A New Record of a Nonnative Bivalve Species in an Amazonian Environmental Protection Area: What Might Have Happened?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General suggestions for authors:

1. The manuscript needs to be checked for some minor typos.

2. Please change a few ‘e’ throughout the manuscript to ‘and’.

3. The introduction states ‘This occurrence note opens discussions about potential dispersal agents of the species’, but only three possible dispersal routes (ballast water, antifouling, and birds) are mentioned which have been suggested in other work and are not closely related to this particular study area. It also mentions that this manuscript is ‘enabling the understanding of possibly the most effective mechanisms of adaptive success of C. fluminea in these environments’ while the only argument for this was shell hardness and was not discussed further.

4. References must be arranged in alphabetical order.

Other suggestions:

Lines 2 and 3: Please explain why the title part says ‘what might have happened’ since this is not discussed in the manuscript?

Line 18: It says ‘causing damage both economically and with the disappearance of native species’, but this was not discussed in the manuscript

Line 32: Please change ‘Corbicula fluminea (Müller, 1774)‘ to ‘Corbicula fluminea (O. F. Müller, 1774)’

Line 35: Please provide the explanation and reference for the statement ‘invasive potential’

Lines 38 and 39: Please provide an explanation and reference for the statement ‘its aggressive behaviour and transformation of the environment’ and emphasise what is meant by 'transformation'

Line 39: ‘in Brazil’ is probably missing after ‘It was first recorded’

Line 51: Why ‘conservation unities’?

Lines 52 and 53: What is meant by ‘It is a heterogeneous area of human occupations’?

Line 55: There is another statement on ‘the environment-modifying behaviour’, but the explanation and the corresponding reference is missing

Line 57: Add a few words to explain this tailing region to make it clearer what it is about

Line 64: Line 64: In this section there was no mention on environmental conditions of underwater location where the shellfish were sampled, in order to compare them with the conditions in their natural habitat and to get an idea of their adaptability

Line 66: IGEPA is preservation area, but the text says ‘The IGEPA is located in Parauapebas city’?

Line 104: Change ‘de’ to ‘of’

Line 112: Here it is said that ‘there is modification in the environment’ but without explanation

Lines 116 through 121: In this part of the text, the statement from the beginning of the sentence is not explained

Line 123: Please explain how ‘vessels that circulate the high seas’ can be relevant to the transport of this benthic freshwater species with its ballast water?

Line 126: Change ‘ISAAC’ to ‘Isaac’

Line 132: In view of what ‘environmental changes’?

Line 133: What ‘is a significant indication of stress’?

Line 135: Please explain ‘In addition to reasons’

Line 136: Please explain the ‘modifying effects’ mentioned

Lines 141 and 142: Please justify the statement ‘besides those mentioned above’

Lines 142 and 143: Please provide example for ‘progressive and deleterious devastating effect’

Lines 145 and 146: The manuscript makes no reference to ‘the environmental changes that the species can cause’

Line 182: Reference Cunha and Borges (2016) was not mentioned in the manuscript

Line 184: reference Companhia Vale do Rio doce (2018) was not mentioned in the manuscript

Line 198: Reference Leitão-Lima et al. (2012) was not mentioned in the manuscript

Line 203: Reference Leuzinger et al. (2018) was not mentioned in the manuscript

Line 229: Reference Ponte et al. (2022) was not mentioned in the manuscript

Line 249: Reference Sousa et al. (2021) was not mentioned in the manuscript

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This Asian native bivalve Corbicula fluminea  is effectively  considered to be one of the species with the greatest  invasive potential in  freshwater environments. So, any study on his natural behaviour and growing process should be very pertinent.

In fact, the authors, according the title, proposed as the main objective  to observe the actual situation of this non-native  bivalve species in an Amazonian.

In my opinion, the work is presented  on appropriate and clear  explanation with original results under correct discussion and scientific aspects which are supported with adequate references list. In general, the work seems to present an adequate methodology and results under fluent description.  

A few recomendations/ suggestion should be added as a minor corrections:

1) the quality of figures, namely the map (Fig 1) and grafics (Fig 3) and respective legends need to be improved for a easy reading.

2) Is it possible to suggest some manipulation process for controling the its increase  invasive potential.

3) Or to add any relevant utility/information to improve the environmental or even the human health. If it is possible, maybe this can be a very useful and natural process in order to control Corbicula fluminea  population.

 

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper reports a new record of an Asian mussel Corbiculaflumineain IGEPA of Brazilian Amazon, and summarizes the possible reasons associated with the dispersal of the species. Since the authors mentioned that the new record extends the distribution of this species in South America, maybe you can provide a figure illustrating the current geographical distribution of the species in South America, then it can be clearly shown how the distribution of the species is extended. Also, the paper need to be checked thoroughly and carefully. Please see the attached PDF for details.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to kindly ask the authors to correctly mark the line numbers where they have made changes and to write the species names in italics in the future.

Revisions of the English are required in the newly added portions of the manuscript.

 

General suggestions for authors:

 

Line 35: Please provide the explanation and reference for the statement ‘invasive potential’

We added the concept of ‘Invasive potential’ starting in line 35. We agree with this necessity, and we think pertinent to discuss this holistic concept in the paper. 

Lines 35 to 39: Please delete the portion of the text explaining the concept of invasive species, as you were asked to provide evidence to support the statement that this species has ‘the greatest invasive potential’ (as you have added later in the text).

Line 51: Why ‘conservation unities’?

R: In Brazil, Conservation Unities are protected areas by law (Conservation Units national system – SNUC – Law number 9985 of July, 18, 2000, available in home page: 

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiMGNmMGY3NGMtNWZlOC00ZmRmLWExZWItNTNiNDhkZDg0MmY4IiwidCI6IjM5NTdhMzY3LTZkMzgtNGMxZi1hNGJhLTMzZThmM2M1NTBlNyJ9&pageName=ReportSectione0a112a2a9e0cf52a827

Line 58 and 153: Please change ‘unities’ to ’units’.

Lines 52 and 53: What is meant by ‘It is a heterogeneous area of human occupations’?

It’s a Brazilian Conservation Unity that add private areas (for legal mining use) and public areas, including sustainability use areas (were some people live) and restrict use (integral protection, that people do not allow to live). 

Line 59: Please change ‘It is a heterogeneous area of human occupations’ to ‘The area is heterogeneous in terms of human use’

Line 83: There is missing ‘in’

Line 112: Here it is said that ‘there is modification in the environment’ but without explanation

We added the modification caused by C. fluminea in the paper introduction. In the text – in line 112 that was repositioned - we called the introduction paragraph with the sentence “as mentioned in the paper introduction”.  

Line 155: If there is an explanation for this statement in the text, this part of the sentence is redundant, please delete ‘as mentioned in the paper introduction’.  

Line 131: Change ‘(a) external view of a closed specimen; (b) external view of a closed specimen’ in ‘a) and b) external view of a closed specimen’

 

Lines 142 and 143: Please provide example for ‘progressive and deleterious devastating effect’

Added an explanation to the use of the terms. Progressive – to fast growth and reproductive processes, occupying a large area in the ecosystem – and deleterious effect - reductive effect of native density species-  n various environments.

Lines 216 to 218: Please justify the statement with respect to the species of the study and not to write definition of the terms used. Explain what kind of progressive and deleterious devastating effect did C. fluminea cause in other environments?

Line 188: Delete ‘kind of’

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper reports the first record of C. fluminea in a Federal Protected area. The manuscript has been revised accordingly and should be ready to be published after minor revisions of several grammatical errors.

Grammatical errors see Line 66, line 170-171, line 185-186, line 190, line 195, line 206 and line 208-209.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx