Description of a New Species of Hainania Koller (Teleostei, Cypriniformes, Xenocyprididae) from Guangdong Province, Southern Chinaâ€
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is a well conducted and well written study. The new species is clearly diagnosable. I have one concern, and that is the diagnoses, and offer editorial suggestions listed below.
Diagnoses of taxa are only useful if they contrast with closely related taxa. The diagnosis for Hainania is a description, not a diagnosis as it offers no comparison with any other taxon. The diagnosis for Hainania minzhengi is made in Remarks, lines 260-265, where it is contrasted with Ha. serrata and not in the “Diagnosis.” I suggest that the authors make this paper more useful and valuable by improving the diagnoses of the genus and the new species.
Related to this suggestion, although the key separates the two genera based on the development of serration of the dorsal spine, in lines 333-334, the authors say, “the development level of dorsal spine serration of Ha. 333 serrata varied amongst different localities” suggesting this trait is not adequate to distinguish two genera.
Line 33: no citation number for Nichols et al. until line 37. Is that journal format?
Line 41: remove capitalization of Until.
Lines 67-68: I never understand why some researchers deposit all specimens, holotype and paratypes, in the same institution. All will be lost if that institution’s collection is lost. Also, putting a few specimens elsewhere, especially in another country, makes them much more available for scientific research.
Line 75: change site to sites.
Line 79: adverbs are not hyphenated; change closely-related to closely related.
Lines 78-80: what evidence is used to support these opinions on relatedness?
Lines 94-95: is this saying measurements of the head were divided by head length for the PCA? Why?
Line 111: it is impossible to follow references for Methods here, but that is the fault of the journal for using numbers instead of authors’ names as citations
Line 148: change taxa to specimens or individuals
Figure 2: will the names be readable in the published paper? The are hard to read now. Alternatively, clades rather than specimens could be named, although that may not help with taxa at the top of the phylogeny
Line 153: change congeners to genera
Line 166: italicize scientific names in this paragraph. Many instances of names not being italicized occur in the manuscript.
Line 167: change Toxobramis to Toxabramis
I stopped making editorial suggestions at this point. Journal editor can do that.
Line 271: the differences shown in dorsal spine morphology in this figure escapes me. What am I supposed to see?
Figure 9: isn’t this PCA just indicating that specimens of H. minzhengi were larger than those of H. serrata, i.e., on PC1? Also, I don’t understand the graph behind the plot.
I think reference to Figure 9 occurs before Figure 8 although I am not sure why Figure 8 is placed so far forward in the manuscript.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses to each comment below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in yellow in the re-submitted files. Your comments are in bold，each followed by a specific reply.
Diagnoses of taxa are only useful if they contrast with closely related taxa. The diagnosis for Hainania is a description, not a diagnosis as it offers no comparison with any other taxon. The diagnosis for Hainania minzhengi is made in Remarks, lines 260-265, where it is contrasted with Ha. serrata and not in the “Diagnosis.” I suggest that the authors make this paper more useful and valuable by improving the diagnoses of the genus and the new species.
We have accordingly revised the diagnosis of genus Hainania and moved diagnosis of Ha. minzhengi from the Remarks part to the Diagnosis part. They can be found highlighted in yellow in line 195-202 and 223-228 of the revised MS.
Related to this suggestion, although the key separates the two genera based on the development of serration of the dorsal spine, in lines 333-334, the authors say, “the development level of dorsal spine serration of Ha. serrata varied amongst different localities” suggesting this trait is not adequate to distinguish two genera.
Despite geographic variations of dorsal fin spine in Ha. serrata, with dentations of some populations so weak that required a stereomicroscope to see clearly, these dentations have been found in all Hainania examined and absent in all Pseudohemiculter, Hemiculterella or any other congeneric genera and species, thus this character could still serve as a reliable feature distinguishing Hainania from congeners. In addition, these hardly visible dentations can be easily determined by the tactile sensation of the posterior margin of the dorsal fin spine.
Line 33: no citation number for Nichols et al. until line 37. Is that journal format?
Citation number have been moved to behind “Nichols et al.” at line 33. It can be found highlighted in yellow.
Line 41: remove capitalization of Until.
Changed as suggested.
Lines 67-68: I never understand why some researchers deposit all specimens, holotype and paratypes, in the same institution. All will be lost if that institution’s collection is lost. Also, putting a few specimens elsewhere, especially in another country, makes them much more available for scientific research.
We agree with the opinion that putting specimens in multiple locations could avoid the risk of losing the collection. Unfortunately, our institute (China Agricultural University) does not possess the ability of long-term preservation of fish specimen. Since all specimens in this study have already been transferred to IHB, it is impossible to put them in other countries, but we have requested to resituate 3 paratypes to the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (ASIZB) and this request was granted. The move will take place soon, and the revised specimen voucher numbers have been included in the text.
Line 75: change site to sites.
Changed as suggested.
Line 79: adverbs are not hyphenated; change closely-related to closely related.
Changed as suggested.
Lines 78-80: what evidence is used to support these opinions on relatedness?
These outgroup selections are primarily based on previous phylogeny (Deng et al., 2024).
Lines 94-95: is this saying measurements of the head were divided by head length for the PCA? Why?
All measurements used in the PCA are percentages of HL, SL or Snout length to avoid influence on the result due to variation of specimen sizes. We have revised the PCA methodology part (Line 101-110) to better clarify the issue.
Line 111: it is impossible to follow references for Methods here, but that is the fault of the journal for using numbers instead of authors’ names as citations
We have tried to make citations in this part more concise by adding names of reference authors before the numbers.
Figure 2: will the names be readable in the published paper? The are hard to read now. Alternatively, clades rather than specimens could be named, although that may not help with taxa at the top of the phylogeny
A high-resolution figure is presented in the revised MS. Clades mentioned in the current phylogeny have been added to Figure 2.
Line 153: change congeners to genera
Changed as suggested.
Line 166: italicize scientific names in this paragraph. Many instances of names not being italicized occur in the manuscript.
We are deeply sorry for this careless mistake. We have checked throughout the MS and completed the necessary italicizations.
Line 167: change Toxobramis to Toxabramis
Changed as suggested.
Line 271: the differences shown in dorsal spine morphology in this figure escapes me. What am I supposed to see?
In the original figure, the dentations of two Hainania species are weak but clearly visible, which is absent in the two Pseudohemiculter species. We have changed figure 6 with a high-resolution version in the revised MS, and we magnified the dentations to better illustrate the difference.
Figure 9: isn’t this PCA just indicating that specimens of H. minzhengi were larger than those of H. serrata, i.e., on PC1? Also, I don’t understand the graph behind the plot.
The influence of size variations has been avoided by performing the PCA analysis with measurements in percentage of HL or SL (as mentioned before), So both Principle components represent morphology. The Morphometric part (Lines 302-310) is revised with explanation of the graphs and loads of the PCA is provided in table 4.
I think reference to Figure 9 occurs before Figure 8 although I am not sure why Figure 8 is placed so far forward in the manuscript.
Apart from reference of Fig 8 in the Discussion part (line 284), figure 8 was also referenced in the Distribution part (line 343), as Fig 8A illustrates the type locality of the new species. This reference should be before the first occurrence of Fig 9 in the Morphometrics part (line 313).
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript titled "Description of a New Species of Hainania Koller (Teleostei, Cypriniformes, Xenocyprididae) from Guangdong Province, Southern China" describes a new species of the Hainania genus based on morphological traits and mitochondrial DNA fragments.
The results are valuable; however, upon review, I found that the manuscript contains several issues that must be addressed before it can be considered for publication.
I encourage the authors to carefully review and address all the comments and suggestions provided in the attached file to improve the clarity, scientific rigor, and overall quality of the manuscript.
Best regards
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses to each comment below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in blue in the re-submitted files. Your comments are in bold, followed by specific replies.
Line 31: described, first identified, first recognized
Changed to described as suggested.
Line 36: Change for He. all later genus in the introduction section.
Changed as suggested.
Line 37: I suggest include the year to follow up the timeline
Added as suggested.
Line 47: unresolved, undisentangle, not clear
Changed to unresolved as suggested.
Line 49: Repetitive with the first paragraph. rephrase or delete
Deleted as suggested.
Line 50: This should be on the second or third paragraph
Resituated to line 44-46 as suggested.
I recommend including a paragraph on the use of molecular markers for species identification. Additionally, in the previous paragraph, the author does not mention whether any of the reviewed literature used this type of approach. I interpreted that only morphological approaches were considered.
The research mentioned at line 50 (ref 10,11,12) includes molecular approaches for resolving phylogenetic relationships. This part is revised to clarify the molecular markers used in these research, and highlighted in blue at line 49-56.
Line 64: Include "diagnostic" previous to key
Added as suggested.
Bold type was used previously, but not here. Please maintain consistency in formatting throughout the manuscript.
We have checked throughout the MS and ensured this format consistency.
Line 71: Twenty-three specimens were collected, but only thirteen were fin-clipped. Why were the remaining ten not included? Please clarify this in the text.
Because 10 additional specimens were obtained after the molecular work has been done, and we have already sequenced sufficient individuals for this species.
Line 75: Please clarify whether all 23 specimens were deposited or only the 13 individuals that were fin-clipped.
The number of specimens is revised as we have resituated part of the specimens in accordance with another reviewer’s comment. It is highlighted at line 73-76.
Please improve the resolution of Figure 1, as the image appears pixelated.
We have uploaded high-resolution images of Figure 1 and 9 in the revised MS. Situation is same in Fig. 9, so I will not repeat this statement.
Please indicate that these samples correspond to sequences obtained from GenBank. & Please indicate in the table which samples are outgroups.
These samples do correspond to sequences obtained from GenBank shown in table 1. Outgroups are underlined in table 1.
The numbering of the references is incorrect. It is necessary—and mandatory—that the authors verify all citations throughout the manuscript to avoid confusion or misattribution.
[5] Nichols, J. T. & Pope, C. H. (1927). The fishes of Hainan. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History v. 54 (art. 2): 321-394, 417 Pl. 26. 418
[6] Myers, G. S. (1931). On the fishes described by Koller from Hainan in 1926 and 1927. Lingnan Science Journal, Canton v. 10 (nos. 419 2-3): 255-262.
The reference number in the pdf version is problematic because we did not delete Reference rules in the template. We are deeply sorry for this careless mistake and deleted it. These reference numbers are now correct.
Line 96: Please indicate how many individuals were ultimately used in the final analysis
Number of individuals ultimately used in the final analysis have been clarified at line 95.
Table 1：This code (IHBMM2024070) is hard to read and distinguish from the next one. Please revise the formatting throughout the table to ensure clarity for the readers.
These code for Cyt b and COI are temporary codes as part of the sequences have not been uploaded to GenBank. They will be replaced after receiving GenBank accession numbers.
Line 117：Please indicate whether sequencing was performed on both strands—forward and reverse
Sequencing was performed on both strands. This issue have been clarified at line 116.
Line 118: Please include the version of the software used
Added.
Line 119: were
Changed.
Fig. 2: The caption and Figure 1 are difficult to follow. There is no information about the color scheme or what each color represents, same for the numbers inside the boxes. I suggest simplifying the figure by including only the support values obtained from ML and BP analyses.
The color scheme of figure 1 is listed in the caption. Different colors represent different genus and shapes represent species.
The caption of figure 2 is revised (Line 169-177) to clarify the colors and the numbers in boxes.
There is no support value shown for the node that includes all H. minzhengi sp. nov.
We are deeply sorry for this careless mistake. A revised high-resolution version of figure 2 is presented in the revised MS with this support value and clade names mentioned in Line 182-183.
Line 153: Why is this in upper case? I suggest changing it to lower case. Also change the other ones.？
Both the upper case here (Line 152-155) and in the caption of figure 2 (mentioned above) are changed as suggested.
Please use italics where appropriate.
We have checked throughout the MS and ensured all necessary italizations.
Line 179: Did the authors mean monophyletic?
Pretty much yes. “monophyletic group” could be more precise.
Combine Tables 2 and 3 into a single table. & Also, why were the two mitochondrial fragments analyzed separately? Since mtDNA is inherited as a single locus, this should be addressed. Please include this explanation in the methodology section.
We agree with the opinion that two mitochondrial fragments can be analyzed together, so we have revised Table 2 based on combined Cyt b and COI. Explanation of Table 2 (187-190) is also revised.
Line 183: Include this nomenclature in the figure.
Figure 2 is revised with the clades mentioned here included.
Line 236: In the Methods section, indicate that 23 specimens were collected and 13 were fin-clipped. If sample sizes differed across analyses, please clarify this clearly in the methodology.
The reason why some specimens were not included in molecular or morphological analysis have been explained in the Methods section or mentioned above.
whitespace
All mentioned whitespaces have been added.
Fig. 6: highlight what do you want to resalt
In the original figure, the dentations of two Hainania species are weak but clearly visible, which is absent in the two Pseudohemiculter species. We have changed figure 6 with a high-resolution version in the revised MS, and we magnified the dentations to better illustrate the difference.
Line 347: Also include in the discussion the potential use of nuclear genes to support the findings presented here.
This issue has been stated and highlighted at line 356-359.
Supplementary files: file not found
Supplementary file is revised and should be able to be downloaded from the pending website. The link here is temporary and will be replaced by a valid link once the article is published.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI congratulate the authors for the great job incorporating the comments. This version has improved significantly compared to the previous ones. There are still a few minor issues that need to be addressed. I have included these comments in the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses to each comment below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in green in the re-submitted files.
The codes highlighted in this table do not correspond to valid GenBank accession numbers. Please authors must replace them with the correct ones.
These codes are temporary as these sequences have not been submitted to GenBank. We will submit these sequences after the article is accepted, and they will be replaced once we receive the accession numbers.
"Eventually" not fit well. Change by: "In the end, 19 individuals were used."
Changed as suggested.
In the green-shaded box where H. minzhengi appears in larger font, please include sp. nov.
Added as suggested.
I think the authors misunderstood my previous comment. When I indicated combining, I meant having one table with two sections—not merging the analyses into a single dataset. Nonetheless, I prefer this version of the table, given that mtDNA is inherited as a single locus through maternal inheritance. Finally, the two previous tables from the earlier version were included as supplementary material.
Previous tables have been combined into one and uploaded as a supplementary file. Title of it can be found at Line 406-408.
include whitespace
Added.
This should not be in italics.
Changed as suggested.
A short section titled 'Remarks', in the previous version, which contained descriptions of Figures 5, 6, and 7, appears to have been deleted. Please verify whether this was intentional or an unintentional omission.
The Remarks part was resituated to the Diagnosis part (Line 223-228) according to the comment of another reviewer. Thus, these three figures appeared before figure 3 and their numbers should be changed in accordance. We did not make this change to the previous version, and it is done in this new revised version.
Figures should appear in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. This particular figure appears after Figure 8 is cited. Please review the figure order throughout the manuscript to ensure consistency.
As mentioned above, we have revised the correct number of the figures.
Study
Changed as suggested.
