Investigating the Mesh Size Selectivity of Olive Flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) Gillnets for Fisheries Resource Management in the East Sea

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This very written paper presents the results of a detailed analysis of the fishing techniques of the Olive flounder fish in Korea. The paper uses field data and a relatively simple model of fish fecundity and capture size. The paper recommends an increase in gill net mesh size to protect the stocks.

I have no major comments and only two minor comments.

1. The title describes a process but more citations will be received if the title relates to the conclusion. Perhaps " Larger mesh size for Olive Flounder will enhance sustainability management in East Sea" or similar.

2. The data is interesting and I would enjoy seeing if there was any correlation between the species listed in Table 2.   

Author Response

Thank you for checking my thesis thoroughly.

1. The title describes a process but more citations will be received if the title relates to the conclusion. Perhaps " Larger mesh size for Olive Flounder will enhance sustainability management in East Sea" or similar

Response: Thank you for the good question. Let's think a little more about the title.

2. The data is interesting and I would enjoy seeing if there was any correlation between the species listed in Table 2.   

Response: This is a graph to easily see how much of the test target fish (Olive Flounder), was caught in the total catch. All fish species caught during all fishing operations were listed. The total number of fish caught and the number of fish caught can be known, and the number and weight of each fish caught in the test fishing are expressed. For every catch, the biomass dominant species and catch dominant species are known and plotted against CPUE (Catch Per Unit Effort).

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: Investigating the Mesh Size Selectivity of Olive Flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) Gillnets for Fisheries Resource Management in the East Sea

Dear editor:

The MS is about the Mesh Size Selectivity for Fisheries Resource Management. In general, I couldn’t find any novelty in research design and methods. The introduction is need to be extended; It’s not described all aspects of study. In all section of manuscript author did not referring to past related researches and need to be strength the literature review. The results, may need more statistical analysis as well as research design. Discussion is not prepared comprehensively to show it’s application in fisheries management.

I enjoyed reviewing this manuscript; However, I do not find interesting for international readers as a novel research. This manuscript may be a good report for regional journal.

In overall, I would NOT recommend the article for publishing in J of fishes.

Regards,

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

The MS is about the Mesh Size Selectivity for Fisheries Resource Management. In general, I couldn’t find any novelty in research design and methods. The introduction is need to be extended; It’s not described all aspects of study. In all section of manuscript author did not referring to past related researches and need to be strength the literature review. The results, may need more statistical analysis as well as research design. Discussion is not prepared comprehensively to show it’s application in fisheries management.

Response:

Thank you for reading and reviewing my paper and for your good questions.

In the introduction section, there is currently some dispute due to fishing regulations in Gangwon-do. Therefore, I wrote a brief introduction. If you think more needs to be added, please leave a comment. I will edit it.

It was added to the discussion section and marked in blue in the revised version. In my paper, I used several models for Mesh Size Selectivity, but I explain the one model that is most suitable. In relation to this, other past papers have added past references to explain which model was used for which fish species.

Currently, there are fishing regulations for flounder in Korea through the Fisheries Resources Management Act. Therefore, this paper contains my opinion that it would be good if fishing regulations were implemented through Mesh Size Selectivity like this. Since there are currently fishing regulations through law, we interpreted this as a more comprehensive opinion. If there is a good opportunity, I will try to interpret it so that it can be further applied to fisheries management.

Reviewer 3 Report

General comments

This paper tries to evaluate gillnet fishing, using four types of gillnets with different mesh sizes, to facilitate the rational use and management of olive flounder resources on the eastern coast of Korea, and to provide scientific data for developing resource management plans for the rational utilization and management of olive flounder resources.

The objective of the manuscript, in general, is interesting from a fisheries management point of view. However, the study needs some improvements to reach the standard of publication. The manuscript should become acceptable for publication pending suitable minor revision considering the comments appended below.

More specific comments:

Title, Abstract and Keywords: reflect the content of the paper.

Introduction:

Line 37 – 39: "…such as copepods and Acetes japonicus, whereas adults primarily feed on small fish and crustaceans.". Please add some examples of copepod species.

Line 41 – 43: "Unlike more methods such as trawling or purse seining, gillnet fishing is relatively simple and does not require specialized equipment, making it a popular choice in coastal waters [2].". Please change to "Unlike other fishing methods".

Line 45 – 50: "Several studies have focused on understanding changes in selectivity and determining appropriate mesh sizes for gillnet-based ... Examples of these studies include research on mesh selectivity in trammel nets for Cynoglossidae sp. [6] and flatfish [7], as well as studies on gillnet mesh selectivity for male and female snow crab [8,9] and silver pomfret [10].". Considering the first sentence speaking about gillnets, it makes little sense to provide examples to trammel nets although they are similar. Please check.

Line 51 – 53: "Recent fisheries legislation has increased the minimum catch size of olive flounder from 21 to 35 cm to protect juvenile fish (as stated in Article 6 of the Enforcement Decree of the Fisheries Act).". Please also provide the legal minimum mesh size specified by the fisheries legislation.

Material and methods:

In general, the material and methods are fine but still missing a description of the area of study and the olive flounder gillnet fishery (e.g., some information on the current size composition of O. flounder caught by the fishery based on real data) in this area.

Line 88 – 98: 2.1.2. Experimental Methods: How many fishing sets were conducted. Also, Line 90: "…from January to December 2022 ... " Were the fishing sets (fishing effort) equal each month?

Discussion and Conclusion:

The section provides a good summary of the study. However, much of the discussion (Line 258 – 276) sounds like an introduction. It would be great if the authors try to enrich the discussion with other studies. I suggest this because I see that there is little discussion in this section which is reflected by the few citations (Line 277 – 299: Only one study used for citations: Kim et al. [26]). The discussion section lacks comparisons with other studies where the authors should use findings of other similar studies with the same objectives (e.g., to estimate the sustainable mesh size for the fishing of olive flounder) for comparison, even from other areas or countries (not necessarily only from Korea). What is then missing is a scientific/scholarly 'discussion' which links the proposed ideas in this paper into the other existing similar research.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Line 37 – 39: "…such as copepods and Acetes japonicus, whereas adults primarily feed on small fish and crustaceans.". Please add some examples of copepod species.

Response: In the feeding analysis of Olive flounder, copepods are only classified into taxa. It is expected to be Euchaeta plana, the copepod most abundant in the east coast region.

Line 41 – 43: "Unlike more methods such as trawling or purse seining, gillnet fishing is relatively simple and does not require specialized equipment, making it a popular choice in coastal waters [2].". Please change to "Unlike other fishing methods".

Response: “Unlike other fishing methods such as trawling or purse seining, gillnet fishing is relatively simple and does not require specialized equipment, making it a popular choice in coastal waters.” It was modified to .Thank you for your good comments.

Line 45 – 50: "Several studies have focused on understanding changes in selectivity and determining appropriate mesh sizes for gillnet-based ... Examples of these studies include research on mesh selectivity in trammel nets for Cynoglossidae sp. [6] and flatfish [7], as well as studies on gillnet mesh selectivity for male and female snow crab [8,9] and silver pomfret [10].". Considering the first sentence speaking about gillnets, it makes little sense to provide examples to trammel nets although they are similar. Please check.

Response: Cynoglossidae sp. is written in the introduction because it is a Compressed form fish like Olive flounder. Considering the importance of gillnet, I wrote a gillnet paper at the beginning, and later revised it by writing about trmal.

Line 51 – 53: "Recent fisheries legislation has increased the minimum catch size of olive flounder from 21 to 35 cm to protect juvenile fish (as stated in Article 6 of the Enforcement Decree of the Fisheries Act).". Please also provide the legal minimum mesh size specified by the fisheries legislation.

Response: Currently, Korea does not regulate minimum mesh size.

Material and methods:

In general, the material and methods are fine but still missing a description of the area of study and the olive flounder gillnet fishery (e.g., some information on the current size composition of O. flounder caught by the fishery based on real data) in this area.

Response: In Graph 4, a graph of the body length distribution of flounder caught according to each net currently used for fishing is inserted.

 Line 88 – 98: 2.1.2. Experimental Methods: How many fishing sets were conducted. Also, Line 90: "…from January to December 2022 ... " Were the fishing sets (fishing effort) equal each month?

Response: The number of fishing workers and fishing hours were the same each time. The standard was once a month, and in months when fishing was low, fishing was conducted several times. Fishing effort can be viewed as the same because the number of workers and fishing hours were the same. Fishing time took about 2 hours.

Discussion and Conclusion:

The section provides a good summary of the study. However, much of the discussion (Line 258 – 276) sounds like an introduction. It would be great if the authors try to enrich the discussion with other studies. I suggest this because I see that there is little discussion in this section which is reflected by the few citations (Line 277 – 299: Only one study used for citations: Kim et al. [26]). The discussion section lacks comparisons with other studies where the authors should use findings of other similar studies with the same objectives (e.g., to estimate the sustainable mesh size for the fishing of olive flounder) for comparison, even from other areas or countries (not necessarily only from Korea). What is then missing is a scientific/scholarly 'discussion' which links the proposed ideas in this paper into the other existing similar research.

Response: It was added to the discussion section and marked in blue in the revised version. In my paper, I used several models for ms, but I explain the one model that is most suitable. In relation to this, other past papers have added past references to explain which model was used for which fish species. If further modifications are needed, I will study and add more discussion. Thank you for your good comments.