Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, please find specific comments regarding your manuscript.

Lines 13 and 21 – you note that samples were collected in January and May 2015 but in Materials and Methods different data are presented (January and June 2015); please check and correct this.

Lines 46 and 49 – scleractinian fishes: what are those fishes and are you sure about this term? I only associate it with corals.

In the Introduction I miss the clearer purpose of this paper and the application of the results, i.e., the importance of the provided data.

Lines 75-76 – missing verb, revise the sentence.

Please, write full species name in all legends of figures and tables.

It is not clear from the results what is the total number of collected individuals (87?). Also, although no differences were found between two stations and regarding the sex, at the beginning of the results it would be good to present data in a little more detail – how many individuals were caught, how many at each station/date, how many males and females...

Line 122 – wrong Latin name, please correct it.

Line 129 – please write species name in italic.

Figure 2 – please correct word stander on the x-axis and word redgions in the figure legend.

Line 152-154 – this model is not represented in Materials and Methods. Why choosing it? Can you compare these results to available from the literature? Firstly, what is the correlation between fish length and otolith weight?

Figure 7 – this is highly speculative based on the presented data, rather prediction than correct estimation.

Lines 179-181 – please, revise the sentence (language revision). In addition, a lot of sentences don't sound right, please check everything.

Line 184 – you state that fish was described by isometric growth? Are you sure? Results don’t show this. And on the contrary, in line 195, you state that the growth is negative allometric. Moreover, you did not test your data – is the coefficient b significantly smaller than 3?

Line 223 – you state that the ranges of CZ were 17 - 26 days but in Results, the first number is 16 days. In addition, you write that MZ ranged from 11 - 19 days (line 226), but in Results, data is different. Please, check everything carefully.

Line 239-242 – this is the first time you mention that you tested different models – or delete it from here or include data in previous sections (Materials and Methods and Results).

Line 252 – species name in italic.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript contains well-built research on the growth of Diaphus brachycephalus based on age determination from otolith microstructure. The subject of the paper is worthy of investigation.

Methods and experimental design seemed to be correct. However, some revision is needed in the manuscript.

The introduction should be focused more on the species. The review part on the role of the lanternfish is correct. I know that the available literature on the D. brachycephalus is limited, but the last paragraph of the introduction should be extended to show its importance, and why this species was studied.

Material and methods:

Sample collection: although the sample sizes could be found in tables (in the results), please include the sample sizes collected in the different locations and also the number of the males and females. If available, a map of the two locations should be also included.

The effects of the locations and the sexes were estimated separately by One-way ANOVA. Although their effect was not significant, testing their interaction would be also interesting.

Please add the method of the calculation of the relationship between CZ and MZ

Results:

Lines 122-124 and 146-148. Please include details: means+SD for the regions and sexes in the results.

Discussion:

Lines 179-181 – the results do not contain details on the male/female numbers…

Lines 223 and 226- the CZ and MZ ranges and means are not identical to the values in the results. Please check them.

Line 232- What is the significance of the CZ/MZ ratio? Please explain it.

Lines 239-240. The sentence is misleading. Only VB growth curves were used in the study, there are no data on the Logistic and Gompertz model.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, thank you for following all suggestions and implementing changes to your manuscript. I have just noticed one minor error - in the line 132, it should be 34 (not 35).

Author Response

Point 1:  I have just noticed one minor error - in the line 132, it should be 34 (not 35).

Response: We accept your correction and have completed the changes to the forthcoming manuscript. We thank you for your careful review of the article and contribution to correct my mistakes. We sincerely appreciate your labor and dedication!