Your paper has been reviewed by three experts in the field. They agree that your manuscript provides relevant information. However, they also provided important suggestions that I hope you address. After you revise the manuscript following the reviewer's suggestions, I will be pleased to reconsider the manuscript for publication in PeerJ. Please make sure to acknowledge the reviewer's valuable contributions to the revised version.
Mostly clear English was used throughout, however, some broad sweeping statements were used without justification. While the references were mostly appropriate, one key global seagrass review was missing (see detailed reviewer comments provided).The structure of the article is sound and the figures are relevant for the content.
The authors aimed to construct a review on the seagrass genus, Zostera, with associated stressors and location of work conducted. They have collated a useful dataset. The methods involved a large effort to reduce bias by appropriately training the data extracting participants consistently, plus the use of multiple decisions trees, and extraction forms. The subsequent assessment of the collated dataset was mostly qualitative.
The data collated as part of this review has been provided, and the searching method and figure creation is probably reproducible. No formal statistical analyses were performed.
See attached specific comments for each section. Here, I wish to highlight an overall comment for the authors: keep in mind that this collated dataset was formed using the work of other scientists and is inherently skewed towards one genus (Zostera), therefore, care must be taken with wording in the discussion and conclusion regarding statements about that global state of “seagrass research”.
This paper demonstrates potential in reviewing Zostera genus literature to elucidate the spread of studies across geography, time and species while aiming to highlight research on key stressors to Zostera species and the recorded response variables. This work discusses the limitations of current research, including a lack of centralised knowledge and consensus on taxonomy and stressor reporting, and highlights the need for research to more evenly represent the geographic distribution of Zostera species. Presenting an interactive map and a proposed centralised knowledge base for Zostera species, geographic distribution of studies and experimental design, this work aims to serve as a tool for researchers and practitioners alike. Concluding that there is a great need for diversified studies which focus on currently under-studied species which are largely found in emerging economy nations, this work suggests that an increase in public and research awareness will facilitate Zostera conservation. There are many merits to this work and the summary of published literature on Zostera species it provides, but major revisions are needed before this is published.
Firstly, I would like to commend the authors for addressing this topic and tackling the previous reviewers’ comments to align more closely with current knowledge gaps in Zostera literature. There are, however, several considerations which I would recommend, some of these major and some of these minor, mostly revolving around clarity in methods and linkages to results and discussion points.
The major revisions required I have tried to outline as clearly as possible below:
1) The section relating to the coastline appears redundant as coastline length has no bearing on seagrass presence, which is instead down to hydromantic forces such as exposure and environmental conditions such as soft sedimentary habitats. The authors currently make no reference to this and numerous countries which are suggested as gaps in knowledge have known unfavourable coastal conditions e.g. Chile, Norway, Greenland. If authors do want to include this, I would suggest comparing this to published seagrass area estimates in the supplementary material in McKenzie et al. 2020. This paper includes high and low estimates for seagrass area for all countries.
2) This point relates to the methods and also terminology used throughout the article. Much of the research published in the global south is published in journals that are not indexed in SCOPUS so will not be returned in a web of science search. A key example here is the WIOMSA journal of marine science where the authors will find numerous articles on Z. capensis. Either the authors include these articles in their analysis (if they fit the criteria) or make clear reference to the flaws in the methodology and remove subjective statements around a lack of research effort for regions such as Africa. In addition, the use of the term ‘developing country’ is perceived by many to be derogatory so I suggest that the author uses World Bank terminology, e.g. middle income, low income economies.
3) There is reference to Sullivan, B. K., & Short, F. T. (2023) which is the most current and perceivably correct list of species for Zostera. Please add some clarity as to why you are not following this list in terms of species names throughout the manuscript. In this paper the authors explicitly state that they suggest that researchers follow these terminologies.
In general, this article is well-written with clear, professional language. Below are a few specific changes to the abstract, introduction, figures, results and discussion.
Abstract
Line 39-40: Please can you be explicit about the losses here, is this a 50% loss in extent, abundance, aerial cover, and over what time period is this referring to?
Introduction
Lines 82 - 83: There is more relevant, recent information regarding this statement, perhaps you could explore this citation instead Short et al. 2011. Biological Conservation as this lists 72 species.
Line 85-87: There is more relevant, recent information regarding this statement, I suggest exploring this citation, Dunic et al. 2021. Global Change Biol.
Lines 98 -102: These two sentences could be made clearer to the reader. Please could you rephrase these sentences to clarify what you mean by ‘efforts accelerate to better understand contributors to their losses and direct future research efforts’?
Line 103-104: Key global stressors have been identified as including water pollution/quality and coastal development, perhaps it is worth mentioning this prior to ocean warming and acidification.
Line 116 – 117: Please bring more clarity to the sentence improve the likelihood of these actions to succeed.
Aims and objectives
Lines 197- 206: Appear clear and considered. However, the article in its current form does not really fulfil these aims.
Figures.
Figure S1, S2: Clear figures.
Figure S3: It is not entirely clear from the text how the predefined list of stressors was defined. Is compiling the list of stressors not the aim of the review..?
Figure S4: It is explained in the text why this graph may not be representative of publications in 2020 and 2021, but this should also be made clear on the graphs, perhaps add annotations to the graphs.
Figure S5: See comment below in results.
Figure S6: This map is not clear, could probably not be included.
Figure S7: A fun looking diagram but I am not sure it shows so much/ is relevant to the text.
Lines 474- 476 & Figure S9: The derivation of the percentages needs to be made clear, if it is as a proportion of the articles per species or collectively. Though it is interesting to understand this, Z. nigricaulis may only have 1 paper on it– does this mean it was relatively the highest percentage or absolute highest. As this figure is using percentages the author needs to make very clear what these numbers represent.
Figure 1 ,2, 3, 4 – all okay.
Figure 3: Text in the legend could be made clearer: ‘articles could have multiple species listed, if applicable, which is account for in this figure’. How are these accounted for?
Figure 5: There is a category of pink for non-specified species, where in the methods does it say that there is a non-specified categorisation? And judging from the raw data and the map provided as figure 5, these no-specified points are not accurate.
Figure 6A: The umbrella terms y-axis is not clear what this is showing. It is also not clear from the description. I would also appreciate some clarification on how you have grouped these stressors – how are sedimentation and nutrient loading not anthropogenic stressors?
Figure 6B: The overall article number perhaps could be displayed in a way in which the number of articles for each bar are not joined to one another – this does not seem relevant for this type of visual representation. Additionally, the colour of the bar sections is inverse to the legend, is it possible to make these match and make the figure more intuitive to read?
Methods/ Results
Line 315-316: ‘Less represented’ doesn’t seem appropriate, see comments regarding geography section and analysis.
Lines 428- 430: Though this is finding may representative of the question posed, perhaps consider its relevance and re-word “should have had a greater number of studies” to be sympathetic to research outputs not captured in this literature search.
Line 494: The ‘top-recorded’ is used at various points in the text, are you able to define what is meant by this term? - frequent/abundant..?
Discussion
Lines 530-531: Are you able to provide support for this statement?
Lines 545- 546: It would also be reasonable to say that indigenous knowledge is rarely considered and consulted. Also, it is worth considering the difference between consultation and co-design or co-development. Perhaps this section presents an opportunity to reference a need for a deeper connection with seagrass research and indigenous knowledge than is currently undertaken. Consider citing articles such as, Jones et al. (2024). Fish and Fisheries since you mentioned fisheries. This study showed that IK is rarely included in management.
Line 763: What are they ‘most helpful’ for?
Methods/ Results
Line 218-222: Why was the search term ‘threats’ not used as this is likely synonymous with ‘stressors’ in much of the literature.
Line 309+: Please refer to the major comments outlined above regarding coastlines.
Lines 324-326: How did you derive this list if it was predetermined?
Figure S5 & Lines 378 -381: There was no mention in the methods of extraction of articles relating to other ecosystems, nor is this outlined in the aims of this study. Is there any extra information required for the reader to replicate this aspect of the study using the paper review systems that have been outlined?
Lines 399 – 405: This text should be made clear in the methods section not just the results.
Lines 446-452: Again, there has been no previous mention of checking results in established/alternate directories. Perhaps it is worth adding this to the methods as a guide for readers? Mauratania is well beyond the range of Zostera capensis, if anything this is likely to be a misidentification. In addition, Z. capensis is not included as present in Mauritania on your map in figure 5 or in your raw data. Please can you elaborate on why you consider it surprising that Z. capensis is not recorded in OBIS for Mauritania.
Lines 450-455: Will there be avenues for this map to be updated and contributed to through time?
Discussion
All underlying data has been provided.
Some interesting considerations are raised within the discussion. Clear, representative headings are a useful guide to the reader. However, I would like to see the discussion reformed based on the comments previously provided with a focus on stressors and responses variables, rather than geography, as is set out in the aims.
Conclusion
Line 840-842: I believe that Turschwell et al. 2021 does in fact demonstrate a number of the statements that are made about stress being predicted by anthropogenic pressures and life histories, I would consider rephrasing.
Line 844: Perhaps reconsider terminology here to avoid using ‘wholly successful’ which seems somewhat unreasonable in a conservation context.
Line 852: Perhaps consider if these figures are still relevant.
Lines 853-855: Terminology is a little vague, please can you be more explicit when referring to ‘losses’ and ‘achieve optimal results’ and ‘current efforts’. Are you meaning loss in terms of extent, distribution, ecosystem services..?
Lines 859-860: Though they may well be alarming findings, why does this make seagrasses a top conservation priority?
The language used is clear and professional throughout. The literature referenced is sufficient and provides the necessary context. The article structure is acceptable and allows for clarity in the report. General editing is still required. Some comments are to follow.
Line 86
“meadow losses up to 29% of the known extent of seagrasses, with loss rates having increased” I suggest rewording it “up to 29% of the known extent of seagrass meadows have been lost, with loss rates having increased”
Line 263-265
“(PICO Method) (Eriksen & Frandsen, 2018). For the current study, the following were identified as key elements: P: Stressor(s) of Seagrass, E: Geographic Area(s), C: Specie(s) of Zostera, O: Identification of all stressors present by species and region” Is the “E: Geographic Areas(s)” supposed to be “I: Geographic Area(s)”?
No comment
Edits have been made on the justification for focusing on Zostera. Conclusions are well stated and connect to the original question. Could be helpful to highlight why most articles found studied two stressors rather than single stressors.
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