Dramatic Change in the Kinneret Phytoplankton Community Structure—Peridinium Out, Cyanobacteria in (POCI): Perennial or Disposable
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review for the paper "Dramatic Change of the Kinneret Phytoplankton Community Structure-Peridinium Out Cyanobacteria In (POCI): Perennial or Disposable" by Moshe Gophen submitted to "Water".
General comment.
I reviewed a previous version of this paper and highlighted some concerns. The author modified the paper according to my suggestion.
I recommend this paper for publication after minor revisions.
L 94. Consider replacing “mean loads” with “mean load”
L 127. Consider replacing “data has” with “data have”
L 133. Consider replacing “parameters were” with “parameters was”
L 139. Consider replacing “was stutied and documented” with “were studied and documented”
L 148. Consider replacing “was assembled” with “were assembled”
L 150. Consider replacing “record” with “records”
L 160. Consider replacing “automatic” with “automatically”
L 158-170. Please, revise this section and delete notes about reviewers' comments. Leave only the text concerning statistical methods.
L 355. Consider replacing “was reviewe” with “was reviewed”
L 352-363. Please, format the citations according to Instructions for authors.
L 385-387. Please, revise this sentence. It is unclear.
Author Response
Cover Letter
Response to Reviewer #1 round 1:
All minor revisions suggested by the reviewer#1
were inserted and are indicated
in red color in the revised MS submission.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
To make it short and sharp: This is a great topic! And the author is very experienced to show the timeline of changes and interdependance of factors. However, the presentation does not fit my expectation of how to present such a great topic. For one, Figure 1 is very hard to understand/read. I went on Google Map and with all the conveniences that gave me I could understand the manuscript much better.
I would separate history of the environment from the nutritional aspects and their implications on the algal world.
I would prefer a manuscript I could use as a textbook case to show how nature is connected and how human interactions have consequences.
Make more graphs, like flow charts, so the reader can conceptionalize the topic.
Let's add man-hours to get a great manuscript!
Author Response
Cover Letter
Response to Reviewer #2 round 1:
All minor revisions suggested by the reviewer#1
were inserted and are indicated
in red color in the revised MS submission.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
May I suggest having Fig 1 in color, it would help a lot.
Otherwise, great manuscript!
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. The manuscript needs to be revised to upgrade the quality of the writing. There are numerous cases of incorrect capitalization of nouns. The sentence structure is awkward and difficult to follow.
2. Units are non-standard and should be converted to SI units throughout (e.g., mcm).
3. The INTRODUCTION needs to be revised. I would move the last paragraph (lines 113-123) to the beginning of this section. I would consolidate the various activities in the watershed into a more concise and clearly presented structure. I would add a figure showing Lake Kinneret and surrounding features that are described in the results. Lastly, the INTRODUCTION should discuss the context for the research and related research.
4. The MATERIALS & METHODS section needs to include information on how the phytoplankton data were collected and analyzed (where collected? epilimnetic samples? Same with nutrients....where and how collected?
5. Figures 1-13. Eliminate the linear regression plots because the LOESS fits indicate that many of these relationships are not linear. Also, the axes labels are too small to easily read.
6. The title indicates that changes in cyanobacteria are presented in relation to changes in Peridinium, yet no cyanobacteria results are presented. This seems to be a significant oversight. Aslo, if cyanobacteria are now dominant, what taxa are present and are any of these N-fixing?
7. The DISCUSSION and CONCLUSIONS make a number of claims regarding processes and conversion/metabolism of forms of nitrogen and their importance to the dinoflagellates without much support.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer #1
- English writing quality was revised by professional proofreading editorial US company.
2.The value of the unite mcm (million cubic meters) was fully defined as SI unit.
3) The Introduction structure was revised as suggested.
4) Supplemental literature sources for monitor methodology for chemistry and phytoplankton were added. Regional and Hula Valley geographical map chart was added as additional figure no.14
5) The double presentation of the statistical evaluation as linear prediction and LOWESS Smoother (with bandwidth of 0.8) is evidently stronger proof of the consequent conclusion. The LOWESS method present the trend with distributional observations and the linear prediction with 95% confidence interval present the statistical power of the trended conclusion. Therefore I keep them both presented.
6) References and literature about name list and temporal trend of changes of the Cyanobacteria in Lake Kinneret were added.
7) Conclusions about nitrogen cycle in Lake Kinneret was widely documented and the literature is widely given in the Discussion chapter. Moreover, global information was added in the revised version.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Review for the paper "Dramatic Change of the Kinneret Phytoplankton Community Structure-Peridinium Out Cyanobacteria In (POCI): Perennial or Disposable" by Moshe Gophen submitted to "Water".
General comment.
Nitrogen inputs to ecosystems have been increasing all over the world, stemming from food and energy production activities supporting the growing population. The changing nitrogen cycle and associated abundance of reactive nitrogen in the environment have been linked to many concerns, including the deterioration of air quality related to particulate matter and ground level ozone, disruption of forest ecosystem processes, acidification of lakes and streams, and degradation of coastal waters including high-profile water quality issues such as eutrophication, hypoxia, and harmful algal blooms. In this context, it is very important to evaluate nitrogen fluctuations and associated shifts in phytoplankton communities worldwide. The author used a long-term data set to summarize available data on nitrogen fluctuations in water bodies of Israel and detect important trends in many parameters. They related these data to concentrations to the structure of phytoplankton communities assuming that the phytoplankton are the primary consumer of nitrogen. The author detected a shift in the community due to the remarkable changes in the nutrient budget within the study area. The author used an adequate dataset. Statistical methods seem to be valid and correctly used. The main results are illustrated with relevant Figures. Discussion is focused on the main findings. I recommend this paper for publication after minor revisions.
Concerns.
The author should include information about data normality and transformations for statistical analyses (if any).
Discussion. The authors should compare their trends with published data for other regions.
See for example:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmarsys.2013.02.012
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01355.x
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-005-4151-0
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5234-1_12
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-1051.1992.tb01836.x
https://doi.org/10.1002/iroh.201301680
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-009-9137-0
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2427.2009.02325.x
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-009-9172-x
https://doi.org/10.1139/f08-022
https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/24.10.993
Specific remarks.
L 33. This reference (Dimentman et al. 1992) is the first in the paper so it should be [1]. Please, check the numbering of references.
L 46. Consider replacing “in spring-summer season” with “during the spring-summer season”
L 75. Consider replacing “is not available” with “are not available”
L 81. Consider replacing “the mean loads of Nitrate” with “the mean load of Nitrate”
L 88. Please, check formatting of these references.
L 93. Consider replacing “tons of TN which mostly is” with “tons of TN which mostly are”
L 174. Consider replacing “prominent temporal decline of” with “prominent temporal decline in the”
L 184. Consider replacing “prominent temporal decline of” with “prominent temporal decline in the”
L 197. Consider replacing “high in winter and decline in summer months” with “high in winter and low in summer months”
L 227. Consider replacing “Intensive winter Nutrients influx” with “Intensive winter Nutrient influx”
L 246. Consider replacing “reduction of” with “reduction in”
L 286. Consider replacing “include summer” with “includes summer”
L 289. Consider replacing “The increase of” with “The increase in”
L 303. Consider replacing “decline later” with “declines later”
L 342. Consider replacing “did not considered” with “did not consider”
Literature. The Latin names should be italicized.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer #2
A wider presentation and relevant literature about assembling of long-term monitored data of chemistry and phytoplankton was added.
The author appreciate literature suggestion for comparative consideration of the Kinneret data with other regions. All suggestions were considered.
The Ref, of Dimentman et al 1992 was given an order number 1.
All (16 ) specific comments as defined by line numbers were adequately implemented and Peridinium and Cyanobacteria names were modified to Italics.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Figure 14 should be relabelled Figure 1 (and of course change the numbering on all subsequent figures.
2. Improper use of capitalization on nouns (chemical species).
3. No justification for use of linear regression when many of the trends are not linear.
4. No presentation of results for cyanobacteria when the importance of this group of phytoplankton is included in the manuscript title.
5. line 131: change "monitor" to monitoring"
6. line 310: change "climte chage" to "climate change"
