Phylogenetic Relationships in Earthworm Megascolex Species (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) with Addition of Two New Species

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article “Unveiling phylogenetic relationships in endemic Megascolex species (Oligochaeta: Megascolecidae) with the addition of two new species from Biodiversity Hotspot Kerala, Western Ghats, India” is very well written, it uses an integrated approach to improve the knowledge of earthworm diversity in India, using as methods both morphoanatomical description and DNA barcoding. This provides a unified vision about Megascolex in India and strong evidence that support Megascolex phylogenetic relationships as well as two new species for the science.

For this reason, I consider that the article is suited for being published in Diversity. I have some minor suggestions:

-          Consider checking quality of figure 1.

-          Captions of figures 13 and 14 should be moved after each figure.

-          Fig. 14. Consider stating full scientific names in the figure caption.

 

-          In 9. Megascolex papparensis sp. nov. description, correct epiobic by epilobic. 

 

Author Response

General Query 1: We noticed that you did not provide a video abstract or graphical abstract for this paper yet. (Min. size GA is 1100 × 560 pixels (width × height).

Author response: The graphical abstract has been attached as a separate PNG image for the manuscript.

General Query 2: Please Provide the institute email addresses for all the authors.

Author response: The institutional email ids’ of all the authors are mentioned below:

1. Azhar Rashid Lone: [email protected]
2. Samrendra Singh Thakur: [email protected]
3. Pooja Tiwari: [email protected]
4. Samuel Wooster James: [email protected]
5. Shweta Yadav: [email protected]

Prof Shweta Yadav used to prefer personal id [email protected] for publication purposes.

All the queries are attended and subsequently, the responses are highlighted in the main text. Moreover, the responses to comments are mentioned below.

Reviewer 1#

Q1: Some small corrections and suggestions have been added to the attached file.

Author response: All the corrections are incorporated and the suggestions are updated in the main file as recommended by the reviewers.

Q2: A table comparing the morphological characters of the different species would be really helpful and strongly recommended.

Author response: The table of comparative morphological characters of the different species is added in the manuscript as recommended.

Q3: If M. polytheca polytheca and M. polytheca zonatus are clearly delimited as different species by all the algorithms, shouldn't they be reconsidered as species level taxa? I would advise to do so

Author response: Indeed, the species M. polytheca polytheca and M. polytheca zonatus are confirmed by morphological features and DNA barcoding analysis; however, we had single COI sequence of each of these species. Therefore, it would be essential to have more sequences of these species to infer better results in future.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is avery valuable contribution to the knowledge of the diversity and evolution of Indian earthworms, and the methodology is sound and up to date. The diverse methods and approaches used in this work should be complimented.

Some small corrections and suggestions have been added to the attached file.

Other more general comments:

A table comparing the morphological characters of the different species would be really helpful and strongly recommended.

If M. polytheca polytheca and M. polytheca zonatus are clearly delimited as different species by all the algorythms, shouldn't they be reconsidered as species level taxa? I would advice to do so.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 2#

Comments on the drawings:

Q1: Fig.1. The picture is of very poor quality in the small inset at the top right; nothing can be seen at all.

Author response: The pixel quality of Fig.1 is updated as suggested. 

Q2: Comments to all figures No. 2 - 12, it is necessary to explain the letter abbreviations in the figures.  Preferably in the figure captions for each figure, or one can provide the paper with a separate list of abbreviations in the figures. It is also necessary to clarify the Roman numerals in the figures - are these the numbers of the body segments, the chaetigers? The drawings are very schematic, the more they need detailed explanations.

Author response: The abbreviations in the Figures 2-12 are already mentioned in the materials and methods section of the manuscript. Moreover, the Roman numerals in the figures (1-12) represent body segments of the earthworms.

 

Q3: It is necessary to provide morphological descriptions with synonymy - that is, to clarify which earlier finds of a species the authors consider reliable, and, in addition, it will be very useful to provide descriptions of species with information about where specimens of the species were previously found (geographical distribution).

Author response: The details of synonymy in all the species are added in their descriptions as suggested. In addition, geographical distributions in each species are supplemented as recommended.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

By agreement with the editors, my review concerns only the morphological part of the work.

The MS is devoted to an attempt of an integrative approach to the study of the faunal composition of the oligochaetes of the genus Megascolex (Megascolecidae) in the Kerala state (India). At the same time, the authors declare an attempt to solve a more ambitious task of elucidating the taxonomic structure of the genus Megascolex using the methods of molecular phylogenetics.

The authors of the MS rightly note, the system of the group is extremely confusing due to the objective complexities of the morphological systematics of megascolecids, which are very poor in morphological characters, both external and internal. Thus, the task of the article seems relevant.

Comments on the drawings:

1) Fig.1. The picture is of very poor quality in the small inset at the top right, nothing can be seen at all.

2) Comments to all figures No. 2 - 12, it is necessary to explain the letter abbreviations in the figures.  Preferably in the figure captions for each figure, or one can provide the paper with a separate list of abbreviations in the figures. It is also necessary to clarify the Roman numerals in the figures - are these the numbers of the body segments, the chaetigers? The drawings are very schematic, the more they need detailed explanations.

 

Notes on species descriptions.

It is necessary to provide morphological descriptions with synonymy - that is, to clarify which earlier finds of a species the authors consider reliable, and, in addition, it will be very useful to provide descriptions of species with information about where specimens of the species were previously found (geographical distribution).

 

Author Response

Dear, Editorial members,

Following the reviewers’ comments and suggestions the authors have incorporated and updated the same in the main text (highlighted) of the manuscript under ID number “diversity-2023593”. Also, the authors have attached separate files in terms of “Responses to Comments” and “Graphical Abstract (GA)” for your perusal. The main queries that were addressed are:

1. The title of the manuscript has been concise.
2. The institutional email addresses of the authors have been added.
3. The queries in the main text file are addressed and updated.
4. The quality of Fig. 1 is updated as suggested.
5. The genetic distances within and between species is updated in terms of “uncorrected genetic distances” as suggested.
6. The abbreviations were already mentioned in material and methods section of the manuscript. Therefore the authors notified it to the referees.
7. The Roman numerals in figures 2-12 mention segment numbers of the earthworms.
8. The synonymy and distribution of species along with the comparative table of morphological characters are added in the main text.
9. The caption of figure 14 is updated.
10. The suggestions in the discussion section are incorporated and the references are updated.

The authors are looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanking You

Shweta Yadav

Corresponding author