Reader Comments
Post a new comment on this article
Post Your Discussion Comment
Please follow our guidelines for comments and review our competing interests policy. Comments that do not conform to our guidelines will be promptly removed and the user account disabled. The following must be avoided:
- Remarks that could be interpreted as allegations of misconduct
- Unsupported assertions or statements
- Inflammatory or insulting language
Thank You!
Thank you for taking the time to flag this posting; we review flagged postings on a regular basis.
closeReferee comments: Referee 3
Posted by PLOS_ONE_Group on 25 Feb 2008 at 12:02 GMT
Referee 3's review:
1) I liked the fact that they have tied the geographical distribution to the molecular level evolution of Atyidae
2) The langauge of the paper gets a little complicated in the introduction, could be more simplified for readers
3) Overall a good study.
4) I was not sure why they combined the three genes (H3/16S/COI). I understand its more data but if you say at one point histone are more conserved and provide deeper phylogenetic relationship and others for example mitochondrial 16S and COI produce both high and low level phylogenies, how concatenation of these three genes help in terms of explaining the evolutionary history unless the same genes were shared by a common ancestral species. I know these are real genes, but still the # of genes is too less for a concatenation. A brief explanation could help here.
**********
N.B. These are the comments made by the referee when reviewing an earlier version of this paper. Prior to publication the manuscript has been revised in light of these comments and to address other editorial requirements.
RE: Referee comments: Referee 3
penguintim replied to PLOS_ONE_Group on 26 Feb 2008 at 03:43 GMT
Response to these comments:
Reviewer #3 (Remarks for the Author):
2) The langauge of the paper gets a little complicated in the introduction, could be more simplified for readers
RESPONSE:
We are not sure about this as we feel that we kept the Introduction relatively basic, and it was pitched at a non-specialist but well-informed reader with a general scientific knowledge. We note that reviewer 4 thinks that “Sufficient background was provided for those not familiar with atyids or with subterranean biota”.
4) I was not sure why they combined the three genes (H3/16S/COI). I understand its more data but if you say at one point histone are more conserved and provide deeper phylogenetic relationship and others for example mitochondrial 16S and COI produce both high and low level phylogenies, how concatenation of these three genes help in terms of explaining the evolutionary history unless the same genes were shared by a common ancestral species. I know these are real genes, but still the # of genes is too less for a concatenation. A brief explanation could help here.
RESPONSE:
There is much debate over whether different genes should be combined or analysed separately, which is why we analysed each gene separately as well as combined to cover all bases. Since the individual gene analyses are all congruent with each other and the combined analyses, it would seem to be a reasonable course of action to combine them (a “Total Evidence Approach”).