New Species of Bacidia s.l. from the Azores and the Resurrection of Genus Woessia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The article presents a revision of the lichen flora of the islands of Graciosa and Terceira (Azores), focusing on three genera: Bacidia, Bacidina and Woessia. The latter genus is proposed for resurrection based on phylogenetic results. Two species, one of Bacidia and one of Bacidina, are proposed as new to science based on the morphological and phylogenetic results.

The article can make a valuable contribution to the taxonomy of the family Ramalinaceae and still needs a thorough revision.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your comments, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Author names are missing in the second paragraph of introduction, they should be "...listed by Aptroot [1]", "... can be found in van den Boom [2]", please check all the literatures carefully.

 

2. As the paper is dealing with genus Bacidia s.l., authors should introduce more about the current study of this genus in the introduction part.

 

3. You've included RPB1 in the study, but the primers information are missing for RPB1, in the material and methods part. And in the table 1, sequence number of ITS is missing.

 

4. In table 1, all the species names should be italic. and some of the Herbarium code are not correct, such as line 3, "1007" is not a herbarium code.

 

5. in page 10, 13, 14, Mycobank should be written as "MycoBank"

 

6. The authors should supply more pictures for the figure plates of the new species, cause key characters such as  " lack of enlarged cells at the outer rim of the excipulum", "ascospores acicular" and pigment of the exciple... could not be seen.

 

7. Discussions and pictures should be supplied for the new combinations of Woessia.

 

 8. There are more than a thousand species of Bacidia species recorded in the world, and hundreds of species sequences available in the GenBank, but the authors has only included few of them for the phylogenetic study, furthermore, each of the new species has only one sample, so I think currently it is too hasty to publish these new species. More samples and species should be included.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors:

I have seen some changes in this version, however, there are still some problems pending revision:

1. Page 2, literatures should be listed according to the order of the manuscript, thus "[35, 39...]" should be revised as [13, 14....] PLS revise all the order of the literatures.

2. Citations are not correctly listed, such as Page 3, paragraph 2: "based on [21]" should be revised as "based on Murray et al. [21]...."; Page 14: "[42] recently reviewed...." should be "Ekman [42] recently reviewed..." Please check through the paper.

3. Page 4, three clades of Bacidia were mentioned and discussed in the text, they should be marked clearly in the phylogenetic tree. 

4. Table 1 and 2 could be combined.

5. Figure 3 and 4 are not mentioned in the results or discussion, or any other part of the manuscript.

6. Page 5, in the phylogenetic tree, Micarea, Psora, Protoblastenia are not belonging to the family Ramalinaceae,  PLS exclude them from the tree.

7. Page 13, you have not cited any specimens for the new combination of Woessia. Furthermore, most of the species lack phylogenetic data. If you have no specimens or no molecular data, then you should not do handle these species. Furthermore, the type species of this genus is not certain (as W. cf. sulphurella in your tree), so the phylogenetic position of this genus might need more study.

8. Page 14. Discussion paragraph 2 is repeating exactly the same sentences in page 2. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English quality is fine for its current form.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is fine by now, just one error for the species name:

the Basionym for Woessia modesta should be Biatora modesta Zwackh ex Vain, thus the species name should be written as Woessia modesta (Zwackh ex Vain) van den Boom & P. Alvarado comb. nov.

Author Response

Thank you for your review.