Reply to Narayanan et al. Comment on “Lone et al. Phylogenetic Relationships in Earthworm Megascolex Species (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) with Addition of Two New Species. Diversity 2022, 14, 1006”

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First off, I wish that Lone et al’s rebuttal could have used the words “we” rather than “Lone et al.”. The rebuttal is difficult to read because it is not always clear who is the critic and who is the rebutter. The rebuttal should for each point made by Narayanan take the following structure:

Narayana et al claim that we .... . We accept (or refute) .... Then some sentences that explain why. Make a different paragraph for each of the points

Lone et al’s rebuttal of Narayanan accepts certain short comings in their original paper (spelling etc.).

However, they argue certain other points made by Naryanan et al. I agree with them that Lone et al. did a phylogenetic analysis and as far as I know they are the first ones for Megascolex.

I disagree that it is always up to the journal how a new species is supposed to be described. I think Narayanan’s point on using the ICZN conventions is a good one. The argument that a paper is correct because peer review accepts it is false. There are plenty of papers that are withdrawn because of incomplete or false claims after peer review found the paper acceptable. I do not accept that argument at all. Use ICZN conventions! Give reasons for where you deviate from these conventions and there may be good ones like only one specimen found. Given that some worm species are morphologically variable additional specimens should be analyzed when available.

If Diversity does not explicitly state what the convention is on describing a new species, then the fall back is the ICZN convention. However, it is clear to me that Diversity recognizes ICZN as the standard because it states:

New Species Description: Manuscripts that describe new or revised taxon names must be registered in ZooBank, as required by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, after article acceptance following peer review. This ensures that your article is officially recorded as the first paper to describe the new species. The ZooBank unique identification code (LSID—Life Science Identifier) should be provided at the final proofreading stage, on the first page of your manuscript, following the affiliations, so that it is included in your published article. An LSID is represented as a uniform resource name (URN) with the following format: urn:lsid:<Authority>:<Namespace>:<ObjectID>[:<Version>]. Authors will be asked to alert ZooBank with the final citation following publication. For further help registering with ZooBank, please go to Help.

I think it would be good for Lone et al., to produce a list of errata to make sure that errors made are at least acknowledged. The errata could be linked to the original paper. Also, this rebuttal should be rewritten to make the responses clearer. See above comment on how to do this. Use a different pargraph fro each rebuttal point.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English is fine but the structure of this rebuttal needs to be improved so it is readable.

Author Response

Please find attached reply to the comment on “Phylogenetic Relationships in Earthworm Megascolex Species (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) with Addition of Two New Species. Lone et al. 2022”

We have also included a copy of the Errata for the publication in this attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors acknowledge some of the spelling mistakes, but not others regarding geographic locations of the sampled and studied materials. They should do so.

The response about morphological variablity within earthworm species is sound and valid: it is known that other earthworm genera contain species with variable morphological characters. The traditional, rigid view on morphology within Megascolex may need to adapt to those new observations. This comment interchange sounds like a good oportunity to delve deeper into it (even though it would require further sampling across the species ranges and further sequencing to confirm).  Please add a comment about this in the text.

Regardless of this, some of the comments about morphological differences between the original description and the studied individuals attributed to those species in this work are valid and merit some more serious consideration (for example, the shape of the spermathecae). I suggest checking all those details again to discard the possibility of any mistake.

Anyway, molecular phylogenetics are just hypothesis that can be refuted when further information is added. If the same authors (or other authors) find later specimens that resemble more closely the original description of the species, and genetic distances show that they are very close to the specimens studied here, then Lone et al. stance will be reinforced. If the opposite happend and they were very different, Narayanan et al. would be on the right and all the species included in Lone et al. work would constitute different species to the already described ones. Please add a similar comment on the text aknowledging the possibility of any of the research teams being right.

I think both the authors and the other authors should take that chance and try to be constructive instead of being hostile to each other (even though the reviewer does not know who started the tension). 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English should be checked by a native speaker. Some grammar error exist across the manuscript, and phrase construction is sometimes awkward.

Author Response

Please find attached reply to the comment on “Phylogenetic Relationships in Earthworm Megascolex Species (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) with Addition of Two New Species. Lone et al. 2022”

We have also included a copy of the Errata for the publication in this attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Lone et al. responded to Narayanan et al. 's critique on their paper in a well reasoned way. I agree that there are probably still some contentious issues but they have been aired in the correspondence and therefore I believe that readers may be able to make up their own mind on the validity of the points made in the correspondence.