Herbert D. Athearn and the Museum of Fluviatile Mollusks

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. As a review article, the current subheadings (e.g., "Introduction," "Materials and Methods," "Results," "Discussion") follow the structure of a primary research paper, which may not be the most appropriate format for a review. Should the subheadings be revised to better align with the narrative and thematic focus of a review article? For example, the "Materials and Methods" section of the paper is titled "Herbert D. Athearn’s Background," which primarily focuses on biographical details.
2. Terms like “databased,” “digitized,” and “cataloged” are used interchangeably but may imply distinct processes. Clarify definitions to avoid confusion. For instance, does “digitized” refer to imaging specimens, transcribing labels, or georeferencing localities? Clear definitions should be provided in the methods section.

Author Response

1. As a review article, the current subheadings (e.g., "Introduction," "Materials and Methods," "Results," "Discussion") follow the structure of a primary research paper, which may not be the most appropriate format for a review. Should the subheadings be revised to better align with the narrative and thematic focus of a review article? For example, the "Materials and Methods" section of the paper is titled "Herbert D. Athearn’s Background," which primarily focuses on biographical details.

   Page 2 line 53. Title of “Materials and Methods” changed to Herbert D. Athearn’s Biographical Background.

2. Terms like “databased,” “digitized,” and “cataloged” are used interchangeably but may imply distinct processes. Clarify definitions to avoid confusion. For instance, does “digitized” refer to imaging specimens, transcribing labels, or georeferencing localities? Clear definitions should be provided in the methods section.

The two occurences of disitized have been changed to databasing. Cataloged refers to the handwritten catalog where Athearn recorded the information on each lot added to the collection. Databasing is the action of adding all of his collection data to a relational database. See Word file with track changes to see changes.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The ms is well written and clear. There are some mystypings and some scientific names to be written in italics. Illustrations are good, but one more and better photograph of the malacologist and a plate with type materiale would be useful. Attached is the ms with notes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The ms is well written and clear. There are some mystypings and some scientific names to be written in italics. Illustrations are good, but one more and better photograph of the malacologist and a plate with type materiale would be useful. Attached is the ms with notes.

Reply: p[age 2 line 84, 86. inserted in revised text with track changes in Word. A list of the three new species Athearn described has been added to the text as well as the unionid patronym. 

page 5 line 127. An additional picture of Athearn is inserted. No pictures of types have been added

Whole text: Misspellings have been corrected and all scientific names were checked and put into italics.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript is a description of a private mollusk collection that was donated to the North Carolina Museum of Natural History. The collection appears to be valuable and will be of interest to many systematists and ecologists.

 

Editorial suggestions:

1. 138, Table 2: Marine / Brackish Gastropod typo (Gastroods)
2. There are many dashes in the text, that appear to be from moving text among media.

Author Response

This manuscript is a description of a private mollusk collection that was donated to the North Carolina Museum of Natural History. The collection appears to be valuable and will be of interest to many systematists and ecologists.

Whole text. Thank you for your kind words and support.