Alpha and beta diversity patterns of polychaete assemblages across the nodule province of the eastern Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (equatorial Pacific)

Bonifácio, Paulo; Martínez Arbizu, Pedro; Menot, Lénaïck

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-865-2020

Articles | Volume 17, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-865-2020

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

Special issue:

Assessing environmental impacts of deep-sea mining...

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-865-2020

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

Articles | Volume 17, issue 4

Research article

|

20 Feb 2020

Research article |

| 20 Feb 2020

Alpha and beta diversity patterns of polychaete assemblages across the nodule province of the eastern Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (equatorial Pacific)

Paulo Bonifácio, Pedro Martínez Arbizu, and Lénaïck Menot

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Final revised paper (published on 20 Feb 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 04 Jul 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Comments on bg-2019-255 “Alpha and beta diversity patterns of polychaete assemblages across the nodule province of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (Equatorial Pacific)”', Paul Dando, 07 Aug 2019
- AC1: 'Author’s response to Referee’s comments (Dr Dando)', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019
- AC5: 'Revised manuscript', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019
RC2: 'Review Bonifácio et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 13 Aug 2019
- AC2: 'Author’s response to comments of Referee #2', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019
- AC6: 'Revised manuscript', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019
RC3: 'Reviwes of Alpha and beta diversity patterns of polychaete assemblages across the nodule province of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone (Equatorial Pacific)', Anonymous Referee #3, 29 Aug 2019
- AC3: 'Author’s response to comments of Referee #3', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019
- AC7: 'Revised manuscript', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019
RC4: 'Referee comment to Bonifacio et al.', Anonymous Referee #4, 30 Aug 2019
- AC4: 'Author’s response to comments of Referee #4', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019
- AC8: 'Revised manuscript', Paulo Bonifácio, 12 Nov 2019

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (20 Nov 2019) by Tina Treude

AR by Paulo Bonifácio on behalf of the Authors (21 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Dec 2019) by Tina Treude

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (21 Dec 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear Authors,

I appreciate your careful consideration of all my questions and suggestions. Thanks a lot for doing a very thorough job here! I have no objections if the paper is published as is.

It seems to me, however, that some valuable thoughts are lost in the rather condensed edits you did to the manuscript. I have the impression that the paper would still benefit if some more content of your very detailed responses would also enter the text of the manuscript.

As I said - I accept if you leave as is but suggest that you to read through your answers and check whether some content could be transferred to the manuscript. Below I am quoting the answers where I had most strongly felt that important thoughts were not fully considered in your edits to the manuscript text.

"the main unknown is most likely about the biology and biotic interactions of species: how long do they live, how do they reproduce and disperse, do they interact and how are they interacting between others. These would be key questions to answer, although much more challenging than looking at correlations of abiotic factors and biological variables."
> This seems important information showing that the environmental-variable-approach underlying the regional management plan but maybe even studies on species diversity and turnover are in the end not sufficient to fully assess the risk and provide guidance if and how mining projects should be carried out.

"If the aim is to monitor and preserve all levels of biological diversity, from gene, to species, to functions then polychaetes are likely not enough."
> You explained in the MS why you've chosen Polychaetes but the information that investigations (not only to preserve everything but also to fully understand the risks associated with mining) should consider all groups and size classes is not fully conveyed.

"We agree that these general recommendations would need to be more specific. There is a need to carefully think the sampling design and sampling effort together with statisticians. This would be a topic for another paper."
> To me this is an important point: recommendations on sampling design and effort for a specific region or site have to evolve from a scientific / statistical (and potentially iterative) process and cannot be prescribed. Good to mention that future studies need to address this.

"A meta-analysis is going to be conducted that should provide insight onto species richness and species ranges (https://www.isa.org.jm/news/deep-ccz-biodiversity-synthesis-workshop). By the end of this Deep CCZ Biodiversity Synthesis we should be able to tell where we collectively stand in terms of what we know and what we don’t know. In order to provide an accurate estimate of species richness, we would look for a decreasing trend in the
accumulation curve of singletons."
> the take home message to include in the MS may be that joint efforts combining data from independent science and contractors are needed to get to more accurate data on species richness and turnover - and that there are promising initiatives underway to get this started.

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RR by Paul Dando (10 Jan 2020)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (14 Jan 2020) by Tina Treude

AR by Paulo Bonifácio on behalf of the Authors (16 Jan 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (21 Jan 2020) by Tina Treude

AR by Paulo Bonifácio on behalf of the Authors (22 Jan 2020) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

The patterns observed in the composition of polychaete assemblages were attributed to variations in food supply at the regional scale and nodule density at the local scale. The high levels of species replacement were mainly driven by rare species, leading to regional species pool estimates between 498 and 240 000 species. The high proportion of singletons seems reflect an under-sampling bias that is currently preventing the assessment of potential biodiversity loss due to nodule mining.