Halogens in Seaweeds: Biological and Environmental Significance

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is an interesting review paper regarding the important chemical group of halogenated compounds: fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, astatine, and tennessine.

Generally, the is a very detailed text including many chemical details that I am not qualified to judge, being a biologist. To my knowledge, the text is very well written, having cited hundreds of papers, namely other review papers, thus it is a very complete, correct, and a useful paper on seaweeds’ halogenated compounds.

Thus, I agree with the publication of the article, which is of good quality, with minor modifications.

A few comments are made below to improve the paper:

 

The authors address many sections and subsections, and I suggest an index, so to organize all the information:

1. General introduction to Algae
2. Halogens

            2.1.

            2.2.

            (…)

3. Algae and iodine speciation in the Ocean
4. Algal halogen accumulation, metabolism, biochemistry
5. Algal halogenated natural products
6. Vanadium haloperoxidases
7. Algal halogen sources to the atmosphere
8. Seaweeds as bioindicators for radioactive iodine

 

In section 2.4.1. The authors could also add a figure with the environmental chemical interactions of halogenated compounds in the geochemical cycle, as the authors did with figure 2. It would facilitate to understand the text.

There should be a general conclusion to the text to wrap up the text.

 

Line 36  – I suggest adding: [roots] and complex reproductive structures.

Line 43  – I suggest adding: [4] thus, playing very important ecosystem services.

Line 46  –. Substitute um by μm.

Line 49 –. Include here also: Guiry, Algaebase.org, the reference site for seaweeds. It is reference [26].

Line 94 – 50^th, th th is above the line

Lines 95 – 141 – Paragraphs are left aligned

Line 266 and 279 –  decide whether to right alpha or use α throughout the text.

Line 330 – use the full name of PceA the first time Tetrachloroethene reductive dehalogenase

Line 370 – the word with is duplicated

line 481 - "the hypothesis" is duplicated

Line 660 – the definition for “iodovolatilisation” has been delivered in line 82. Maybe the authors should revise the text accordingly.

Line 735 – the first time a species is cited ex. Laminaria digitata (Hudson) Lamouroux, its full name may be used, that is, Scientific name followed by authors (such as in this example in bold), Then, its simplified name should be used, that is Laminaria digitata or L. digitata. Because this is not a taxonomy paper, you may use only this Laminaria digitata, excluding the authors. And certainly not now, after citing the species several times.  

Line 1001 – [437] – add Abrahamsson, K., et al. [437]

 

Bibliography:

I believe that the references should state all the authors, when there are more than 3. Not only the first one et al.

Some references are in full capital letters.

Reference 414. “Invalid citation”

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

        I’d like to start by commending the authors for tackling such a completed review. This review covers the basic knowledge in algae and halogens, halogens in the ocean and their biological function and environmental significance. Trying to summarize it all in a review is quite an undertaking. Ultimately, this will be a very valuable review for the scientific community, and I recommend publication. I do, however, have some suggestions and concerns–primarily regarding some text and sections that, in my opinion, oversimplify, such as part 3 and part 8. These concerns can easily be addressed by editing language and rescoping some of the text.

 There were studies that investigated the localization of halogens, and study investigated how seaweed impacted the iodine speciation in coastal seawater. Part 8 is incomplete.

Specific Comments

1. It’s recommended to add an outline after the abstract so that the reader could get the main idea of what this review paper covers.
2. Line 626-633, it is inappropriate to just copy someone’s abstract. Please summarize and rewrite this paragraph.
3. Part 4, it’s recommended to add a table in this section to give a summary for the reported halogen concentration in seaweed.  
4. Please add a section after section 8 to summarize this review and give an outline of future research directions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf