Taxonomic Notes on Lerniana Delicado et Hauffe, 2022, Trichonia Schütt, 1980 (Truncatelloidea: Hydrobiidae: Horatiinae) and Allied Taxaâ€
, Jozef Grego 3, Sebastian Hofman 4, Artur Osikowski 5 and Andrzej Falniowski 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is devoted to one taxonomy and molecular phylogeny of the most complicated and hard to study groups of gastropods, the family Hydrobiidae. The authors received the new helpful results, they described two new species and provided an overview of several closely related taxa.
Several remarks:
The first sentence in the abstract is difficult to understand,
Subfamily Horatiinae includes 22 or 23 genera, four of them were studied…….
I had to read the papers listed in the Introduction in order to understand the reasons for researches. It should be stated more clearly and briefly.
Materia and Methods
Figure 4 and Table 3 (Shell measurements) look like Results, not “Material and Methods” where they are inserted
Results
In the caption to Table 2, it is better to list the species names for mOTU’s
“p-distances” is uncorrected p-distances or not?
Line 202 Another haplotype, representing a different species of Lerniana new for the science (mOTU C),
Species name and authors this species should be inserted:
The other haplotype (mOTU C) belongs to the new for science species Lerniana moreana Grego & Jaszczyńska, which is described below or the description of which is given below
Similarly Lines 205-206
Line 222 What kind of operculum is in the discussed species? Paucispiral or other?
All discussed species have a similar operculum or not?
Figure 6. “The shell measurements are also shown” is not right. They are absent in the plate of two components. Color points are corresponded to measurement shells of the comparing species.
I think that the PCA analysis is not necessary. The close related species of the Lerniana form a single cloud.
Line 297 Shell measurements: Table 3… The holotype size? Which measurements belong to the holotype for this and the second new species?
Line 315
Figure 6 does not show that size and proportions of a new species wider than in Lerniana seminula.
It is better to refer to Table 3.
In general, the descriptions of the species correspond to the Сode of Zoological Nomenclature, and are beyond doubt.
Author Response
We are deeply grateful for your review. Please look at the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
I have read your work on the Lerniana spp of Greece and other sister taxa. Your work certainly adds to our knowledge of the truncatelloids. Nevertheless, your manuscript could and should be improved in order to have a clear presentation of your results and conclusions. Indeed, as you mention there is lack of fresh material which is crucial in order to have a complete overview of the investigated taxa. This should be stressed clearly in your manuscript, in the discussion-conclusions.
I have made several comments on the manuscript. The most important regards the formulation of your discussion.
Please see my comments directly on the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The manuscript would benefit if the language is improved.
Author Response
We are very grateful indeed for your detailed and important comments and corrections. Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI am satisfied witht he changes. No more comments
Author Response
Comment 1. Do you refer to Radomaniola sp.1 and 2? You should make this clear here. e.g. ...and unnamed clade refered to as " Radomaniola" here.
Response 1. Indeed, thank you for your comment. We have insert this in the text.
Comment 2. Nowhere in the text there is an explanation of mOTUS (Molecular operational taxonomic units). It is mandatory to briefly explain the concept and its use in your study (preferably in the introduction/methods)
Response. We have given full name of Molecular Taxonomical Unit, and briefly explained in the Material and methods
Comment 3. I suggest writing the new species names
Response 3. We rather follow a good practice of avoiding publication of new taxa's name, to avoid creation of nomen nudum.
Comment 4. I would add something like that: ...for which the genus assignment remains undecided based on our molecular results...
Response 4. We have done it
Comment 5. Rephrase, e.g. Informed decisions on species and habitat protection should consider the above...
Response 5. done
Comment 6. I would start with a general remark on the truncatelloids from the Balkans and Greece and then dive into specifics.
Response 6. We have added a short statement.
Comment 7. This requires a reference, otherwise I would move it to the last paragraph of the introduction to justify the need for this work.
Response 7. It has been moved.
Comment 8. It is better to write also the name of the locality, not just the number. Also, if possible write the species which was found there, like in A.
Response 8. Indeed, we have given the names of the localities.
Comment 9. It is preferable to merge figures 2 and 3. Although in figures 3A-C I can see the habitat, or details of the locality, rather than the locality itself. Maybe you can write this, e.g.. "3A rocky substrate in locality X where the species Y was collected"
Response 9. We think that tjhere is still some information, visible in these photographs of the localities. But nearly nothing would be seen after merging these already complext figures, or rather plates.
Comment 10. you should justify why you chose to consider these characters, why they are considered important for the snail group you are studying.
Response 10. We have used the measurement scheme already used in earlier papers, we have added this explanation to the text.
Comment 11. why? You should explain this, e.g. to deal with normality issues...
Response 11. In such a case, with an extremely low number of objects (specimens in this case), and serious work with multivariate techniques is very restricted. Simply, only a descriptive attitude may be used, and useful, but any stochastic model should be avoided. An it is simply unrrealistic to expect (multidimnsional!) normality or just ellipticity of distribution. Anyway, logarithmic transformation is routinely used, to make a distribution less "unnormal", and to smooth the distribution, making it less sensitive for the outliers. We have adde a few words to the text.
Comment 12. The p-distances between mOTU H (Trichoniana) and other mOTUs are sometimes smaller than between mOTUS that are assigned to the same genus, i.e. Lerniana. How is this possible? Can it be explained?
Response 12. Indeed, they are. Our tree is in the form of phylogram, thus metric (additive) tree. Thus the branch lengths reflect the number of mutations along a brach (or, more precisely, the amount of observable changes in sequences). And they are short, but the topology of the tree, together with species delimitation techniques, confirm this mOTU distinctness. The clade well supported. Its neighbours are Radomaniola and no-Radomaniola, thus the only solution is to remain its genus-level assignment and the name Trichonia, as long as no more data would be available.
Comment 13. I know it is a lot of work, but maybe it would work better to have all the shells of all the species in one panel/figure and all the penises in another one? Iw would be easier to compare.
Response 13. Surely, we can consider this. However, there is no problem of work, but rather the problem of too much information lost - such small photograps would be much less informative.
Comment 14. I am a bit skeptical if this is a reliable result. You have so few specimens for some species that maybe they are not representative of the species variation.
Response 14. Surely, they are not representative, but this is why we have used a descriptive approach, not a stochastic one. Thus the PCA of this kind summarizes the shell biometry differences and variability in one figure, which is convenient.
Comment 15. which figure? please mention exactly
Response 15. S7J, inserted in the text.
Comment 16. I think there is a mix-up with C and E figures
Response 16. We have checked it. It is not.
Comment 17. I think it is a matter of presentation, like in the case of L. feheri. It should somehow be clear that these are synonyms. Maybe make in bold the accepted name and the rest in regular font?
Response 17. Indeed, it is a good idea. We have used bold for all the valid names. We have also added figs numbers
Comment 18. please make clear to which paper the figures refer to!
Response 18. We have done it.
Comment 19. this does not make any sense, please rephrase
Response 19. Indeed! We apologize for this stupid mistake.
Comment 20. which sp do you refer to 1 or 2? Maybe you can be more specific.
Response 20. Unfortunately, I cannot. These two molecularly defined species are not discernible morphologically.
Comment 21. I would suggest in this first paragraph (and second) to summarize your findings, as may readers may find the story complicated. It would be even nice to number them, 1)..., 2)... Also the English needs improvement. Then in the following paragraphs I would address each and every result/finding. This way it will be easier for the read to follow.
Response 21. The English has been corrected as well as we can. We have numbered the discussed results/conclusions.
Comment 22. I think it is better to rephrase this sentence and make clear that you consider L feheri a synonym of L. seminula. (update: see my comment below)
Response 22. We have done this.
Comment 23. OK, here you explain why your trouble to synonymise the two species. You are missing data from the type locality of R. seminula, if I understood. I think you should mae this clear and provide the reader with the decision you made, did you or did you not synonymize the two species and why? It is unclear.
Response 23. Sorry, in fact there has been no “ mark at the end of the cited text of Delicado & Hauffe. Their opinion we do not share, as could be read below. We have rearranged the text.
Comment 24. The topic change is very abrupt and a new paragraph is required here. Also, this has not been mentioned in the introduction. I can understand the authors' suggestions, but at this point it is only speculation and does not really add to the story.
If you present a full story of the Truncatelloids of Peloponnisos in the introduction, then it would be expected to discuss the need to revise some species/genera because they were poorly described, etc.
But I do not think that it is appropriate to do it here.
Response 24. Now there is a distinct paragraph. We share the opinion that any more wide description of the Peloponnese truncatelloids and their study is rather unnecessary here.
Comment 25. These findings deserve a separate paragraph, and elaboration backed up if possible by references, otherwise they are a bit confusing.
Response 25. Indeed, now there is a distinct, somewhat modified paragraph.
Comment 26. Molluscabase recently updated the name and now it is accepted as Radomaniola kephalovrisnia. Maybe you should consider using it.
Response 26. It has been considered.
Comment 27. Again here, I am concerned about the interpretation of this PCA as the samples are very few, and I am not sure you can draw safe conclusions. This should be clearly stated.
Response 27. Yes, and we have stressed it in the present text.
Comment 28. It wold be nice a gain to summarize your findings and say a few more words on the species protection and management. Eg. the implications when reviewing a species for IUCN, etc.
Response 28. We have done it.
