Effect of Inorganic Mercury on Semen Quality, Embryo and Larval Development of Bocachico Prochilodus magdalenae
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Author,
In my opinion your paper can be an important contribution to the field but the manuscript should be corrected before publication.
1) Introduction. In this part you should add more information on the impact of HMs on fish physiology as it is well-documented that HMs can cause various changes in fish organisms, e.g. hematological changes, biochemical alterations and histopathological lesions. Please see for example:
Drąg-Kozak, E., Łuszczek-Trojnar, E., Socha, M., & Bojarski, B. Effects of Melatonin on Cadmium Accumulation and Haematological Parameters in Cadmium Intoxicated Prussian Carp (B.). Annals of Animal Science, 21(3), 899-923.
2) M&M part
Add the information about the methods of the measurement of water quality parameters. How often were the analyses conducted? What reagents were used? What equipment was used?
"In all cases, was used a significance level of p<0.05." This is incorrect. The p-value is not a significant level. Moreover, in biological sciences, the level of significance is EQUAL to 0.05. It is not less than this value!
Please change "Multiple Range test" to "multiple range test".
Line 2012. "program" or software?
Line 228 "Different letters indicate significant differences between rows. (p<0.05)." The dot before the parenthesis is redundant.
3) Simple summary should be rewritten. The current version is too long and not simple.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you a lot for your recommendations and suggestions.
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Fishes 2547542
Please see attached file also.
Line 48 paragraph. Columbia’s contribution to global mercury pollution is high, with it’s gold production growing by 20% in 2019. …..ton/year), and fist in Latin America, and Columbia was considered the highest per capitata polluter in the world.
Line 52. Fish health and not wealth?
Line 54 – The review for USEPA (write out) is for Mn and not Hg! Correct this.
Throughout the manuscript the distinction between organic or inorganic Hg needs to be specified and rewritten to reflect this distinction. Thank you.
Throughout the manuscript, the discussion of effects in species needs to be clear – humans? Fish?
Line 62 paragraph. This part needs expansion regarding the speciation and toxicity and what is to be expected in different waters. This is crucial to the paper’s context. The paper as it stands does not provide any integrated context to the Columbian ecosystem.
Consolidate Lines 79-94.
What do you mean “activation” Line 93? Unclear and when that comes up again, please clarify – eggs do not activate.
Intro: Provide a map outlining the gold mining sites and the spawning areas for your species.
Line 101. Provide a citation for the basin.
Line 105. Provide a citation that shows that eating contaminated fish influences human health, or moderate the sentence.
Lin 113. City state? Add to map.
Line 115. Citation on use of hormone needed.
CASA throughout – define first use then abbreviate
Line 126- Atencio – 41
Line 136- unclear method.
What is the pH of the spawning grounds? Please provide.
Line 142 and more. Incubators? Define – tanks of what volume?
What is the supply water if fish are saltwater? Source water needed.
Line 153. Image analyzer unclear – what do you meant?
Line 156. Hpf not a common acronym so spell out
Line 158. Provide figures to demonstrate observations.
Ln. 171 neotropical in front of fishes
Line 186. Define those acronyms for readers and table 1 needs those too in a footnote. Tables need to be able to stand alone from the manuscript. Lots goes into a table or a figure. Thank you
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Needs some edits and condensing throughout.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you a lot for your recommendations and suggestions.
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
All modifications provided by the Authors are good, needed and correct but one is still lacking. As I previously explained in my evaluation of the manuscript, p-value is not a significance level. The Authors responded that my comment was "interesting" but they have not corrected this part. Thus, I have to explain one more time: The significance level is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis. The result of testing is statistically significant when p < alpha. The significance level for a study is chosen before data collection and is typically = 0.05 in biological sciences. Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance The authors still claim in the manuscript that the significance level in their study was less than 0.05. And I keep asking HOW MUCH WAS IT?Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you very much for your suggestions and corrections.
The authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
