Taxonomic Structure and Diversity of Benthic Diatoms (Bacillariophyta) in the Northern Shelf of the Black Sea
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In the manuscript entitled “Taxonomic structure and diversity of benthic diatoms (Bacillariophyta) off the Black Sea Northern Shelf”, the author presents an extensive data set of taxonomic data regarding benthic diatoms from the Black Sea. The manuscript is well-written and clearly presented, and is based on an impressive amount of work. The English language is fine; I have not detected any error. I only have some minor comments, and some suggestions regarding the results and the discussion. Maybe it could be good to present some temporal evolution of the taxonomic diversity, as data were gathered over a 32-years period (1984-2016). In addition, I think that the Introduction and Discussion sections lack some references.
Please find after some specific comments.
L3. The “f” is missing at the end of the title.
L11. What do you mean by “master list”? I do not understand to what it refers.
L31. Do you mean 91-98% of total marine microphytobenthos species? From where do these numbers come? Please add a reference if possible.
L73. “quantifying assessing Bacillariophyta diversity”. Quantifying and assessing.
L134-136. Please be more precise in the description of the standard technique, and add a reference.
L153. Would it be possible to add coordinates on the map?
L183-185. Do you have an idea about how this impacted the number of species in the master list?
L193. I think that the right term is “taxonomic distinctness index”, not “distinctiveness”.
L264; Please add a reference regarding “Mediterranesation”.
L305-314. Do you know about potential functional differences between these groups? If so, it could be interesting to add some discussion about it.
L360 and L447. Please add the meaning of the IST abbreviation in the figure captions of figures 4 and 5.
Supplementary Material. I would suggest to add the title of the manuscript and the name of the author in the Supplementary material file.
Author Response
Please check the doc
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
Review for the paper “Taxonomic Structure and Diversity of Benthic Diatoms (Bacillariophyta) off the Black Sea Northern Shelf”
The author provides a comprehensive summary of both recent and past findings concerning the diversity of benthic diatoms in the Black Sea region, subsequently analyzing regional diversity patterns by employing the Taxonomic Distinctness Index. This particular approach has not been previously applied to the diatom fauna within this region, thereby highlighting the significance of the present work. Moreover, considering the crucial role of benthic diatoms as primary producers of organic matter and oxygen within benthic food webs, as well as their function as biological indicators of environmental conditions at specific locations, the newly acquired data carry substantial value in the realm of further research on benthic diatoms.
All these reasons explain the relevance of the paper by Elena Nevrova submitted to "Phycology".
General scores.
The data presented by the author are original and significant. The study is correctly designed and the authors used appropriate sampling methods. In general, statistical analyses are performed with good technical standards. The author conducted careful work that may attract the attention of a wide range of specialists focused on benthic diatom diversity.
Recommendations.
L 135–136. The author should provide a reference for the methodology.
L 260-274. This text requires relevant citations.
Tables 3, 4. These tables require footnotes explaining the abbreviations corresponding to the regions considered.
Captions for Figures 4 and 5. The authors should use full descriptions of regions instead of abbreviations.
L 467-471. This text is the same as in L. 110-111.
L 483-494. This text requires relevant citations.
L 499-511. This text requires relevant citations.
The “Conclusion” section should be shortened.
The supplementary material is not cited in the text.
Specific remarks.
L 36. Consider replacing “the Earth’s oceans” with “the world ocean”
L 41. Consider replacing “the benthic diatom assemblage” with “benthic diatom assemblages”
L 61. Consider replacing “were studied the most extensively” with “have been studied most extensively”
L 73. Consider replacing “quantifying assessing” with “quantifying”
L 228. Consider replacing “most voluminous of” with “most voluminous in”
L 261. Consider replacing “diverse biotopic conditions” with “diverse habitat conditions”
L 264. Consider replacing “the Earth’s oceans” with “the world ocean”
L 277. Consider replacing “which contribute majority” with “which contribute the majority”
L 321. Consider replacing “the Earth’s oceans” with “the world ocean”
L 323. Consider replacing “species finds” with “taxa”
L 336. Consider replacing “do not develop in abundance” with “had low abundance”
L 397-398. Check this sentence. “Figure 3” seems to be incorrect.
L 408. Consider replacing “reduction” with “simplification”
L 484. Consider replacing “are represented” with “is represented”
SM, p. 72. Consider replacing “past 50–100 years” with “the past 50–100 years”
Author Response
please check the doc
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has taken into account my previous comments, and the quality of the manuscript has improved.
Reviewer 2 Report
The author has revised the paper according to my comments.
