Diversity and Phylogeny of Gyrodactylus spp. (Monogenea: Gyrodactylidae) across the Strait of Gibraltar: Parasite Speciation and Historical Biogeography of West Mediterranean Cyprinid Hosts

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

- The manuscript is missing Figures. There are only Figure captions written at the end of the manuscript. 

-        It is necessary to make a detailed review of the formatting of the text (check different fonts, unnecessary underlined and italicized words)

Specific remarks:

Line 32: Please, replace „Keywords Cyprinoids;“ to „Keywords: Cyprinoids;

Line 57-60. Please, do correct, some words are in italics.

Line 97. Please, replace „Heckel, 1843“ with „Heckel, 1843“

Line 109. Please, replace „13kmlong“ with „13 km long“

Line 121-124. Please, correct the unnecessary use of underlined words

Line 138. Please, replace „They“ with „Authors“

Line 142. Please, replace „and“ to „and“

Line 149. Please, replace „the West Mediterranean area, whilst…“ with „the West Mediterranean area, whilst…“

Line 168. Please, replace „Fish host species with their sample sizes and locations of sampling, and indices of Gyrodactylus infection…“ with „Fish host species with their sample sizes, sampling locations and indices of Gyrodactylus infection…“

Line 182-188. Table 1. – the same comment as for Line 121-124. Check the font

-        Please, replace „Table 1. List of cyprinoid hosts collected between 2015 and 2017 and investigated in the present 182 study, grouped by fish subfamily and species, fish and gyrodactylid sample size, date of collection, 183 localities of sampling with their GPS coordinates in Morocco, Portugal and Spain, and infection 184 indices (see map of sampling localities in Figure 1). Fish host nomenclature follows FishBase [38] 185 and Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes [29]. On FishBase [38], both L. ksibi and L. massaensis are 186 synonyms of L. callensis (Valenciennes, 1842), and P. maroccana is synonym of Labeobarbus 187 maroccanus (Günther, 1902).“ with „Table 1. List of investigated cyprinoid hosts collected between 2015 and 2017.“ there is no need to repeat all info that is given in the table

-        This sentence „On FishBase [38], both L. ksibi and L. massaensis are 186 synonyms of L. callensis (Valenciennes, 1842), and P. maroccana is synonym of Labeobarbus 187 maroccanus (Günther, 1902).“ should be placed in Line 173 after sentence „In the present 171 study, fish host nomenclature follows that of FishBase [38] and Eschmeyer’s Catalog of 172 Fishes [29].“

 Line 188. Please, change the font in Table 1. to make the text more understandable. Check unnecessary underlined and italic words

Line 195. Delete sentence „In the Results chapter, measurements are shown in micrometres and are 195 given as the mean followed by the range and the number of measurements (n) in 196 parentheses.“

Line 277. Please, Table 2. must be placed under Supplementary material!

Line 321. Please, italicize species names in the caption of Table 3.

Line 378 and 379. Please, replace „sp. Nov.“ with „sp. nov.“

Line 473. Please, replace „sp. Nov.“ with „sp. nov.“

Line 624. The first paragraph of Discussion is too long, should be shorten

Author Response

Dear Editor-in-chief

We are most grateful to all reviewers for their corrections, comments, and constructive suggestions. We believe that our manuscript has been improved compared to the first version we submitted. The present letter contains all changes that have been made directly on the manuscript. All responses are shown in bold italics. We would like to highlight that we have requested, again, English proofreading correction service of a native English academic proofreader who possess a long experience with scientific articles.

With best regards and many thanks for your consideration,

The authors

Reviewer 1

• The manuscript is missing Figures. There are only Figure captions written at the end of the manuscript. 

Reviewer 3 also reported missing figures, unlike Reviewer 2. We believe that this issue is related to MDPI platform, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Our figures and supplementary material were successfully uploaded, and no issue was reported during the submission process. Nevertheless, you can find the figures in the main word file of the resubmitted version of the MS.

• It is necessary to make a detailed review of the formatting of the text (check different fonts, unnecessary underlined and italicized words)

Reviewer 3 similarly reported font issues unlike Review 2. Based on the manuscript version which MDPI shared with us for correction, no underlined text is visible. We believe that this issue might be related to MDPI platform as already encountered with the figures. We ensure that no such formatting issue is visible to us.

• Line 32: Please, replace „KeywordsCyprinoids;“ to „Keywords: Cyprinoids;

Changes have been made accordingly.

• Line 57-60. Please, do correct, some words are in italics.

See comment above, our originally submitted and resubmitted version of manuscript are without formatting errors.

• Line 97. Please, replace „Heckel, 1843“ with „Heckel, 1843“

Sorry, but I think you missed to write what you wanted us to change

• Line 109. Please, replace „13kmlong“ with „13 km long“

The change has been made.

• Line 121-124. Please, correct the unnecessary use of underlined words

Changes have been made accordingly.

• Line 138. Please, replace „They“ with „Authors“

“authors” was added instead of “they” as recommended

• Line 142. Please, replace „and“ to „and“

See comment above, the resubmitted version is correctly formatted.

• Line 149. Please, replace „the West Mediterranean area, whilst…“ with „the West Mediterranean area, whilst…“

See comment above, the resubmitted version is correctly formatted.

• Line 168. Please, replace „Fish host species with their sample sizes and locations of sampling, and indices of Gyrodactylus infection…“ with „Fish host species with their sample sizes, sampling locations and indices of Gyrodactylus infection…

Changes have been made accordingly.

• Line 182-188. Table 1. – the same comment as for Line 121-124. Check the font

See comment above, the resubmitted version is correctly formatted.

• Please, replace „Table 1. List of cyprinoid hosts collected between 2015 and 2017 and investigated in the present 182 study, grouped by fish subfamily and species, fish and gyrodactylid sample size, date of collection, 183 localities of sampling with their GPS coordinates in Morocco, Portugal and Spain, and infection 184 indices (see map of sampling localities in Figure 1). Fish host nomenclature follows FishBase [38] 185 and Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes [29]. On FishBase [38], both L. ksibi and L. massaensis are 186 synonyms of L. callensis (Valenciennes, 1842), and P. maroccana is synonym of Labeobarbus 187 maroccanus (Günther, 1902).“ with „Table 1. List of investigated cyprinoid hosts collected between 2015 and 2017.“ there is no need to repeat all info that is given in the table

Legend of Table 1 has been modified as requested.

• This sentence „On FishBase [38], both L. ksibi and L. massaensis are 186 synonyms of L. callensis (Valenciennes, 1842), and P. maroccana is synonym of Labeobarbus 187 maroccanus (Günther, 1902).“ should be placed in Line 173 after sentence „In the present 171 study, fish host nomenclature follows that of FishBase [38] and Eschmeyer’s Catalog of 172 Fishes [29].“

Changes have been made accordingly.

• Line 188. Please, change the font in Table 1. to make the text more understandable. Check unnecessary underlined and italic words

The resubmitted version was correctly formatted, and the legend of Table 1 was corrected as recommended.

• Line 195. Delete sentence „In the Results chapter, measurements are shown in micrometres and are 195 given as the mean followed by the range and the number of measurements (n) in 196 parentheses.“

Changes have been made accordingly.

• Line 277. Please, Table 2. must be placed under Supplementary material!

Table 2 was included in the WORD file and the supplementary material was uploaded separately (EXCEL file). We ignore, unfortunately, the final version of the MS that reviewers received for correction. During and after the submission process, we did not receive any PDF of the final submission for approval.

• Line 321. Please, italicize species names in the caption of Table 3.
• Line 378 and 379. Please, replace „sp. Nov.“ with „sp. nov.“
• Line 473. Please, replace „sp. Nov.“ with „sp. nov.“

See comment above, the resubmitted version is correctly formatted.

• Line 624. The first paragraph of Discussion is too long, should be shorten

We believe that his part is necessary to remind the readers why we specifically targeted the West Mediterranean region for studying the cyprinoid monogeneans, what we were expecting, and what could be evidenced regarding the initial hypotheses. Yet, a few sentences have been deleted.  

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Submitted paper “Diversity and phylogeny of Gyrodactylus spp. (Monogenea: 1 Gyrodactylidae) reflecting parasite speciation across the Strait 2 of Gibraltar and in northwest Africa, and the historical biogeography of their West Mediterranean cyprinid hosts” authored by Chahrazed Rahmouni, Mária Seifertová , Michal Benovics and Andrea Šimková is a valuable contribution to the knowledge of monogeneans of the Western Mediterranean region.

The manuscript is quite significant in total volume – totally 31 page. The manuscript is accompanied with the supplementary file - Matrix of pairwise genetic distances inferred from the 18S and the ITS region of rDNA. As seems, the manuscript is also including: map of sampling localities, micrographs and drawings of haptoral sclerotized structures,  principal component analysis of haptoral sclerotized structures and ML phylogram. I was unable to download the files with these illustrations from the website of Diversity. Two existing links were onlu opening access to pdf file with paper and Excel file with supplementary table. It is serious deficiency for my ability to evaluate the submission, and it is up to Editorial Office of ‘Diversity’ to decide how why such download was not possible, and explain me my wrong actions, if the problem is ‘on my side’. In my experience of reviewing for MDPI before, I was more successful and was able to download the illustrations. Still, the illustrations are usually very similar between such papers and absence of drawings is not excluding the general evaluation of the submission.

As it was mentioned here above, the study is described in all small details. Such approach is increasing the volume but enhance the understanding of this contribution. In my opinion the paper will provide important information about parasites of cyprinid fishes.

In addition to soon mentioned setback with the download of illustrations I have to attract the attention of authors and Editorial Office to several negative moments of the submitted manuscript.

First of all, I have to confess, that formatting of the submitted paper is very uncommon. E.g. very often throughout the text some words and entire parts of sentences are underlined or italicized.

line 91 - Pterocapoeta Günther, 1902 – the digits 190 are underlined

line 142  and – italicized?

line 149 - the West Mediterranean area, whilst – italicized?

line 354 - are also known mainly from Asian loaches – italicized?

lines 546-549 – entire fragment of the text is underlined?

Table 1 – some Latin binomials are underlined (and in Bold in the same time) some binomials are only partially underlined?

the same for Table2? – And in another column – with fish families, some names are underlined, and some – not underlined. My attempts to find explanation for such a designations in the titles for Tables were not successful.

Authors will find numerous such positions throughout the text. Such a formatting has to explained or rectified.

Another my question relates to the purely nomenclatorial moment. E.g. for one species – the proposed Latin binomial is Gyrodactylus gibraltarensis Rahmouni & Šimková sp. nov. but the paper is authored by Rahmouni, Seifertová, Benovics and Šimková. In traditional understanding of the Code of Zoological Nomenclature the name of this species in future scientific paper will be Gyrodactylus gibraltarensis Rahmouni & Šimková 2023 (e.g.) in Rahmouni, Seifertová, Benovics and Šimková, 2023. It is up to Editorial Office of ‘Diversity’ to decide if such rules are to be followed here?

Stylistically obscure expressions – line 316-317 - Etymology: The epithet “gibraltarensis” of the type-species refers to the Strait of Gibraltar, which is of the greatest benefit to current freshwater fish diversity in the Iberian Peninsula – Comment: the expression is not optimal. How ‘straight’ can to be ‘the greatest benefit”  to ‘fish diversity’. I see what authors mean but it would be better to edit this sentence.

line 525 “G. nyingiae collected interestingly from L. ksibi…” – “collected interestingly” – please reconsider such an expression.

line 628 - its relatively species-poor diversity of freshwater ichthyofaunal – probably ‘low species diversity’ - ?

misprint on the line  109 - 13kmlong – please, divide the words

One the lines 894-900 some strange fragment of the text is present. As seems it is a remnants of 'template' from the Diversity ‘Instruction for the authors’.

line 913 – Finding – or Funding?

Soon presented above.

Author Response

Dear Editor-in-chief

We are most grateful to all reviewers for their corrections, comments, and constructive suggestions. We believe that our manuscript has been improved compared to the first version we submitted. The present letter contains all changes (grammatical, … etc.) that have been made directly on the manuscript. All responses are shown in bold italics. We would like to highlight that we have requested, again, English proofreading correction services of a native English academic who possess a long experience with scientific articles.

With best regards and many thanks for your consideration,

The authors

Reviewer 2

• The manuscript is quite significant in total volume – totally 31 page. The manuscript is accompanied with the supplementary file - Matrix of pairwise genetic distances inferred from the 18S and the ITS region of rDNA. As seems, the manuscript is also including: map of sampling localities, micrographs and drawings of haptoral sclerotized structures,  principal component analysis of haptoral sclerotized structures and ML phylogram. I was unable to download the files with these illustrations from the website of Diversity. Two existing links were onlu opening access to pdf file with paper and Excel file with supplementary table. It is serious deficiency for my ability to evaluate the submission, and it is up to Editorial Office of ‘Diversity’ to decide how why such download was not possible, and explain me my wrong actions, if the problem is ‘on my side’. In my experience of reviewing for MDPI before, I was more successful and was able to download the illustrations. Still, the illustrations are usually very similar between such papers and absence of drawings is not excluding the general evaluation of the submission.

We believe that this issue is related to MDPI platform, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Our figures and supplementary material were successfully uploaded, and no issue was reported during the submission process.

• As it was mentioned here above, the study is described in all small details. Such approach is increasing the volume but enhance the understanding of this contribution. In my opinion the paper will provide important information about parasites of cyprinid fishes.

We deeply thank the reviewer for his/her encouraging comment.

• In addition to soon mentioned setback with the download of illustrations I have to attract the attention of authors and Editorial Office to several negative moments of the submitted manuscript.

First of all, I have to confess that formatting of the submitted paper is very uncommon. E.g. very often throughout the text some words and entire parts of sentences are underlined or italicized.

line 91 - Pterocapoeta Günther, 1902 – the digits 190 are underlined

line 142  and – italicized?

line 149 - the West Mediterranean area, whilst – italicized?

line 354 - are also known mainly from Asian loaches – italicized?

lines 546-549 – entire fragment of the text is underlined?

Table 1 – some Latin binomials are underlined (and in Bold in the same time) some binomials are only partially underlined?

the same for Table2? – And in another column – with fish families, some names are underlined, and some – not underlined. My attempts to find explanation for such a designations in the titles for Tables were not successful.

Authors will find numerous such positions throughout the text. Such a formatting has to explained or rectified.

This is weird because using the manuscript version MDPI shared for correction, no underlined text is visible. We believe that this issue might be related to MDPI platform as already encountered with the figures. We ensure that no such formatting issue is visible to us. Interestingly, Reviewer 2 did not report such an issue.

• Another my question relates to the purely nomenclatorial moment. E.g. for one species – the proposed Latin binomial is Gyrodactylus gibraltarensisRahmouni & Šimková sp. nov. but the paper is authored by Rahmouni, Seifertová, Benovics and Šimková. In traditional understanding of the Code of Zoological Nomenclature the name of this species in future scientific paper will be Gyrodactylus gibraltarensis Rahmouni & Šimková 2023 (e.g.) in Rahmouni, Seifertová, Benovics and Šimková, 2023. It is up to Editorial Office of ‘Diversity’ to decide if such rules are to be followed here?

Yes, you are right, the name of the species will be, for instance, Gyrodactylus gibraltarensis Rahmouni & Šimková 2023 in Rahmouni, Seifertová, Benovics and Šimková, 2023.

• Stylistically obscure expressions – line 316-317 - Etymology: The epithet “gibraltarensis” of the type-species refers to the Strait of Gibraltar, which is of the greatest benefit to current freshwater fish diversity in the Iberian Peninsula – Comment: the expression is not optimal. How ‘straight’ can to be ‘the greatest benefit”  to ‘fish diversity’. I see what authors mean but it would be better to edit this sentence.

The etymology was mentioned in L 274-275 and it has been corrected. We strongly believe that there was an issue on MDPI platform with our submission.

• line 525 “G. nyingiae collected interestingly from L. ksibi…” – “collected interestingly” – please reconsider such an expression.

“interestingly” has been deleted

• line 628 - its relatively species-poor diversity of freshwater ichthyofaunal – probably ‘low species diversity’ - ?

“low” was added instead of “poor”

• misprint on the line  109 - 13kmlong – please, divide the words

A space was added, thank you for this remark!

• One the lines 894-900 some strange fragment of the text is present. As seems it is a remnants of 'template' from the Diversity ‘Instruction for the authors’.

Yes, it could be related to the formatting process performed on MDPI platform. It is surprisingly not visible on the version we downloaded for correction.

• line 913 – Finding – or Funding?

Yes, definitely “funding” and not “finding”, it has been corrected, thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The title is too long and should be shorter and more succinct.

All the keywords should be different from the title.

The paper is interesting because Vsequences of the rDNA and ITS regions were used for species delineation.

I didn't see a conclusion in the abstract.

On line 876 there are conclusions and these are not in the abstract.

In the introduction, from line 46 to 53, this is basic knowledge and doesn't need to be reported here.

I would like the authors to comment on n. A total of 128 fish specimens belonging to six cyprinid species restricted to the West Mediterranean were collected in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain between 2015 and 2017. Is the quantity sufficient? Could it be improved?

The article is well written in general and limited to the methodology used.

But I have my doubts about whether it could be improved according to the n obtained.

Author Response

Dear Editor-in-chief

We are most grateful to all reviewers for their corrections, comments, and constructive suggestions. We believe that our manuscript has been improved compared to the first version we submitted. The present letter contains all changes that have been made directly on the manuscript. All responses are shown in bold italics. We would like to highlight that we have requested, again, English proofreading correction service of a native English academic proofreader who possess a long experience with scientific articles.

With best regards and many thanks for your consideration,

The authors

Reviewer 3

• The title is too long and should be shorter and more succinct.

The title has been shortened as requested.

• All the keywords should be different from the title.

Keywords have been changed.

• The paper is interesting because sequences of the rDNA and ITS regions were used for species delineation.

Thank you for the positive feedback!

• I didn't see a conclusion in the abstract.
• On line 876 there are conclusions and these are not in the abstract.

A brief conclusion was added at the end of the abstract.

• In the introduction, from line 46 to 53, this is basic knowledge and doesn't need to be reported here.

We believe that this part is necessary to introduce the remaining paragraph, kindly we would like to keep it.

• I would like the authors to comment on n. A total of 128 fish specimens belonging to six cyprinid species restricted to the West Mediterranean were collected in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain between 2015 and 2017. Is the quantity sufficient? Could it be improved?

The sample size is sufficient to investigate Gyrodactylus communities and to reveal the presence of Gyrodactylus species with unusual morphologies. The field trips in Morocco and Iberia were specifically devoted to collect monogeneans.

The article is well written in general and limited to the methodology used.

Thank you for the positive feedback!

• But I have my doubts about whether it could be improved according to the n obtained.

Many fish hosts were non-parasitized (which is common phenomenon) by monogeneans. However, sample size is sufficient to investigate Gyrodactylus diversity as a total of 15 new Gyrodactylus species were recognized on 6 fish species investigated.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Table 2. is to long to be included in MS. It is better to place it in Supplementary material