Effects of Caudal Autotomy on the Locomotor Performance of Micrablepharus Atticolus (Squamata, Gymnophthalmidae)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper by Silva et al. test the effect of life history, morphometric, and collection site on locomotor performance of a Cerrado lizard species using GAMMs and model selection/averaging approaches. The paper is well written and presents clear hypothesis, with adequate set of analysis. I only have a few minor comments that I have made directly on the pdf attached, with some suggestions of citations.

Also, notice that some claims in the discussion are not warranted by the data, since you are sampling within, but not between species, so you can't say anything about coevolution or phylogenetic effects 

Beyond that, I am glad to recommend acceptance after these few minor points are added. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank Reviewer #1 for her/his insightful criticisms and suggestions on our manuscript. We implemented all the suggestions, except for:

• Line 59. The suggested reference^* does not address the influence of sexual dimorphism on the relationship between locomotor performance and tail autotomy. ^*Oliveira, C. N., Campos, I., Provete, D. B., Guarnieri, M. C., & Ribeiro, S. C. (2020). Defensive behaviour and tail autotomy in Coleodactylus meridionalis (Squamata: Sphaerodactylidae). Journal of Natural History, 54(33-34), 2209-2218. doi:10.1080/00222933.2020.1840641.
• Line 78. We used this reference before, as suggested (Line 61), but do not consider it fits here, since the study does not involve Micrablepharus atticolus.
• Figure 1. “you can combine these three plots into one, just use different symbols and colors for the two factors (gravid Braslia = yellow circle, gravid Nova Xav = blue circle, not gravid Brasilia = red square, not gravid Nova Xav = green square), the same for the smoothing lines.” We respectfully disagree because models were not fit considering the interaction between the two factors and the performance curve for each factor level is unique. The three plots offer an accurate and clear representation of the results.
• Line 313. We already included this reference, as suggested (Line 61), but do not consider it fits here.

Reviewer 2 Report

I enjoyed reading your paper very much and marked few areas where things can be improved. I would not use "dramatic" as it relates to human emotions and is not needed in the paper. The introduction can be improved (see my comment regarding the genus and species content). I am shocked that the toes were clipped before releasing the lizards back to nature and I did not find any justification for doing so. Therefore my ethical concerns. Also, in the discussion, you need to better compare your results with the published results.  You say that you are the first who is conducting such research, yet you compare. If you are the first for this study using gymnophthalmids then say so. I am looking forward to seeing your paper published.

Edgar Lehr, 18 July 2021

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank Reviewer #1 for her/his insightful criticisms and suggestions on our manuscript. We implemented all the suggestions, as follows:

I would not use "dramatic" as it unnecessarily appeals to human emotions.

We replaced “dramatic” with “striking.”

You start the new paragraph with the species. Now you talk about the genus and that there are two species but you do not mention the second species which is not helpful. Better start with the genus and its species content and how they are distributed. Then focus on M. atticolus.

We rewrote the paragraph, as suggested.

How did you categorize adult individuals? Based on SVL? Please provide details here.

We now provide details on how we considered individuals as “adults.”

THIS I find dramatic! Why did you toe-clip them? I did not read anything in your methods justifying this procedure.

We now inform at the onset of the “Lizard sampling” subsection that lizards were collected as part of a long-term, mark-recapture study on their demography and community dynamics.

Why did you not distinguish between males and females here?

We feel this level of detail is not necessary, because sex was not an important predictor of locomotor performance (see Results).

No legend here?

We added a legend.

What is the color of the males? I think I have trouble distinguishing pale pink and pale orange (= not gravid). Please use more contrasting coloration. Too small and too crowded here.

The effect depicted here is “gravid,” with individuals classified either as “gravid” or “non-gravid.” As indicated above, there was no significant effect of sex upon locomotor performance. We completely rebuilt Figure 1 to improve the color schemes.

I thought your team was the first one who did investigate sprint speed in relation to tail autotomy? Please provide more details about the cited references. Better mention here th lizard families that were investigated.

Our claim is, in fact, “the first study on this issue within Gymnophthalmidae.” We amended the text, indicating the lizard families addressed by previous studies.

Please mention in your methods whether you had "broken tails" as a result of capturing/handling your lizards. Such a statement is very important.

We now include in the Methods a passage indicating that lizards had naturally broken tails.

Yes! I wonder how the tail loss impacts arboreal species (e.g., Anadia, Selvasaura and others).

Thanks!