Quantifying the Response of Grass Carp Larvae to Acoustic Stimuli Using Particle-Tracking Velocimetry
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript evaluates a technique based on acustic stimuli, and evaluates the usefulness to prevent the spread of invasive grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella). Some of the findings is trivial, like “a sufficient number of larvae should be surveyed to quantify their sensitivity to sound” – this is a truism of the scientific research. This is a useful technical paper, based on firm research.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is very interesting and deals with an important issue of Quantifying the response of grass carp larvae to acoustic stim-2 uli using particle tracking velocimetry, there are numerous errors in the article that need to be corrected and certain deficiencies that need to be addressed.
My comments on this work:
The names of fish species, when mentioned for the first time in the text, should include the Latin name, the author and the date, Ctenopharyngodon idella (Valenciennes, 1844).
There is no basic information on the size, weight or age of fish.
The obtained data were not subjected to statistics.
Not all symbols are explained in the text.
Figures and tables
Figure 3. Larvae ID ?
Line 210 – “The large disparity between Figure 3b and Figure 3c demonstrates that bulk veloci-210 ties are not sufficient to determine whether larvae are responding to sound, since behaviors vary by individual”. –Is figure 3 necessary?
Figure 6. – Figure 6 (a) – additional symbols (b) and (c) - need to change.
Table 1. Response ratio – symbol Pf
References
This section requires considerable editing. Please improve the section according to the requirements of the Water magazine.
References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript!
In the case of journal names, abbreviations should be provided.
- Journal Articles:
Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range. - Books and Book Chapters:
Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.
3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.
Line 357- Nissen at all 2019….-Where it’s citation in text?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
I highly appreciate the scientific quality of this study, but I have some doubts about the suggested possibility of using sound barriers to stop the spread of grass carp. Based on the results obtained, which indicate a relatively poor quantitative response of grass carp larvae to the applied sound signals and a high individual variability of these responses, I would expect a more critical assessment of the applicability of this method to fish larvae drifting in the river. Given the potential swimming velocities of grass carp larvae drifting downstream, it is difficult to imagine that, in the presence of sound barriers, larvae could resist the river current and change direction of their movement.
Even if the results obtained are not fully satisfactory in terms of their applicability for reducing the expansion of grass carp larvae in rivers, it is a great enough advantage of this study to indicate the possibility of using particle tracking velocimetry to study the behavioural responses of fish larvae to different types of stimuli. This method gives the possibility to use in future studies not only different combinations of sounds, but a wide range of any physical (e.g. light) or chemical stimuli.
I suggest extension of the discussion in terms of critically assessment of the applicability of the research results.
The manuscript is very carefully written. The only shortcoming I noticed is that the paper by Nissen et al (2019), which is included in the references, is not cited in the text.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript treated a very interesting topic for quantifying the response of grass carp larvae to acoustic stimuli using particle tracking velocimetry, and thanks to your work it will be very useful for the important future research related. It is very rich of update contents and well drafted. I appreciated the use of figures and charts, give more readability to manuscript.
My overall recommendation is to accept this manuscript after minor revision, this because there are some minor point to address in my opinion before the publication, that of course, your work deserves.
I summarize my advices as follow:
1- Line 10, 344, 357, 361, 371, 376, 377: consider Italic format for the Latin names.
2- Line 47-53: need relevant references.
3- I recommend authors to separate result and discussion sections.
4- The discussion need to be focused the main findings of the present study. It would be helpful to give a subtitle of each finding. Suggest first sentence of each sub section give a brief description on the main statement, then compared it with those of other previously studies, then the possible mechanism of the results, the significance of the finding et al.
The authors can improve the discussion by rewriting some sentences. Please, highlight just the main results to keep it short.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is genrelly ok. Technicallly it is a serious problem that there are Results in the Material and Methods and there are mathods described in the Result section.
After a revision the manuscript might be publishable.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
My comments:
They are included in the manuscript as below: They are included in the manuscript as below:
Line 233-235
Where are the lines 233-235? page 6 ends with line 225; page 7 begins on line 249
Where are the lines 159, 187?
line 72 - should be [9,10-12]
line 129 - should be [5,17,18]
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In my opinion, the manuscript has been significantly improved and in its present form I recommend it for publication in Water.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript is well revised. Authors need to recheck the Italic formatting of all the Latin names in the references list.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors revised the manuscript as requested.
Reviewer 4 Report
Accept
