The Swedish Fauna of Freshwater Snails—An Overview of Zoogeography and Habitat Selection with Special Attention to Red-Listed Species

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript on the Swedish fauna of freshwater snails presents some interesting and much needed information.

My main concerns comments are:

1) The introduction needs to incorporate more background information on Swedish freshwater snails, on the zoo/biogeographic history of the area (e.g. the limes norrlandicus should be expalianed in the introduction), and the Red List of Sweden. Also, the scope of the paper should be mentioned in the introduction.

2) The red list part, requires elabotaration. It is a bit unclear what re-listed refers to. I assume speices with a status different than LC, are considered re-listed (?). This required clarification.

3) The abstract needs to be concise. It should present the manuscripts goals, results and concludions.

4) I have suggested minor reorganization of some parts of the manuscript. They all appear in my comments in the pdf of the manuscript.

The rest of my comments can be seen in the pdf of the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language requires improvement, as sometimes the meaning of a sentence is lost because of poor wording. I have mede several comment in the manuscript, where rephrasing is required in order to improve the wording.

Author Response

Comments on the Reviewers remarks, and on undertaken corrections and alterations in the text.

 

The line numbers below refer to the revised version of the text.

Reviewer 1

1 The introduction has been expanded and altered according to the suggestions of the reviewer The section describing the limes norrlandicus has been moved from the description of the distribution types and included in the introduction – which is a more logic place for it. A passage explaining the scope of the paper has been added.

2 References to the Swedish and European red-lists and the levels of red-listing used have been included in the introduction.

3 The abstract has been rephrased and extended according to the recommendations of the reviewer.

4 Several reorganizations of parts in the manuscript, according to the reviewers’ remarks (and some according to the author), to make the text more logic and coherent have been undertaken.

I have adopted all the reviewers’ suggestions to improvements of the English language, and most of his/her suggestion of restructuring sentences to make the meaning clearer.

Reviewer 2

1 The need for more molecular research on Swedish populations. A remark on this is inserted under Lymnaeidae in section 2.4.

2 The letters have been attributed to the correct photos in Fig. 4.

3 The names of the genera have been written out in full in all cases where they start a new sentence.

4 Tables 6 and 7: References have been added in the Tables (to year of first record in Sweden and Salinity tolerance. Addition of new references have been made in the Reference list.

Further changes/additions due to remarks by Reviews in the text (and some by the author)

The Abstract has partly been rewritten and extended according to the recommendations by the reviewers. Text on red-listing has been added.

The sentence on stygobiotic species (lines 57-58) has not been removed, as it explains why this faunal element, common in South and Middle Europe, is missing in the north of the continent (north of the glaciation).

No additions concerning P. antipodarum have been made in the introduction, as the species is presented in detail in the section of introduced species.

The description of Sweden and its habitats has not been moved to the introduction, as I mean that this should be treated as a whole (as it now stands in 2.1 The geographical area and its Freshwater Habitats). However, the description of the limes norrlandicus and its importance has been moved from the distribution type section and is now included in 2.1, which is a better and more logic place.

Fig.1 has not been merged into Fig. 2 as suggested by one of the reviewers, as this would make it too small. The size of Fig. 1 can however be reduced to approx. half the page.

Following the recommendation of one of the Reviewers Fig. 2 has been moved from the beginning to the end of part 2.1.

Initials of species authors have not been removed, as the inclusion of them in cases where there are more authors with the same family name are necessary to distinguish them. This is in use also in modern taxonomic databases (eg. Molbase, WORMS).

The different cases (taxonomic problems: genera/species etc) in section 2.4 have been provided with numbers (1-7) to make them clearer.

A seventh point has been added to the problems under 2.4: The confusion concerning the Viviparus names. This text has been moved from the distribution section – as it better belongs in the problem section.

A new heading has been created for the text on taxonomy and Table 1 as: 3.1 Taxonomic overview. This is clearer than the former lumping with the problems in 2.4. The numbers of the following headings in 3 have consequently been changed.

The explanation texts of the Tables have been changed according to the recommendations of one of the Reviewers.

Figure 5: One of the reviewers has several suggestions of altering the map. Firstly, I do not think it would be a good idea to remove the watercourses and lakes from the map as this would make it difficult to orientate in if you do not have a very good knowledge of Swedish geography, and there are also some references to them in Tables 2-5). The second suggestion, to highlight which line belongs to which species and mark them with different colours: This is beyond the scope of this paper (and the figure). The intention with the map is to headlight the phenomenon of the limed norrlandicus as such and show the clustering of the species distribution limits there, not to go into details for each species [which, however, could be a god theme for a separate paper]. Pressing in species names and differently coloured lines for all 23 species is, as mentioned, beyond the scope and would blurry the figure.

Occurrences in the mouth of rivers, lines 340-342, 364-365: I do not think it is necessary to list all the species or/and places here (which would considerably lengthen the text). What I am aiming at is to highlight the phenomenon as such. Concerning P. antipodarum I have added an example from the west coast of Sweden.

The heading of 3.3. has been changed to: Habitat Selection and Salinity Tolerance

Fig. 6. has been moved to the end of the part dealing with habitats, to avoid the abrupt interruption of the text.

Tabel 7: The species order has been altered according to further data in the cited references.

The text concerning the comparison of the Swedish and European Red Lists (lines 382-390) has been rewritten to clear misunderstandings.

To explain the status of S. nitida s.s. clearer, I have rewritten the lines 388-390.

Throughout the text “Red-list” has been changed to the recommended “Red List”.

I have generally followed both the reviewers’ advice of adding references in the text where requested. These new titles are added in the reference list,

The mistake with the citing of references in the first version of the manuscript has been changed and all references are now cited with numbers according to the standards in Diversity. Errors and consequences in the citing of the references themselves have also been corrected according to standards of the journal.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Major comments

This paper reviews the knowledge of freshwater gastropods in Sweden, and illustrates a good picture of current knowledge. It classifies distribution patterns based on qualitative comparisons and emphasizes the importance of biogeographic boundary. The whole manuscript is written on the basis of a thorough literature survey and in-depth knowledge of the mollusks of the region, and the paper is a foundation for conservation and ecological studies of freshwater mollusks in the region. Thus, this paper will be published without any significant revision.

 

Minor comments

2.3. Material. Just in my opinion, if the author could mention the progress of molecular research, it might help us to better understand the current state of research. Is there sufficient molecular phylogenetic and population genetic research being done for the region, including Sweden? Or is it insufficient? As you know, molecular information can be significant in freshwater mollusks in many cases.

L200-201. e should be Viviparus viviparus and f should be Valvata sibirica.

L375 etc. Genus should not be omitted at the front of sentence.

Table 6. If possible, specific references (or personal observation) should be cited in the table for each species.

Table 7. Also, specific references (or personal observation) should be cited in the table for each species.

Author Response

Comments on the Reviewers remarks, and on undertaken corrections and alterations in the text.

 

The line numbers below refer to the revised version of the text.

Reviewer 1

1 The introduction has been expanded and altered according to the suggestions of the reviewer The section describing the limes norrlandicus has been moved from the description of the distribution types and included in the introduction – which is a more logic place for it. A passage explaining the scope of the paper has been added.

2 References to the Swedish and European red-lists and the levels of red-listing used have been included in the introduction.

3 The abstract has been rephrased and extended according to the recommendations of the reviewer.

4 Several reorganizations of parts in the manuscript, according to the reviewers’ remarks (and some according to the author), to make the text more logic and coherent have been undertaken.

I have adopted all the reviewers’ suggestions to improvements of the English language, and most of his/her suggestion of restructuring sentences to make the meaning clearer.

Reviewer 2

1 The need for more molecular research on Swedish populations. A remark on this is inserted under Lymnaeidae in section 2.4.

2 The letters have been attributed to the correct photos in Fig. 4.

3 The names of the genera have been written out in full in all cases where they start a new sentence.

4 Tables 6 and 7: References have been added in the Tables (to year of first record in Sweden and Salinity tolerance. Addition of new references have been made in the Reference list.

Further changes/additions due to remarks by Reviews in the text (and some by the author)

The Abstract has partly been rewritten and extended according to the recommendations by the reviewers. Text on red-listing has been added.

The sentence on stygobiotic species (lines 57-58) has not been removed, as it explains why this faunal element, common in South and Middle Europe, is missing in the north of the continent (north of the glaciation).

No additions concerning P. antipodarum have been made in the introduction, as the species is presented in detail in the section of introduced species.

The description of Sweden and its habitats has not been moved to the introduction, as I mean that this should be treated as a whole (as it now stands in 2.1 The geographical area and its Freshwater Habitats). However, the description of the limes norrlandicus and its importance has been moved from the distribution type section and is now included in 2.1, which is a better and more logic place.

Fig.1 has not been merged into Fig. 2 as suggested by one of the reviewers, as this would make it too small. The size of Fig. 1 can however be reduced to approx. half the page.

Following the recommendation of one of the Reviewers Fig. 2 has been moved from the beginning to the end of part 2.1.

Initials of species authors have not been removed, as the inclusion of them in cases where there are more authors with the same family name are necessary to distinguish them. This is in use also in modern taxonomic databases (eg. Molbase, WORMS).

The different cases (taxonomic problems: genera/species etc) in section 2.4 have been provided with numbers (1-7) to make them clearer.

A seventh point has been added to the problems under 2.4: The confusion concerning the Viviparus names. This text has been moved from the distribution section – as it better belongs in the problem section.

A new heading has been created for the text on taxonomy and Table 1 as: 3.1 Taxonomic overview. This is clearer than the former lumping with the problems in 2.4. The numbers of the following headings in 3 have consequently been changed.

The explanation texts of the Tables have been changed according to the recommendations of one of the Reviewers.

Figure 5: One of the reviewers has several suggestions of altering the map. Firstly, I do not think it would be a good idea to remove the watercourses and lakes from the map as this would make it difficult to orientate in if you do not have a very good knowledge of Swedish geography, and there are also some references to them in Tables 2-5). The second suggestion, to highlight which line belongs to which species and mark them with different colours: This is beyond the scope of this paper (and the figure). The intention with the map is to headlight the phenomenon of the limed norrlandicus as such and show the clustering of the species distribution limits there, not to go into details for each species [which, however, could be a god theme for a separate paper]. Pressing in species names and differently coloured lines for all 23 species is, as mentioned, beyond the scope and would blurry the figure.

Occurrences in the mouth of rivers, lines 340-342, 364-365: I do not think it is necessary to list all the species or/and places here (which would considerably lengthen the text). What I am aiming at is to highlight the phenomenon as such. Concerning P. antipodarum I have added an example from the west coast of Sweden.

The heading of 3.3. has been changed to: Habitat Selection and Salinity Tolerance

Fig. 6. has been moved to the end of the part dealing with habitats, to avoid the abrupt interruption of the text.

Tabel 7: The species order has been altered according to further data in the cited references.

The text concerning the comparison of the Swedish and European Red Lists (lines 382-390) has been rewritten to clear misunderstandings.

To explain the status of S. nitida s.s. clearer, I have rewritten the lines 388-390.

Throughout the text “Red-list” has been changed to the recommended “Red List”.

I have generally followed both the reviewers’ advice of adding references in the text where requested. These new titles are added in the reference list,

The mistake with the citing of references in the first version of the manuscript has been changed and all references are now cited with numbers according to the standards in Diversity. Errors and consequences in the citing of the references themselves have also been corrected according to standards of the journal.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx