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by
  • Xiaoyi Sun and
  • Yong Huang*

Reviewer 1: Hyun Soo Rho Reviewer 2: Elisa Baldrighi

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors
  • This manuscript is a taxonomic study describing two new species of free-living marine nematodes from the Yellow Sea.
  • In the Introduction section, a brief overview of each relevant genus is provided.
  • The revisions identified during the review process have been marked directly in the manuscript.
  • The authors are expected to carefully review the detailed suggestions provided by the reviewer and respond thoroughly to each point.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language
  • The overall use of English throughout the manuscript is deemed appropriate. However, several areas for improvement in grammar and phrasing were noted during the review process. These have been directly marked in the manuscript, and the authors are advised to carefully review and revise these points accordingly.

Author Response

Thank you very much for pointing these out, We agree with these comments, and carefully revised the manuscript according to your opinions and guidance. We corrected the errors and removed the unnecessary sentences and paragraphs, and rewrote the sentences that were not clearly expressed. The modified parts have been marked in the revied text.

  1. The suggestions from the reviewer were all revised one by one. The revised parts have been marked in the text.
  2. Line 113. The meaning of “bulb present or not” is that some species have pharyngeal bulb, while other species of the genus have not.
  3. We have provided a detailed descriptions of the females of both species.
  4. We have provided updated keys to the valid species of the genus Anticoma and Comesoma.
  5. Line 181,Telamon. It is a special reproductive accessory of males found in only a few nematode species, such as some Rhips species and some Actinonema species. It is usually a small L-shaped curved structure. The main difference between telamon and spicule is that the former is only one, while the latter is typically two.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper by Xiaoyi Sun describes two new speceis of nematodes belongigng to the genera Actinonema and Comesoma found in the Yellow Sea (China). The description of new speceis is a big task and enormous challange to take. This work could really contribute to our knowledge of nematodes but it needs to be deeply improved, in my opinion. The paper has many flaws, it contains many inaccurancies and some important explanations and information are missed. The manuscript cannot be ecceptable for publication. Please, see my commnets on the attached pdf for improving the paper. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English must be improved. Please, revise the manuscript with the help of a mother tongue. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your revising the paper and improve the writing. We agree with these corrections, and carefully revised the manuscript according to your  guidance. We have corrected the errors and removed the unnecessary sentences and paragraphs, and rewrote the sentences that were not clearly expressed. The modified parts have been marked in the revied text.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors
  • The revised manuscript demonstrates that the authors have thoroughly and faithfully addressed the comments from the first round of review, and overall improvements are evident throughout the text.
  • For this second round of review, I kindly recommend that the authors carefully consider and incorporate the newly suggested revisions. These suggestions are intended to further refine the manuscript, particularly in terms of clarity and precision in taxonomic descriptions.
  • The detailed comments and necessary corrections have been directly annotated within the manuscript. Please review them closely and make the corresponding changes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for helping to revise and improve our paper again. We carefully revised the manuscript according to your opinions and guidance. The modified parts have been marked in the text.

Kind regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper by Xiaoyi Sun and Yong Huang is greatly improved. I appreciated that the authors addressed all my suggestions. 

I left a couple of comments on the Result & Discussion session: please clarify those points and after that, in my opinion, the paper will be ready for publication on the journal. Good job!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your revising the paper and improve the writing. We have carefully revised the manuscript according to your guidance. We have rewritten the sentences that were not clearly expressed. The modified parts have been marked in the revised text.

Kind regards

Reply to comments.

Page 3, Line 113. I have to insist on this: if there are some speciments without pharyngeal bulb and other with it, we are talking about two different species. Unless females are different from males. That is, one sex has bulb and the other dosn't.

Response: What I'm trying to express is that pharyngeal bulbs are present in some species that means both the male and female specimens of the same species possess bulbs, and pharyngeal bulbs are absent in other species that means both the male and female specimens of the same other species do not have bulbs.

This sentence is not necessary, and we have deleted it.

Line 114. Spicules present in some species and absent in other species.

Response: “Spicules present in some species” means that spicules are present in all male specimens of the same species, while “absent in other species” means that all male specimens of the same other species do not have spicules. In this genus, most species have spicules, while a few species do not have spicules.

This sentence has been changed to “Spicules maybe absent”.

Line 144. Pharynx cylindrical, expanded at base and forming an oval bulb.

Changed to “Pharynx cylindrical, with a posterior oval bulb”.

Line 147. Spicules absent. Telamon sclerotized,

Changed to “Spicules absent, while telamon present, sclerotized,”