Adult life strategy affects distribution patterns in abyssal isopods – implications for conservation in Pacific nodule areas

Brix, Saskia; Osborn, Karen J.; Kaiser, Stefanie; Truskey, Sarit B.; Schnurr, Sarah M.; Brenke, Nils; Malyutina, Marina; Martinez Arbizu, Pedro

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6163-2020

Articles | Volume 17, issue 23

Biogeosciences, 17, 6163–6184, 2020

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6163-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue: Assessing environmental impacts of deep-sea mining...

Biogeosciences, 17, 6163–6184, 2020

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-6163-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 23

Research article 09 Dec 2020

Research article | 09 Dec 2020

Adult life strategy affects distribution patterns in abyssal isopods – implications for conservation in Pacific nodule areas

Saskia Brix et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Dec 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Oct 2019)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of manuscript', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Nov 2019
- AC2: 'Answer to referee comments', Saskia Brix, 01 Sep 2020
RC2: 'Reviewer 2 comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 Mar 2020
- AC1: 'Answer to referee comments', Saskia Brix, 01 Sep 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (09 Sep 2020) by Matthias Haeckel

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (09 Sep 2020) by Jack Middelburg(Co-Editor-in-Chief)

AR by Saskia Brix on behalf of the Authors (18 Sep 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (26 Sep 2020) by Matthias Haeckel

Dear authors,

both reviewers had commented primarily on the organization of your manuscript and after reading your revised version, I believe that you have sufficiently improved the logical flow of it - I was easily able to follow your structure and arguments (despite not being an expert on isopods).
You have also competently addressed the other comments and suggestions of both reviewers.

I only have some minor technical issues that you can correct in the further processing steps:

L45: The investigated contracotr areas...

L51: ... resources for re-colonization

L60: deep-sea mining is not happening anywhere so far - so, at the moment it is

not a "reality", but may become in the next years.

L62: ... exploring Mn-nodule mining. (in the CCZ it is one step further than prospection)

L64/65: The impacts associated with deep-sea mining have already been outlined in earlier studies (e.g. Thiel and Forschungsverbund Tiefsee-Umweltschutz (2001) Evaluation of the environmental consequences of polymetallic nodule mining based on the results of the TUSCH Research Association. Deep-Sea Research II 48, 3433-3452.; see also other papers in this DSRII Special Issue). Please add at least one of these earlier papers to your references.

L129: missing spaces "... CCZ and APEI3 as well as..."

L141: references to cruise reports of SO242 Legs 1 & 2 are missing:
Greinert, J., ed. (2015) RV SONNE Fahrtbericht / Cruise Report SO242-1: JPI OCEANS Ecological Aspects of Deep-Sea Mining, DISCOL Revisited, Guayaquil - Guayaquil (Equador), 28.07.-25.08.2015, GEOMAR Report, N. Ser. 026. GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung, Kiel, Germany, 290 pp., doi:10.3289/GEOMAR_REP_NS_26_2015

Boetius, A., ed. (2015) RV SONNE Fahrtbericht / Cruise Report SO242-2: JPI OCEANS Ecological Aspects of Deep-Sea Mining, DISCOL Revisited, Guayaquil - Guayaquil (Equador), 28.08.-01.10.2015, GEOMAR Report, N. Ser. 027. GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung, Kiel, Germany, 552 pp., doi:10.3289/GEOMAR_REP_NS_27_2015

L351: ... Upset Plot ...
Also check for capital writing in the entire document.

L430: ... to the understanding of ...

L520: "... the MiningImpact and Abyssline projects ..."

L521: "Haeckel"

L528/L537: be specific about "APEI3" (do not only write "APEI")

L555/L559: "... and APEI6." (to stick to the writing style used for APEI3)

L560: "... that APEI6 alone..."

Best wishes, Matthias Haeckel

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (29 Sep 2020) by Jack Middelburg(Co-Editor-in-Chief)

Short summary

The Clarion–Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) located in the Pacific is commercially the most important area of proposed manganese nodule mining. Extraction of this will influence the life and distribution of small deep-sea invertebrates like peracarid crustaceans, of which >90 % are undescribed species new to science. We are doing a species delimitation approach as baseline for an ecological interpretation of species distribution and discuss the results in light of future deep-sea conservation.