Filling the Gap of Data-Limited Fish Species in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: A Contribution by Citizen Science

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors used a citizen science approach to gather information on rare species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea over the last approximately 7 years. This is useful information on the new occurrences of these species in the study region, and a good example of how a citizen science approach can fill in data gaps. The manuscript was well written and of appropriate length.

My concern about the manuscript is that its difficult to determine the extent that the reported species are new to the study area or that the citizen science effort increased public awareness, and this increased the likelihood of reports. The authors mention that fishers report that some species have occurred in catches in recent years compared to previous years, but there is nothing more than a brief mention. I think this is a challenge in much of the research that includes citizen science – there is no historical baseline for comparison, thus it’s difficult to partition new information (such as new species) versus newly shared information (as in, the fishers have known about it for some time, but it is now being shared with scientists). Often, the is a bias that scientists don’t fully appreciate.

Similarly, these species appear to be rare throughout their range. How does a person determine the relative rareness of these species in their likely historical geographic range and recent catches in the eastern Mediterranean Sea? Perhaps the authors can share what “rare” means in previous catches in the species’ main geographic ranges? For example, how many reported catches or sightings in 10 years in the natural range versus in this study? Without some of this comparative information, it’s difficult for the reader to evaluate the findings.

I think that both of the above items can be relatively quickly addressed by the authors. On the first item, for example, the authors might conduct post hoc interviews with some of the people who reported the catches to obtain an historical perspective. (On a related note, but perhaps appropriate for an entirely different manuscript, has anyone conducted interviews to build a historical timeline of changes in the species composition of the fisheries in the study area?) On the second item, I imagine that the information on relative frequency of catches for the species are available in the citations the authors provided, and perhaps on other sources.

I found a few minor editing changes needed, listed below.

Line 40 – remove “information”, redundant with “data”

Line 45 – “As many commercial targeted species in the Mediterranean Sea are already fished over sustainable levels (Vasilakopoulos et al. 2017), it is even more evident that rare and data-limited species will be overlooked from a fisheries management perspective.”  I don’t understand the reasoning of this sentence. Why would the overfished status of some species influence the amount of information on non-fished species? I agree that non-fished species won’t have as much data available because there is not an economic reason to obtain the data, but this isn’t the same as the sentence implies.

Line 69 – change “Up to date” to “At the time this manuscript was written” or similar

Line 74 – please defined “stranded”

Line 78 – change “prior to inclusion to…” to “prior to the inclusion in…”

Line 150 – change to “an unequivocal”

Figure 4 needs some identifiers (e.g., country names) so the reader can determine geographic positions of the samples.

 

Author Response

The authors used a citizen science approach to gather information on rare species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea over the last approximately 7 years. This is useful information on the new occurrences of these species in the study region, and a good example of how a citizen science approach can fill in data gaps. The manuscript was well written and of appropriate length.

We are grateful for the reviewer’s good words and for the constructive comments given which have helped us to improve our revised work.

My concern about the manuscript is that its difficult to determine the extent that the reported species are new to the study area or that the citizen science effort increased public awareness, and this increased the likelihood of reports. The authors mention that fishers report that some species have occurred in catches in recent years compared to previous years, but there is nothing more than a brief mention. I think this is a challenge in much of the research that includes citizen science – there is no historical baseline for comparison, thus it’s difficult to partition new information (such as new species) versus newly shared information (as in, the fishers have known about it for some time, but it is now being shared with scientists). Often, the is a bias that scientists don’t fully appreciate.

 We agree with reviewer’s concern and that is exactly what our manuscript presents: With increased awareness increased reports of previously overlooked species will occur. Even if difficult to evaluate how the awareness has affected the scientific community, it is worth mentioning that 10 more records of the species were reported since 2016 when the citizen science program was launched (Ceyhan & Akyol 2016; Goren et al.,  2016; Erguden D., et al. 2017; Chatzispyrou et al. 2019; Yapici, 2019; Erguden D. et al., 2019). The contribution of our study is mainly the newly scientifically shared reports of the species with a historical reflection to already published records on the species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Please see also complementary answer to your point 4.

We are convinced that increased awareness and shared scientific information will lead to increased understanding and historical records of previously overlooked species. Even that a historical reconstruction of the species’ occurrences were not the aim of our study it is a highly significant comment that we addressed in our limitations, but also as future possibilities. 

As regards to fishermen’s reports of recent increased observations of the species, we only mention this as a complementary information which may trigger reconstruction of historical records signifying the importance of closer collaboration between science and citizen-science. This is one of the main reasons why we at the title used the wording ‘Data limited’. See also new section ‘Conclusions’.

Similarly, these species appear to be rare throughout their range. How does a person determine the relative rareness of these species in their likely historical geographic range and recent catches in the eastern Mediterranean Sea? Perhaps the authors can share what “rare” means in previous catches in the species’ main geographic ranges? For example, how many reported catches or sightings in 10 years in the natural range versus in this study? Without some of this comparative information, it’s difficult for the reader to evaluate the findings.

 Rare refers to species whose distribution knowledge is limited. We have added a sentence clarifying this. See line 63-65.

I think that both of the above items can be relatively quickly addressed by the authors. On the first item, for example, the authors might conduct post hoc interviews with some of the people who reported the catches to obtain an historical perspective. (On a related note, but perhaps appropriate for an entirely different manuscript, has anyone conducted interviews to build a historical timeline of changes in the species composition of the fisheries in the study area?) On the second item, I imagine that the information on relative frequency of catches for the species are available in the citations the authors provided, and perhaps on other sources.

 

As regards to the first item we agree that a historical reconstruction of species distribution based on interviews would be an entirely different manuscript, even though species identification would be challenging, unless complemented with historical photos.

As regards to the second item we added a supplementary file with up-to-date published literature for each species with information on number of species reported, location, latitude and longitude, year of observation, digital object identifier (DOI) and geographic region including the Adriatic, the Ionian, the Aegean and the Levantine Sea (See Supplementary Table 1).

See also lines 162-176: We found that, based on current literature (Supplementary Table 1), the reported number of individuals in this study contributed with 21,6% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and 27,3% to the total number of reports during the last decade. For some species 45the contribution to the total number of reports in the eastern Mediterranean was higher: (a) Alectis alexandrina contributed with 34,4% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and 35,7% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the last decade, (b) Ranzania laevis contributed with 11,1% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and 20% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the last decade, (c) Dalatias licha contributed with 18,9% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and 28,6% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the last decade, (d) Lophotus lacepede contributed with 46,1% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and 75% to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the last decade and (e) Sudis hyalina contributed with 11,9 % to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and 14 % to total number of reported species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the last decade.

 

I found a few minor editing changes needed, listed below.

 Line 40 – remove “information”, redundant with “data”

Removed

Line 45 – “As many commercial targeted species in the Mediterranean Sea are already fished over sustainable levels (Vasilakopoulos et al. 2017), it is even more evident that rare and data-limited species will be overlooked from a fisheries management perspective.”  I don’t understand the reasoning of this sentence. Why would the overfished status of some species influence the amount of information on non-fished species? I agree that non-fished species won’t have as much data available because there is not an economic reason to obtain the data, but this isn’t the same as the sentence implies.

 We understand the reviewers concern and we have deleted the sentence, since the economic reasoning has already been mentioned in the previous sentences of the same paragraph.

Line 69 – change “Up to date” to “At the time this manuscript was written” or similar

Changed

Line 74 – please defined “stranded”

We have now defined it as: “(i.e. found deceased on shore)”

Line 78 – change “prior to inclusion to…” to “prior to the inclusion in…”

Corrected

Line 150 – change to “an unequivocal”

Corrected

Figure 4 needs some identifiers (e.g., country names) so the reader can determine geographic positions of the samples.

Corrected

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read this manuscript. The study is interesting, well structured, results are clearly presented. However, I suggest to improve the manuscript in order to increase the scientific quality of the study. 

The introduction must be improved emphasizing the gap in the current literature in this topic and the aim of the study should be clarified. Interesting sources are:

Fortibuoni, T., Aldighieri, F., Giovanardi, O., Pranovi, F., & Zucchetta, M. (2015). Climate impact on Italian fisheries (Mediterranean Sea). Regional Environmental Change, 15(5), 931-937.

Lejeusne, C., Chevaldonné, P., Pergent-Martini, C., Boudouresque, C. F., & Perez, T. (2010). Climate change effects on a miniature ocean: the highly diverse, highly impacted Mediterranean Sea. Trends in ecology & evolution, 25(4), 250-260.

Macías, D., Castilla-Espino, D., García-del-Hoyo, J. J., Navarro, G., Catalán, I. A., Renault, L., & Ruiz, J. (2014). Consequences of a future climatic scenario for the anchovy fishery in the Alboran Sea (SW Mediterranean): A modeling study. Journal of Marine Systems, 135, 150-159.

Tulone, A., Crescimanno, M., Vrontis, D., & Galati, A. (2020). Are coastal communities able to pay for the protection of fish resources impacted by climate change?. Fisheries Research, 221, 105374.

Tulone, A., Galati, A., Lupo, S., Tinervia, S., & Crescimanno, M. (2019). What are the effects of sea warming on the fishing industry?. ECONOMIA AGRO-ALIMENTARE.

Finally, I suggest to includes a section "Conclusion" in which authors emphasize the main remarks of their work, the most important implications and the limitations.

 

Author Response

Thank you for the opportunity to read this manuscript. The study is interesting, well structured, results are clearly presented. However, I suggest to improve the manuscript in order to increase the scientific quality of the study. 

 The introduction must be improved emphasizing the gap in the current literature in this topic and the aim of the study should be clarified. Interesting sources are:

Fortibuoni, T., Aldighieri, F., Giovanardi, O., Pranovi, F., & Zucchetta, M. (2015). Climate impact on Italian fisheries (Mediterranean Sea). Regional Environmental Change, 15(5), 931-937.

Lejeusne, C., Chevaldonné, P., Pergent-Martini, C., Boudouresque, C. F., & Perez, T. (2010). Climate change effects on a miniature ocean: the highly diverse, highly impacted Mediterranean Sea. Trends in ecology & evolution, 25(4), 250-260.

Macías, D., Castilla-Espino, D., García-del-Hoyo, J. J., Navarro, G., Catalán, I. A., Renault, L., & Ruiz, J. (2014). Consequences of a future climatic scenario for the anchovy fishery in the Alboran Sea (SW Mediterranean): A modeling study. Journal of Marine Systems, 135, 150-159.

Tulone, A., Crescimanno, M., Vrontis, D., & Galati, A. (2020). Are coastal communities able to pay for the protection of fish resources impacted by climate change?. Fisheries Research, 221, 105374.

Tulone, A., Galati, A., Lupo, S., Tinervia, S., & Crescimanno, M. (2019). What are the effects of sea warming on the fishing industry?. ECONOMIA AGRO-ALIMENTARE.

We are grateful to the reviewer’s suggestions and have used the above-named references, except Lejeunse et al. 2010 since it has already been used (see line in the revised version), to further develop the introduction, aim and conclusions of our study emphasizing the gap in literature (see lines 31-38, 55-58, new supplementary table 1 and new section "Conclusion".

Finally, I suggest to includes a section "Conclusion" in which authors emphasize the main remarks of their work, the most important implications and the limitations.

We have added a section "Conclusion" following reviewer recommendation. See revised version.

Reviewer 3 Report

A brief summary

This article contains two aspects:  firstly, it shows the important role of citizen science in filling the gaps in data for rare and poorly studied fish species, in particular in regard to deep species; secondly, presents five new records of such native species from the Aegean and Levantine Seas.

Comments

The first of the above-mentioned aspects is practically important and of interest to a wide range of readers; the second has both practical and scientific value. The article convincingly shows the effectiveness of the citizen-science program ΄΄Is it Alien to you? Share it!!!΄΄; now this project’s Facebook group numbers >10,000 members, among which about 5000 are actively engaged; the project has gathered a vast amount of information about the data-limited species, including several first records. It is obvious that the role of the citizen-science will increase due to the further development of social networks and progress in communication tools.

The requirements for data submitted by citizen-observers are described clearly as well as the role of taxonomic experts to prevent taxonomic uncertainties and misidentification. Nevertheless, it is desirable to describe the procedure of obtaining data by citizen (mainly fishers) in more detail; in particular, how are the requirements specified in line 70 (Section 2) are consistent with the possibility of underwater observation (line 74).

Author Response

A brief summary

This article contains two aspects:  firstly, it shows the important role of citizen science in filling the gaps in data for rare and poorly studied fish species, in particular in regard to deep species; secondly, presents five new records of such native species from the Aegean and Levantine Seas.

 Comments

The first of the above-mentioned aspects is practically important and of interest to a wide range of readers; the second has both practical and scientific value. The article convincingly shows the effectiveness of the citizen-science program ΄΄Is it Alien to you? Share it!!!΄΄; now this project’s Facebook group numbers >10,000 members, among which about 5000 are actively engaged; the project has gathered a vast amount of information about the data-limited species, including several first records. It is obvious that the role of the citizen-science will increase due to the further development of social networks and progress in communication tools.

We are grateful for the reviewers comment. Even if it is difficult to evaluate how the awareness has affected the scientific community, it is worth mentioning that 10 more records of the species were reported since 2016 when the citizen science program was launched (Ceyhan & Akyol 2016; Goren et al.,  2016; Erguden D., et al. 2017; Chatzispyrou et al. 2019; Yapici, 2019; Erguden D. et al., 2019) See new lines 162-176 and new conclusion section. The contribution of our study is mainly the newly scientifically shared reports of the species with a historical reflection to already published records on the species in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Please see also Supplementary Table 1 that we now included.

The requirements for data submitted by citizen-observers are described clearly as well as the role of taxonomic experts to prevent taxonomic uncertainties and misidentification. Nevertheless, it is desirable to describe the procedure of obtaining data by citizen (mainly fishers) in more detail; in particular, how are the requirements specified in line 70 (Section 2) are consistent with the possibility of underwater observation (line 74).

 As regards to measurements on underwater observations, those were estimated by observers that were trained with fish silhouettes. We added a sentence for this "All individuals categorized as UW were measured by trained observers with silhouettes". See lines 71-72 in the revised version.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors did a good job addressing my concerns. The Supplemental material is very helpful, and the new text is appropriate. The manuscript is appropriate for publication.

I have one editing comment: In the passage starting Line 162, I suggest an editing change. If I understand the intent of the paragraph correctly, the text "...contributed with 21,6% to total number of reported species..." should instead be "contributed 21,6% of the reports of the species..."  If my understanding of the intent of the new paragraph is correct, the same change should be made to this same text where it occurs in the remainder of the paragraph.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

 

your observation is correct and we have corrected accordingly the whole paragraph following your recommendation.

 

Thank you once again,

 

Stefanos Kalogirou