Evolutionary Conservation of Photophore Ultrastructure in Sharks: The Case of a Dalatiid Squalomorph

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Very good paper

Author Response

Thanks for your comment on the manuscript. 

Best Regards,

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors described detailed structure of the photophore of the dalatiid bioluminescent shark. I think it is valuable for understanding the evolution of shark bioluminescence. Text and figures are well written, consistent and sound. I would recommend it for acceptance after the minor points listed below and annotated on the manuscript are addressed.

L62. Authors should mention that Somniosidae is not monotypic.

L71. Conserve  conserved ?

L110. Classical  standard or normal ?

L130. ‘N’ of N-oxide must be italicized.

L131. Colon after ‘osmolarity’ should be comma.

L138. Authors should use consistent unit expression, mol L^-2 or M, through the manuscript.

L138. Sodium chloride or NaCl (L129). The expression should be consistent through MS.

L146. 0.1 M or 100 mM?

L154. What 0.18 Methanol ?

L163, L165. Species name should be italicized. Other figure legends too.

Figure 1C. direction (dorsal/ventral) should be shown.

L180. Student’s t-test

L181. Bartlett’s, Levene’s

L182. P of p-value should be italicized.

L214-215, L223. a-melanocyte stimulating hormone treatment  a-MSH

Figure 3. Authors should show the definition of *, **, ***. What NS represent?

Figure 3. Numbers on vertical axis are not clear.

Figure 3. What’s the bars represent? SE or SD?

Figure 3B. What nb in the vertical axis?

L314. D modeling. 3D modeling?

L342. Fewer. Less? Lesser?

Figure 4.A and B. What gray egg-shape structures represent?

Supplementary File 1. Do the diameters depend on the body length of the specimens? There is no description about the body size of the specimens examined, but readers may concern about them and the relationships between body size and photophore size. Thus, I recommend to describe the body sizes of the specimens examined in the manuscript.

Through the manuscript. Is +- SD? or SE?

Author Response

Thanks for your comments and for the manuscript review. We modified the manuscript and the associated figures according to all your comments. In addition, a global spell check was performed on the manuscript. Please find a modified version of the manuscript.

It was however not possible to investigate a potential relationship between the body size and the photophore size as the sampling was limited to only 3 individuals.

Best Regards,
Jérôme Delroisse