High Megabenthic Complexity and Vulnerability of a Mesophotic Rocky Shoal Support Its Inclusion in a Mediterranean MPA

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 23 ...highly impacted...

Line 28 ...through its inclusion...

Line 38 ...consists of NW-SE...

Line 40 deployment

Line 50 ...consisting of 29...

Line 51 ...facilitated the collection...

Lines 59-60 Interesting observation. I associate these benthic organisms with hard substrates. Are rocks present in the soft sediments to provide suitable habitat for these members of benthos?

Line 73 ...highlighted the significant pressure...

Line 78 ...including predictive habitat mapping...

Line 79 ...fishing pressure burden...

Line 80 Is the interview instrument available for viewing? Was research ethics approval acquired prior to conducting interviews with the fishermen?

Line 80 resource management organizations

Lines 88-89 Figure 1b. Please add units of measurement (depth expressed in metres) to the scale bar that appears in this image.

Line 111 ...is largely oligotrophic...

Line 114 This freshwater discharge...

Line 133 ...is also mostly included in...

Line 139 coralline algae

Line 143 No management plan...

Line 172 ...several types of gear...

Table 1. Define this term "OTUs".

Line 202 Please provide information on how organism height was derived from oblique seabed images, for example, the images presented in Figure 4. 

Lines 222-223  I think its important to provide more detailed information related to habitat modelling. Please see my later comments in the Results section.

Lines 228-230 Is the interview instrument available for viewing? Was research ethics approval acquired prior to conducting interviews with the fishermen?

Line 243 Are you referring to serpulids here? Elsewhere in the text, the authors refer to serpulids.

Line 249-250 Please explain the absence of Ascidiacae, Crustacea, and Mollusca in Figure 2b.

Line 252 These supplementary materials were not provided for this review to the best of my knowledge.

Line 259 Replace "highly silted" with "partially sediment covered".

LIne 275  I am not familiar with the term "spirograph". What type of organism is this?

Line 280 remove parentheses.

Lines 297-304 I will encourage the authors to include the common names for each of the fish species listed in this paragraph for the benefit of a broad reading audience.

Line 306 In my opinion the authors must provide a more informative description of the predictive model. See me comments in the Results section.

Line 309-310 Please show us the data to support this statement.

Line 314 Please show us the data to support this statement.

Lines 325-326 So this epibenthos is associated with rock outcrops that are interspersed amongst the soft bottom. The association of this epifauna with hard substrates should be made earlier in the text. See my earlier comment on soft bottoms on Lines 59-60 in the text.

Line 331 Table 2. There is no way for readers to appreciate or assess these data without a fuller knowledge of the predictive model that generated these data. 

Line 335 A large portion of the seabed examined in this study remains unclassified based on the predictive modelling. The authors must provide an explanation for this outcome. 

Line 369  Only a few objects...

Line 381 ...with no discernible temporal variations...

Line 409 ...has been gradually decreasing...

Line 425 ...the considerable decrease in the abundance of...

Line 432 ...results in the collection of large quantities of cobbles...

Line 439 ...declared that they do not fish on the deep shoal...

Line 460 ...onto the deep shoal...

Line 468 ...consist of multiple inclinations...

Line 469 ...allowing for the co-occurrence...

Line 512 ...including colony fragmentation...

Line 524 ...and a seabed rich in mud and biogenic detritus, ...

Line 552 Vast areas of the seabed in the study area were unclassified despite observations of both hard- and soft-bottom benthos in these areas. The authors must explain why so much of the seabed habitat was not classified by their predictive modelling.

Line 583 ...gorgonian forests of E. cavolini are absent from...

Line 625 ...and has been commonly reported...

Line 657 ...in terms of incidents...

Line 657 ...onto the outcropping rocks...

Line 660 ...resulting in abundant discard...

Lines 692-693 ..this activity proves to be unprofitable...

Lines 710-730 The sampling methodology does not support the application of the MACS index. In this situation, all of the information related to the MACS index must be considered invalid and removed from the manuscript. 

Line 713  ...200 meter long...

Lines 721-722 Interviewed fishers noted that trawl fishing has not occurred in the area...

Line 724 ...depicts...

Line 727 No discernible variations...

Line 729 ...fishing effort has diminished...

Table 4 ...provides fundamental links...

Line 765 ...where a boundary enlargement...

Line 765 ...increasing the present MPA surface...

Line 787 ...the definition of education programs...

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The quality of the English language is quite good. I have indicated recommended revisions directly in the manuscript for the authors to consider.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Enrichetti et al. conducted a complete study in the deep shoal of Punta del Faro to support the inclusion of the area in the Portofino MPA. The introduction sets the study context perfectly, the methods are well structured, and the same applies to the results, where I missed additional information about the depth distributions of each of the Operational Taxonomic Units. The discussion highlights well the reasons for incorporating the MPA in different sections, but it is perhaps a bit lengthy. I would recommend avoiding repeating the results and going straight to the key points: the literature comparison, the uniqueness of the deep shoal and the high interest in conservation.

Title: I would recommend changing to “… its inclusion in the Portofino MPA, Mediterranean Sea”. Otherwise, remove the NW because NW Mediterranean Sea people would think about the Cap de Creus or The Réserve Naturelle Marine de Cerbère-Banyuls.

Line 16: As above, I would remove NW.

Line 21: “diverse” animal forests instead of “six types” because these six types are not properly described after.  

Line 37: (Figure 1a) to be consistent.

Line 53: Portofino Promontory to help the reader set the area.

Line 70-72: I would turn these sentences or start with a "Despite quantitative data... " or "Even if quantitative data...". Then separate the two sentences with a connection like "... However, ROV explorations carried out..."  In the end, the paragraph speaks about the ROV evaluation of fishing pressure.

Line 79-80: iii) the quantification of the fishing pressure burdening on the shoal by means of interviews and ROV surveys…

Line 155: exploiting the deep shoal of Punta del Faro is “scarce” instead of “not known”. Authors provide known information just after.

Line 163: I would replace the word “unavailable”. You provide available information just after. I agree that we do not know how much is fished, but your information is quite complete compared to other areas.

Line 188: eight ROV dives in every campaign?

Line 190: a list of the “six” instead of “6” ROV dives. Yet, I am confused if there are six or eight ROV dives. Does this mean that only one dive was performed in the Deep coastal cliffs of Punta del Faro and San Giorgio?

Line 234: Please expand OTUs at least the first time.

Line 306: I would remove “9 and 5, corresponding to”. It is unnecessary.

Line 308: I would remove “the community 6, corresponding to”

Line 310: Do you have correlation factors or % or statistical values to show why slopes, roughness and depth are the most important?

Line 312-313: Transform to active voice and add (Figure 5).

Line 315: I recommend starting a new sentence after cliffs.

Line 339: Transform to active voice and add (Figure 6a).

Line 346: Transform to active voice. For instance: “The size distributions of the main cnidarian Antipathella… (Figure 6b-f)”

Line 362: Transform to active voice. Active voice will help shorten the sentences and avoid repetitions.

Line 380: Please expand MACS

Line 409: delete “been”

Line 450-453: Unclear; please rephrase.

Line 491: I would replace “considerably” with “slightly higher”. Authors previously said that the average heights are similar.

Line 544: I will expand RF to Random Forest.

Lines 590-598: This last section is brilliant and a perfect example of what is necessary to highlight in the discussion.

Lines 642-647: Repetition of the results. I would omit sections like this to reduce the discussion length.

Lines 744-745: Again, this is the key information of the discussion that strengthens the message of the study.

Figure 1: I would suggest changing the scale bar of 1b. Or from blue to red or from yellow/orange (shallow) to green (intermediate) to blue (depth). I would also suggest displaying coastal muds and Muddy/detritic bottoms in more white-grey colours.

Line 88: I would remove “western”

Figures 3 and 4: I suggest adding depths in the images as it will add extra value and information.

Table 2: I will order them according to accuracy values or by taxonomy groups

Table 4: In functional significance, “… Some of them provide fundamental…”

Congratulations to the authors and I hope stakeholders and managers will expand the MPA as suggested in this study.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 228 The goal of a classification model is to identify patterns and relationships within the data that can be used to predict the class label of  new, unseen instances.