Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE OLDEST RECORD OF SAUROSPHARGIFORMES (DIAPSIDA) FROM SOUTH CHINA COULD FILL AN ECOLOGICAL GAP IN THE EARLY TRIASSIC BIOTIC RECOVERY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a nice descriptive work of an interesting new taxon. However, I have several issues with the phylogeny and discussion presented in this manuscript.
Experimental design: See comments below.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: The comments listed here follow the order of the manuscript with the main sections indicated.

Materials
- Some information written in the “locality and horizon” subsection of the Systematic Paleontology could be added here.

Phylogenetic analysis
- I did not expect such drastic changes in topology between the PAUP* and TNT analyses as figured in the Supplementary Material (SM). Indeed, I re-ran the PAUP* analyses using the methods described in the SM and found the same topologies as the TNT ones, with the number of MTPs and MTP lengths recovered in the PAUP* figure captions in the SM. Could the trees in figs. S5-S8 be bootstrap consensus trees instead of the strict consensus trees resulting from the parsimony analyses? I admit I am unsure.
- I suggest re-running the PAUP* analyses to clear up this inconsistency. This is particularly important as the PAUP* analyses are considered as the “primary analyses” in the SM, yet are barely mentioned and not figured in the main text. Furthermore, they seem to be problematic for the discussion due to their apparent irresolution.
- Provided that the PAUP* and TNT analyses are indeed similar, I would say that the four analyses conducted by the authors are unnecessary. Analysis 1 is but a subset of analysis 3, and seems more pertinent in studying the systematic position of Hanosaurus and Hupehsuchia, which is out of the scope of this paper. Similarly, I see little point in analysis 2. Analysis 4 has some merit in excluding Ichthyopterygia as the present matrix does not consider the specializations of this group, but I do not really understand why Hanosaurus is excluded as well. Hence, I would be inclined to keep only analysis 3 (42 OTUs), and possibly analysis 4 (but keeping Hanosaurus) to discuss the surprising recovering of Ichthyopterygia inside Sauropterygia. If the authors wish to retain these different analyses as they are, then an explanation of why each taxon is included/excluded is required.
- Optional, but I urge the authors to consider ordering multistate characters when the character states form morphoclines. Simulations and theoretical considerations indeed indicate that the results are better than when all characters are unordered, even if minor mistakes in ordering are made (Rineau et al., 2015, 2018). This might help in solving the ‘problematic’ position of Ichthyopterygia inside Sauropterygia, although I understand that this is out of the scope of this paper.

Rineau, V., A. Grand, R. Zaragüeta i Bagils, and M. Laurin. 2015. Experimental systematics: sensitivity of cladistic methods to polarization and character ordering schemes. Contributions to Zoology 84:129–148.
Rineau, V., R. Zaragüeta i Bagils, and M. Laurin. 2018. Impact of errors on cladistic inference: simulation-based comparison between parsimony and three-taxon analysis. Contributions to Zoology 87:25–40.

Systematic Palaeontology
- A revised phylogenetic definition of Diapsida has been published recently: Gauthier, J. A., and K. de Queiroz. 2020. Diapsida; pp. 1033–1040 in K. de Queiroz, P. Cantino, and J. A. Gauthier (eds.), Phylonyms: A Companion to the PhyloCode. CRC Press, Boca Raton.
- Taxonomic authorities should be given for the taxa used in the newly proposed phylogenetic definitions.
- The diagnosis of Tuberospina should only include diagnostic characters among saurosphargiformes based on the comparative description and/or the phylogenetic analysis, which does not seem to be the case here.

Description
- I strongly suggest adding a short paragraph assessing the maturity of the specimen. This is particularly important as its small size supports the idea that it filled a new ecological niche.
- There seems to be a confusion in the description of the pectoral and pelvic girdles. Elements of the clavicle and ilium are described but figured as the scapula and ischium respectively. Please correct accordingly.

Phylogenetic analyses
- See comment in methods above, I believe a portion of this section will have to be corrected.

Discussion
- lines 280-287: this section needs to be revised provided the PAUP* and TNT analyses are indeed similar. As suggested above, only analysis 3 (and possibly analysis 4) could be kept and figured in the main text.
- lines 288-289, and 305-327: Tuberospina comes from ca. 10m lower in the sequence than other marine reptiles (Fig. 1). Can both horizons really be considered coeval? Is this correlation based on stratigraphic studies? I am not opposed to the idea of the taxa being coeval (though I would say the specimens are not), but this needs to be argued before the NYF can be convincingly discussed as a whole.
- lines 294-304: Provided the PAUP* and TNT analyses are indeed similar, then Hupehsuchia is consistently recovered as sister-group to Saurosphargiformes in all analyses. I feel a comparison with hupehsuchians is necessary to complete the proposed scenario of evolution of dermal armor in this lineage.

Some minor comments:
- lines 143-146: I suggest adding a caption for this cervical rib on Fig. 2.
- line 159: please caption the zygosphene-zygantrum on Fig. 3.
- lines 166-167: to what do these ratios correspond?
- line 180: I am inclined to agree that the dorsal ribs seem single-headed, but was unable to confirm it on the figures. Please explain how you reached this conclusion.
- line 187: refer to Fig. 2D instead of Fig. 3A, B.
- lines 198-200: “three impressions of caudal ribs”, but only one is captioned on Figs. 2, 3. Please caption the other two rib impression, if present.
- line 222: refer to Fig. 2D instead of Fig. 2A
- line 241: “humerus somewhat longer and larger than the femur”, could this width difference be an artefact of the partial impression of one or both of these bones in the matrix?
- line 259: optional, but I would repeat what NYF means here for an easier reading.
- line 261: “toothless forms, pachyostotic ribs, and other features” this list is confusing, please rephrase.
- line 267: “development of the neural arches”. How exactly? This is ambiguously worded.
- lines 268-271: I am not sure I understand the logical link after the “;” line 270.
- lines 290-291: “sister relationship Tuberospina + Hupehsuchia” I don’t understand this. Do you mean they are recovered as successive sister-groups to saurosphargids? Please rephrase.

Figure captions
- Tuberospina biani should be italicized in all captions.
- Fig. 1: there is no reference to the colored (?paleogographical) map in the top right corner.
- Fig. 2: I suggest removing “part specimen (WGSC V1707-1-1) from the bold portion for consistency with the counterpart caption.
- Fig. 2: there is no caption for subfigs. 2C and 2D. Some of the references in the main text may have to be corrected to refer to those subfigs.
- Fig. 3 (line 485): remove “and”.
- Fig. 3: change “tp” for “tr” as written on the figure, or vice-versa.
- Fig. 4: Please indicate that only a selected portion of the tree is shown on the figure, and state which type of consensus tree is shown.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE OLDEST RECORD OF SAUROSPHARGIFORMES (DIAPSIDA) FROM SOUTH CHINA COULD FILL AN ECOLOGICAL GAP IN THE EARLY TRIASSIC BIOTIC RECOVERY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The only edits I would suggest are:

on line 41: change "contrasts terrestrial' to 'contrast with terrestrial'.

in the figure legends, the name "Tuerospina biani" should be in italics.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: Early Triassic marine reptiles are extremely rare. The specimen described in this paper provides a significant addition to our knowledge of marine reptiles of this time and provides additional information on a poorly known lineage of Triassic marine reptiles. Writing is clear and concise. The importance of the specimen within the context of the initial diversification of marine reptiles of the Triassic is clearly explained. Apart for the minor edits noted above, I saw no need for revisions to the manuscript and am recommending publication without further modification.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE OLDEST RECORD OF SAUROSPHARGIFORMES (DIAPSIDA) FROM SOUTH CHINA COULD FILL AN ECOLOGICAL GAP IN THE EARLY TRIASSIC BIOTIC RECOVERY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is well written, with clear, unambiguous and professional English used throughout the manuscript, but please see some typo here and there as shown below in the additional comments. The literature is appropriately referenced. Sufficient field background is provided. The article structure is professional. However, the figures should definitely be improved. Please see additional comments below for details. The raw data have been provided. The manuscript is self-contained with relevant results to hypotheses.
Experimental design: The research is original and within Aims and Scope of the journal. The research question is well defined, relevant & meaningful, and it is clearly stated how the research fills the identified knowledge gap. The investigation should be improved as stated below in additional comments. The research was conducted in conformity with the prevailing ethical standards in the field. Methods were described with sufficient information.
Validity of the findings: The currently provided evidence is not enough to support some of the major conclusions of the research. Please see below for details.
Additional comments: 1. Line 13: numbers don't correspond with those in author list.

2. Line 16: number doesn't correspond with those in author list.

3. Line 23: the genus name is pre-occupied by a shark, see below.

4. Line 24: it is meaningless to create Saurosphargiformes here.

5. Line 70-71: first, why only Chaohusaurus zhangjiawanensis is emphasized here; second, publications on sauropterygians from the fauna should also be cited here.

6. Line 73: if it shares critical synapomorphies with Saurosphargidae, shouldn't it be a saurosphargid? What are the synapomorphies of Saurosphargidae? This isn't given anywhere in the text.

7. Line 79-80: the fossil locality name reported in the text should be consistent with the locality name in Fig. 1 and its caption.

8. Methods: this part does not look like a description of methods used in the research. It should be more appropriate to move this part to a note somewhere in the end of the manuscript.

9. Line 97: so why wasn't the phylogenetic analysis performed on the basis of this matrix (Chen et al. 2014c, and its updated version in Motani et al. 2015 and Jiang et al. 2016), but on the matrix of Li et al. (2014) instead, even though it doesn't address these potential convergences? Compared with Li et al. (2014)’s data matrix, which is updated on Li et al. (2011) but originally derived from Nosotti and Rieppel (2003), the data matrix of (Chen et al. 2014c, Motani et al. 2015 and Jiang et al. 2016) is much expanded and more appropriate to analyze the phylogenetic relationships of Saurosphargidae. In addition, many other updated phylogenetic analyses also include Saurosphargidae (e.g., Li et al., 2018; Schoch and Sues, 2018). The authors need to justify their choice of Li et al. (2014)’s data matrix in the manuscript.

10. Line 111: please add diagnosis of Saurosphargidae.

11. Line 119: the genus name is pre-occupied by Tuberospina LEBEDEV 1995, a Devonian shark from Russia.

12. Line 126: “WGSV V1701-1” to “WGSC V1701-1”.

13. Line 124-126: it would be interesting to know what happened to the skull and the tail of the specimen?

14. Line 131: the new specimen is said to be collected from Member II of the Jialingjiang Formation in the manuscript, but in a series of papers by the same group (Chen et al., 2014a, b,c 2015, Cheng et al. 2019), the marine reptile horizon is in the third member of Jialingjiang Formation. Is this new specimen from a different horizon? The authors need to provide some explanations to clarify this.

15. Description: the entire section needs more comparisons with pachypleurosaurs (and nothosaurs), to which the specimen is at least superficially similar. I think the authors should also provide and label an additional figure, comparing the dorsal regions (in dorsal view) between the new specimen, Largocephalosaurus, a pachypleurosaur (for example Hanosaurus from the same region), a nothosaur (for example Lariosaurus sanxiaensis from the same region) and a placodont to make the differences and similarities in anatomy clearer to the reader.

16. Line 148-150: there are Hanosaurus, Keichousaurus and Lariosaurus from the same region. Why there is no comparison with these eosauropterygians? They look very similar to the new specimen reported here.

17. Dorsal Vertebrae: dorsal Vertebrae of the new specimen look very similar to Lariosaurus sanxiaensis from the same region. Actually the dorsal Vertebrae of the new specimen is a very general morphology of pachypleurosaurs and some of the nothosaurs, both of which are present in the same fauna. The rugose dorsal surface of the neural spine is also similar to Augustasaurus, if not to all eosauropterygians.

18. Line 177: ‘vertebrate’ to ‘vertebral’.

19. Line 185-187: I do not really understand the so-called crest. The authors should figure this structure.

20. Line 187: ‘Fig. 3A, B’ to ‘Fig. 3a, b’.

21: Gastralia & Osteoderms: please provide at least some comparison with gastralia of other saurosphargids and sauropterygians.

22: Line 206: ‘laterally’ to ‘lateral’.

23: Line 209: if there is anterior process cannot be confirmed from the photos. Please provide a close-up photograph.

24: Line 222: please provide a CLOSE-UP photo of these rudimentary osteoderms- impossible to confirm what they are from photos currently provided.

25: Line 229: ‘vertebral’ to ‘vertebra’.

26: Line 232: but the left clavicle is labeled as a scapular in Fig. 2B? The authors should provide a reconstructed clavicle based on the composite images.

27: why the ilium is not figured?

28: PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSES: an additional analysis based on both scenarios of Chen et al. (2014, updated in Motani et al. 2015 and Jiang et al. 2016) (all morphological characters + aquatic adaptations treated as ambiguous) should be added to the manuscript, perhaps with the addition of several pachypleurosaurs. The leading author (Rysouke Motani) of those papers can easily re-run the analysis.

29: Line 247: what character states support the node of Saurosphargidae?

30: Line 254: Fig. 4C is different from what described here.

31: Line 267-273: the authors mention many similarities to pachypleurosaurs in the paragraph. So why the new specimen is not a pachypleurosaur? It would be good to include a panel with photo showing the dorsal region of Placodus, pachypleurosaurs, nothosaurs, saurosphargids, and the primitive turtles for comparison.

32: Line 277-279: none of the sub-figures of Fig. 4 shows a sister-relationship between the so-called Saurosphargiformes and the Sauropterygia. Instead, all figures show that Hupehsuchia (when it is shown in the tree) comprises the immediate sister group of Saurosphargiformes (Fig. 4b, c).

33: Line 284-286: so again, why didn’t you test this using two versions of the data matrix of Chen et al 2014) and Motani et al. (2015)?

34: Line 288-290: the authors provide another line of evidence that the new specimen could be a pachypleurosaur.

35: Line 290-293: again, test this by performing a phylogenetic analysis.

36: Line 311: if Keichousaurus is present in the locality you definitely need to include comparisons with Keichousaurus and include it into a phylogenetic analysis.

37: Line 312-315: what’s the definition of larger macropredators? What’s the largest size of Lariosaurus sanxiaensis from the fauna? Isn’t Lariosaurus sanxiaensis larger than Hanosaurus?

38: Fig. 1: ‘WGSC C1701’ to ‘WGSC V1701)’.
For panel A, please note that the name of the fossil locality in the figure is different from the text. For panel B, I understand that the new specimen is from Bed 19, but what for those other marine reptiles? Are all of them from Bed 27? Previous publications from the same group indicate that marine reptiles are present all through the section.
For panel C, this is a nice paleogeographic reconstruction. I presume that this is the result from the authors’ field mapping activities since no reference is cited. But where is the evidence for this paleogeographic reconstruction? And also the fossil locality is located in the open platform judged from the color, but the authors repeatedly mentioned in the manuscript that the fauna is from a restricted lagoon. So which is correct?

39. Fig. 2: what about panels C and D? they're not explained in the caption. The authors need to provide a close-up photo showing the lateral ossifications. The current photo is far from clear to judge if these are osteoderms or not.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE OLDEST RECORD OF SAUROSPHARGIFORMES (DIAPSIDA) FROM SOUTH CHINA COULD FILL AN ECOLOGICAL GAP IN THE EARLY TRIASSIC BIOTIC RECOVERY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 4

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is well structured, the language is professional and understandable.

The cited literature is appropriate in terms of content and form. I would suggest a small addition for the geological background (see Additional comments).

The figures are correct, in some cases, small corrections are needed for the captions (see Additional comments).

The data files used for the analysis are available and interpretable.

The anatomical description and phylogenetic analysis are professionally demanding, however, I made a comment on the analysis.
Experimental design: I found the 128. character of Tuberospina problematic in the matrix (durophagous dentition etc.). Even though the skull is unknown, the character is coded as “absent” instead of “?”, which I think it should be (as the other cranial characters).

Probably it is just a coincidence error with minimal impact, but I would like to ask the authors to reconsider this and in case there is no other explanation I would suggest checking and repeating the analysis with the corrected matrix. Furthermore, it would be advisable to double-check the matrix.
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: line 80 - Because of the clarity, I would also mention the name of the quarry here.

line 81 - Although the relevant references are cited in the text, and Figure 1. is clear, I think it would be useful to give a longer (but brief) geological description of the formation and sequence where the specimen was found (especially about the stratigraphic background).

line 471 - (Fig.1 caption) The “C” is probably a misspelling, please change it to WGSC V1701. I would suggest mentioning that the Early Triassic paleogeographic map of the surrounding region is also visible here.

line 476 - (Fig.2 caption) Please provide a caption for the C and D parts of the figure as well. In case the contents of C are visible on the A or B picture, I suggest marking its location.

line 489 - (Fig.3 caption) On the figure it is tr instead of tp., please change it to be consistent.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE OLDEST RECORD OF SAUROSPHARGIFORMES (DIAPSIDA) FROM SOUTH CHINA COULD FILL AN ECOLOGICAL GAP IN THE EARLY TRIASSIC BIOTIC RECOVERY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The revisions have been adequately addressed for the most part. I have only minor comments on the well-written description of this very interesting specimen. However, the authors have significantly revised the phylogenetical analyses, on which I have further issues.
Experimental design: See comments below.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: Methods
- To be honest, I do not understand the choice of Li et al.’s (2018) matrix for analysis 2 over Jiang et al.’s (2016) as suggested by Reviewer 3. The matrix of Li et al. (2018) seems very ill-suited for the question at hand in my opinion as it lacks critical taxa (e.g. hupehsuchians, thalattosaurs, ichtyopterygians), and I do not believe it allows for a reliable discussion of the relationships of saurosphargids to other marine diapsids (see comments on the Discussion). I thus urge the authors to further argue their choice of matrices, and/or to reconsider their choice of Li et al.’s (2018) matrix.

Systematic Palaeontology
- I do not understand how the characters provided in the diagnoses of Saurosphargiformes, Saurosphargidae and Strumospina were obtained. The authors provide a list of synapomorphies for Saurosphargidae lines 338-346, yet none of the characters recovered from the phylogenetic analyses are reported in the diagnosis, while none of the ‘diagnostic’ characters provided in the systematic paleontology are recovered as synapomorphies.
- The authors have modified the diagnosis of Strumospina but the issues I had still remain: some characters do not seem diagnostic, especially after reading the description (e.g. number of vertebrae, curvature of humerus…), or are not described in the text (e.g. vertebral centra with parallel edges, oval facets on ribs…).
- Ontogenetic assessment: Thank you for adding this important paragraph, however, I believe it should be either part of the description of an independent section, not part of the Systematic Paleontology.

Phylogenetic Analyses & Discussion
- The phylogenetic results and discussion are hard to follow as the authors seem to go back and forth between analyses 1 and 2 with analyses 3 and 4 being marginal despite their slightly different results. I suggest being more explicit on the results from all analyses to clarify the text.
- A quick description of the relevant branches and nodes is needed. For instance, the inclusion or exclusion of saurosphargids from Sauropterygia seems highly relevant to me. Indeed, while Fig. 5B and 6A show saurosphargids inside Sauropterygia, Figs. 5A and 6B do not. Thus, I disagree that Saurosphargiformes are included in Sauropterygia based only on the results provided here, contrary to lines 370-373.
- The authors only present the synapomorphies for Saurosphargidae under analysis 1. What of the other analyses? And what of Saurosphargiformes and Strumospina? As mentioned above, these characters, if supported by all analyses, should be included in the diagnoses.
- Various characters are mentioned throughout the discussion. Are those synapomorphies recovered from the phylogenetic analyses? From all analyses? This needs to be more explicit.

- lines 390-400: What exactly is the plesiomorphic state for the Saurosphariformes regarding the evolution of the “carapace”? Without this information, there are many scenarios that are equally parsimonious, including a reduction of the “carapace” in Strumospina. This is particularly important as this morphology seems highly convergent in Traissic taxa. I made a similar comment on the first draft, which went unanswered. Please address this issue, otherwise I see little point in this discussion.

- I paste here another remark I made on the first draft which has not been responded to: “lines [383-384], and [401-423]: [Strumospina] comes from ca. 10m lower in the sequence than other marine reptiles (Fig. 1). Can both horizons really be considered coeval? Is this correlation based on stratigraphic studies? I am not opposed to the idea of the taxa being coeval (though I would say the specimens are not), but this needs to be argued before the NYF can be convincingly discussed as a whole.”

Some minor comments:
- line 99: remove one “)”
- line 145: please provide translation for Latin words
- line 331 this should refer to Fig. 5. There is thus no reference to Figure 4, please add those
- line 378: change “gastral” for “gastralia”

Figure captions
- The pdf file has several issues with the captions, but those are absent in the word file. A quirk of the proofs?
- Fig. 2D is no longer present but still captioned.
- Fig. 3: the zygosphene-zygantrum arrow points to the zygapophyses, please correct this.
- Fig. 4: explanations for ‘hu’ and ‘sc’ are missing.
- Table 1 is still present as a table caption in the ms although it is a supplementary table


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE OLDEST RECORD OF SAUROSPHARGIFORMES (DIAPSIDA) FROM SOUTH CHINA COULD FILL AN ECOLOGICAL GAP IN THE EARLY TRIASSIC BIOTIC RECOVERY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: See the comments below.
Experimental design: See the comments below.
Validity of the findings: See the comments below.
Additional comments: The authors have considered most of the comments from the four reviewers and revised the manuscript accordingly. I feel that the revised manuscript is significantly improved. However, there are still several major issues that need to be addressed before the recommendation for publication.

My major concern is the validity of the new taxon when compared with Keichousaurus yuananensis from the same fauna. Based on the description and comparison present in the manuscript, I do not see any difference between Keichousaurus yuananensis and the proposed new taxon. First, the size of the new specimen is comparable to the only known type of Keichousaurus yuananensis (150 mm vs 145 mm in the dorsal region). Second, the number of dorsal vertebrae in the new specimen is similar to (or even same with) Keichousaurus yuananensis (~18 vs ~19-20). Third, the humerus of the new specimen shares a characterized shape with Keichousaurus yuananensis holotype. In the manuscript, the only noted difference between the two specimens is the osteoderm. Osteoderms are present in the new specimen based on the updated photos, but its absence in Keichousaurus yuananensis holotype can’t be confirmed since only bone impression is known in the holotype of Keichousaurus yuananensis. For example, osteoderms cannot be confidently identified from the part specimen (WGSC V1701-1) where only impression is preserved. One way for sorting this out would be the addition of Keichousaurus yuananensis into the phylogenetic analysis, coding osteoderm characters as question marks. If the phylogenetic analysis can not separate the two OTUs,  it is very likely they are the same species.

Other minor issues:
1. Etymology: What does ‘struma’ mean? I only found definitions indicating that ‘struma’ is either a swelling of some soft tissues or tumors of soft tissues – unless the authors provide a specific definition of ‘struma’ that they are referring to, using such a name will be very inappropriate.
2. Diagnosis of the new taxon: The centrum has lateral surfaces, not lateral edges.
3. The following description and comparison of the neural spines is difficult to be understood: Horizontally near the neural arch, particularly anteroposteriorly (Fig. 3a, b) , so that the neighboring two neural spines contact each other on their anterior and posterior margins. However, the neural spine differs from nothosaurs, Hanosaurus hupehensis, and pachypleurosaurs by quickly expanding as each becomes laterally broader towards their posterior too (Fig. 2a, b; Young, 1965; Rieppel, 1998).
4. The caption for Fig. 2c is still missing from the revised manuscript!!!!!!
5. The caption of Fig. 4 (phylogenetic affinities) does not correspond to the figure itself (photos of the specimen). Same applies to Figs. 5 and 6 where there must be something wrong for the figure caption.

In addition, below are some of the reviewers’ comments to which the authors did not provide any response in the response letter, nor updated in the revised manuscript (or maybe I miss). I feel that these are reasonable comments and should be addressed rather than simply ignored.
Reviewer 1:
- lines 288-289, and 305-327: Tuberospina comes from ca. 10 m lower in the sequence than other marine reptiles (Fig. 1). Can both horizons really be considered coeval? Is this correlation based on stratigraphic studies? I am not opposed to the idea of the taxa being coeval (though I would say the specimens are not), but this needs to be argued before the NYF can be convincingly discussed as a whole.
Reviewer 3:
For Fig. 1C, this is a nice paleogeographic reconstruction. I presume that this is the result from the authors’ field mapping activities since no reference is cited. But where is the evidence for this paleogeographic reconstruction? And also the fossil locality is located in the open platform judged from the color, but the authors repeatedly mentioned in the manuscript that the fauna is from a restricted lagoon. So which is correct?
Reviewer 4:
line 81 - Although the relevant references are cited in the text, and Figure 1. is clear, I think it would be useful to give a longer (but brief) geological description of the formation and sequence where the specimen was found (especially about the stratigraphic background).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LOW-LEVEL NUTRIENT ENRICHMENT DURING THERMAL STRESS DELAYS BLEACHING AND AMELIORATES CALCIFICATION IN THREE HAWAIIAN REEF CORAL SPECIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors used professional English through the manuscript, which was well-written with clear research goals and hypotheses. Ample references to relevant literature were included. The structure of the manuscript followed standard guidance for PeerJ research articles, and the raw data was provided. See general comments for suggested edits.
Experimental design: This experiment investigated the bleaching and mortality response of three coral taxa in relation to elevated heat stress and nutrient input in a controlled laboratory setting. The authors designed a study that address a knowledge gap in how coral responds to low and balanced nutrient enrichment during heat stress. Given the forecast of rising ocean temperatures and increasing severity and frequency of coral bleaching events over coming decades, this work is relevant and timely with the potential for informing local management. The methods of this manuscript are extremely detailed and contain enough information for this experiment to be replicated.
Validity of the findings: I believe the offers used appropriate statistical methods throughout their analysis, and supported their test choices with appropriate citations. The underlying data used in the analysis is provided – please see my notes under general comments for suggestions regarding the formatting and presentation of the data. The authors conclusions addressed their original research aims and sufficiently backed up relevant literature.
Additional comments: Please see comments below per section of the manuscript –

Introduction: The authors give a very thorough background on the physiological mechanisms of coral bleaching and the local environmental drivers of this process, with a strong focus on nutrient input. Given this study did investigate the response of three different taxa, I suggest that the introduction describe these three species and what is known of their varying bleaching thresholds.

Moreover, Kāne'ohe Bay is indeed a unique environment with a dynamic history of nutrient input. While the authors address this in the discussion section of the manuscript, I think more should be stated on this matter in the introduction. The introduction is quite limited in describing Kāne'ohe Bay’s nutrient history – lines 125-127. I suggest that the authors clearly state that the coral here have been posited to be more resilient to thermal and nutrient stress. I see this as an important lens to interpret this study through.

Methods: I appreciated the structure of this section. However, after reading the ‘Biotic Factor Measurement’ description, I did go back to lines 128-129 of the Introduction. If I am interpreting the methods correctly, observations of bleaching and mortality, and days until bleaching or mortality, were determined via visual assessments. Therefore, I recommend that the authors edit lines 128-129 for clarity. In lines 239-249, the authors state that notable changes in condition were documented; in reviewing the data, it was unclear to me where I could find this information.

Results: The authors report in the lines 341-343 that the rise in ambient temperature coincided with “expected seasonal changes in temperature” – however, sea surface temperatures in Hawaii were tracking well above average during the summer of 2019 and preceded a mass bleaching event during the autumn months.

Acknowledgements: The PeerJ guidance states: “Do not acknowledge funders here, there is a separate Funding Statement for that” – revise accordingly.

Tables:

Table 1 contains a wealth of information, which the caption does not quite accurately describe – the caption should be revised. Consider breaking into two tables (temperature and nutrients). The last section showing nutrients by phase is also slightly challenging to read as it lacks a clear distinction between acclimation and heating. The treatment groups (A, N, NH, and H) should also be described within the first table and first figure caption in the manuscript for ease of interpretation.

Table 3 may not be necessary – consider reporting this information in the text to cut length. This information is technically also visualized in Figure 4.

Figures:

Figure 2 – I would recommend improving image quality here and cite the source of the imagery in the figure caption.

Figure 4 is a good representation of the trajectory of bleaching for each of the taxa of interest – but is it showing both ‘paling’ and ‘bleaching’ or just ‘bleaching’ (line 234). Given bleaching remained at 0% for the Ambient and Nutrient only treatments, I would recommend removing these from the figure in favor of adding partial mortality over time per species.

Figure 5 – There seems to be room for the species names to be spelled out (as in Fig. 4); I suggest doing that here or describing the codes in the figure caption.
The use of MCAs is interesting, but ultimately I find figures 6 + 7, and 8 + 9, to be redundant. I suggest moving one set of the figures to the supplementary material. Moreover, figures 6 and 8 do contain data that is partially shown in Figure 4. If Figure 4 was revised to show changes in paling and/or partial mortality over time, or if this information is already included in a table, perhaps figures 6 and 8 could be removed from the manuscript.

Data: In the dataset key, why two different code options for the treatments? I recommend that this dataset come with a full metadata sheet, where units and descriptions are each set of data are provided. Metadata should also contain dates that observations were recorded.

The data includes information on ‘days to mortality’, but this is not reported in the manuscript.

I would consider renaming the ‘Visual Assessments’ sheet to better describer that data, since other data was also collected through visual observation.

What do ‘*’ represent in the data under ‘Number’?


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LOW-LEVEL NUTRIENT ENRICHMENT DURING THERMAL STRESS DELAYS BLEACHING AND AMELIORATES CALCIFICATION IN THREE HAWAIIAN REEF CORAL SPECIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a useful set of data and worth publishing. However, there is room for improvement and the comments included below should be addressed prior to publication. In general, the language / expressions of the ms should be subjected to an in-depth editing run. The ms is overillustrated and a number of figures / could be lost / moved to the supplement. There are concern regarding the interpretation of the “calcification rates” and some of the statements discussion items and citations need to be thoroughly revised.

Title “Low nutrient enrichment during thermal stress” –
Sounds a bit awkward. Use “low-level” or “mild instead”?

“demonstrating the greatest remediation from enrichment under heat stress.”
Unclear / awkward – replace or rephrase remediation in this context.

“Visually, this is generally 21 characterized by the paling and eventual loss of pigment, resulting in a transparent appearance and 22 revealing the skeleton below the tissues.”
Unclear, re-write / formulate in a way that reflects the different ways by which bleaching may occur.

“drive coral bleaching are still somewhat abstruse”
awkward, rephrase “abstruse”. Actually, quiet a lot is known. Describe the known mechanisms.

will lead to degradation of the host-endosymbiont mutualism (D’Angelo & 79 Wiedenmann 2014; Morris et al. 2019; Tanaka et al. 2017).
Cite Wiedenmann et al. (2013) Nature Climate Change in this context, which was the first paper to outline this concept.

Despite many cases of exacerbation, there have been some instances suggesting nutrients
104 may have the ability to placate the effects of thermal stress under balanced ratio conditions
Awkward / unclear: Rephrase “exacerbation” and “placate”

51 landslides), has been increasing due to forces such as shoreline develop
Rephrase “forces” in this context.

“106 amounts of phosphoric acid, ammonium, and nitrate showed an ancillary association”
Rephrase “ancillary”

“in mitigation109 of photosynthetic activity”
This sentence does not work, replace mitigation.

111 recorded beneficial responses to 3 μM of balanced ammonium
balanced ammonium? – unclear

Despite 117 several articles showing the potential of low nutrient enrichment to ameliorate various impacts of 118 thermal stress, there have been no published studies known to the authors that have investigated 119 the effects of balanced low-level enrichments of DIN or DIP on chronic thermal stress (> 2 weeks 120 of exposure).

The logic of this sentence is not clear. Are these results published or not? Make clear how the present study is different from past ones.

elevations of nitrate + nitrite, ammonium, and 123 phosphate
Rephrase “elevation”

As designed, mean temperature varied…
Rephrase “as designed”

“Temperature in the NH and H treatments during the heating phase, 337 which reached means of 30.70 °C and 30.73 °C, respectively, was higher from those of the non-338 heated treatment groups (Table 1).”

This is not really a result, but a confirmation that the setup works. Suggest to shorten this and integrate in the method section. Mention the conditions (also the control temperature!) in the results a brief introduction when talking about the effects of the treatment.

“There were no observed differences in the mean concentrations of any nutrient type
345 between field sites and the ambient mesocosms over the entirety of the study period (Table S2),”

Unclear, this is for the control condition? The enriched systems should show some elevated values? Table 1 seems to suggest this?
Table on should use terminology consistently, the concept “actual and 3 target enrichment.” Cannot easily follow through the table. Also, it is unclear what the difference between “nutrients” and “nutrients by phase” is.

•	Some tables contain redundant information compared to the graphs. Try to move as many as possible to the supplement to reduce the overall (too high) number of display items.

•	The MCA plot analysis does not contribute a lot information that goes beyond the more accessible graphs, and can probably be left out.

•	Figure 6 and 8 should be combined in a meaningful way.

Figure 5: Remove residual dots for the axis label. Not sure if I read this correctly, but there seems to be no calcification, also under control conditions, but rather a weight loss in the stressed colonies, that is less pronounced in the nutrient enriched samples. If this is not the correct / intended interpretation, more explanations are needed. Accordingly, it seems wrong to talk about increased calcification rates. The relevant sections need to be rewritten throughout the ms.

“This study is the first published 445 mesocosm-based account known to the authors that has shown coral exposure to minimal balanced 446 nutrient enrichment (<1 μM of nitrogen and phosphorous) during”

Remove priority claims, in particular if you don’t know for sure if they hold.

“the modest concentrations of balanced nutrient enrichment 479 in this study may have been too low to cause overgrowth and thus minimized any associated 480 negative effects.”

According to D’Angelo & Wiedenmann 2014, detrimental effects would be only expected if the N:P ratio is not favourable (P-starvation). High N/P concenctrations were not necessarily harmful if available in a permitted ratio. You data confirm this nicely.

“with more recent studies even suggesting rapid adaptation is possible in 505 response to acute stress due to clade changes and/or (epi)genetic adaptation (Buerger et al. 2020; 506 Dixon et al. 2015; Palumbi et al. 2014).”

This needs to be toned down and discussed more critically, there is limited evidence that many species can easily change clade / adapt. See Goulet 2006 DOI:10.3354/meps321001

Many studies have found that excess 555 nitrate can exacerbate bleaching in field and laboratory settings (e.g., Burkepile et al. 2020; 556 Chumun et al. 2013; Nordemar et al. 2003), although other contemporary research has identified 557 balanced N:P enrichments as a controlling factor influencing coral response (Rosset et al. 2017; 558 Wiedenmann et al. 2013).

There is no contradiction between these studies. Replace “although other contemporary research has” by “In this context, the N:P ratio has been identified as controlling factor….”

“559 studies were characterized by exceptionally high DIN and/or DIP concentrations, which were 560 typically unbalanced and are unlikely to be found in natural systems.”

This is not true. See D’Angelo & Wiedenmann 2014 for scenarios that can lead to imbalance. Cite and discuss recent work by Lapointe 2019 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9 and 2020: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X21007207
Experimental design: Experimental design is ok.
Validity of the findings: See comment above regarding "Calcification rates"
Additional comments: n.a.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LOW-LEVEL NUTRIENT ENRICHMENT DURING THERMAL STRESS DELAYS BLEACHING AND AMELIORATES CALCIFICATION IN THREE HAWAIIAN REEF CORAL SPECIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Han et al. conducted a manipulative experiment to investigate the combined effects of "minor" nutrient enrichment (nitrogen and phosphorus) and increased sea surface temperature on the bleaching susceptibility and calcification rates of three species of reef-building corals. The authors underlined delays in bleaching and greater calcification rates in corals exposed to both elevated nutrients and temperature compared to colonies under heat stress only - suggesting that nutrient enrichment may mitigate the deleterious effects of thermal stress on corals. In addition, Lobactis scutaria demonstrated a greater "remediation" from enrichment under elevated temperature compared to the other species.

Getting a better understanding of the interactive effects of nutrient enrichment and thermal stress on the physiological responses of reef-building corals is of prime importance - given the current status of coral reefs worldwide. The study by Han et al. thus contributes to increase our understanding on this timely topic. Overall, the manuscript is well written, structured and provides sufficient details regarding the experimental design and statistical analyses. It would have been great if the authors included additional measurements such as chlorophyll concentration or symbiont density in their study or photosynthetic rates. I have some comments regarding the literature references, the overall context of the experiment as well as the interpretation of the results and conclusions – which should be toned down given the limited measurements supporting the hypotheses. Please find my comments below.

Introduction:

The authors describe the current literature on the effects of nutrient enrichment on the physiological response of reef-building corals. They underlined the importance of a balance N:P ratio to maintain coral metabolism under nutrient and/or thermal stress and also describe the diverse effects of increased nitrogen vs phosphorus on coral physiology. Yet, the authors missed discussing the antagonistic effects of ammonium vs nitrate on coral physiology (Shantz & Burkepile, 2014 and Ezzat et al. 2015, 2019). This should be pointed out in the intro to complement the context of the study along with studies by Wiedenmann et al. 2013 and Rosset et al. 2017.

L.22: “algal recover” this term is unclear, please rephrase.
L.54: include reference
L.57: When specifying the different nutrient types, the authors need to discuss coral responses to elevated nitrogen vs phosphorus as well as the various effects of NH4 vs NO3 – See papers by Shantz & Burkepile, 2014; Ezzat et al. 2015 and Marangoni et al. xx.
L.64: Here you can also include Ezzat et al. 2019 – which investigated the effects of elevated NH4 concentrations and thermal stress on coral physiology.
L.72-79: DIN here represents NO3, please revise this section as well as the following 92-102 according to previous comments.
L.119-120: The authors will have to discuss the results by Wiedenmann et al. 2013. Wiedenmann et al. 2013 demonstrated that a balanced N:P including nitrate and phosphorus helped corals maintain their metabolism under thermal and light stress. The authors should tone down their statement here, the present study is not the first investigating the combined effects of low-lvl of nutrients and elevated sea surface temperature on coral physiology (see Becker et al. 2021 – mentioned earlier by the authors). The authors could elaborate a bit more about the originality of their studies based on the current literature.
L.131: The authors did not measure symbiont density (or I did not find the results?), please rephrase accordingly.
Experimental design: Material and methods

L.137: Please include the average size of coral colonies, not only their weight.
The authors could briefly describe the nutrient conditions in the reefs where the corals were found. What were the local nutrient concentrations and why did the authors decide to conduct a minor nutrient enrichment?

Looking at Table 1, it is unclear if the authors tested for differences in nutrient concentrations between all tanks. Did the concentrations in P differed significantly between A,H and N and NH treatments during the Heating phase? Same question for nitrogen.

Figure

Can the authors include a graph referring to the different phases of their experiment design, include the diverse time points at which measurements were taken? This would greatly help the readers.
Figure 5: Please include letters to indicate statistical significance
Validity of the findings: Discussion

L.442-449: The authors should tone down this statement.
L.467-469: What do the authors mean by “ameliorated the bleaching”? Its unclear.
L.485: Hard to compare studies like this without proper physiological measurements.
L.493-497: I do not fully agree with the authors here. Yes, phosphorus may have had a beneficial effect on coral physiology, potentially on the photosynthetic machinery and phospholipid membrane production. But the authors also exposed corals to increased NO3 and NH4. One could imagine that NH4 may have alleviated the potential deleterious effects of NO3 on coral physiology. This should be further discussed by the authors.
L.518: The fact that the authors noted differing response patterns according to coral species is interesting. I am wondering if the authors could elaborate a bit more on that matter especially from line L.552. What do the authors mean by “variable”? Are there any literature references describing the trophic plasticity of the different coral species used in this study -which could potentially explain the results obtained by the authors? Also please refer to the work of Houlebreque & Ferrier-Pagès, 2009 when discussing heterotrophy and corals.
In addition, the authors could elaborate a bit more on how different Symbiodinium clades could influence coral responses to nutrient and thermal stress.

Conclusion

Same comment as for the intro and discussion, the authors need to include the proper literature references to discuss their results.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LOW-LEVEL NUTRIENT ENRICHMENT DURING THERMAL STRESS DELAYS BLEACHING AND AMELIORATES CALCIFICATION IN THREE HAWAIIAN REEF CORAL SPECIES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Some minor comments for the authors regarding the revisions they have made:

Line 112: These studies, however, only applied nitrate as a DIN enrichment source, which is typically not as preferential as ammonium and generally causes deleterious effects at higher concentrations. Indeed, antagonistic responses have occurred with differential nutrient identities (Ezzat et al. 2019; Marangoni et al. 2020).

It should read : Indeed, antagonistic responses have occurred with differential NITROGEN or DIN identities (Ezzat et al. 2019; Marangoni et al. 2020). Moreover, Ezzat et al. 2019 did not investigate the antagonistic effect of NO3 vs NH4, Ezzat et al. 2015 did.

Line 158: While several studies treated nitrate (NO3-) as the main DIN source, recent studies have found that the type of nutrient enrichment can result in different physiological responses. Contrasting responses of bleaching intensity under thermal stress have indeed been found, with positive effects under ammonium (NH4+) enrichment versus negative effects of nitrate (NO3-) enrichments (Ezzat et al. 2019; Marangoni et al. 2020).

What do the authors mean by the type of nutrients? It is the type of nitrogen... or the nitrogen identity (DIN) again here. Please replace accordingly.

Line 219: "The high nutrient, anoxic, and low light conditions prior to diversion led to an extreme decrease in coral cover and a simultaneous increase in filter or deposit feeders, phytoplankton, and algae (Hunter & Evans 1995; Laws & Redalje 1982). "

What does diversion mean in this context? Please rephrase

Line 869-875: "We assessed colony growth and various coral conditions (survivorship/mortality, partial conditions, bleaching progress) via detailed analyses of visual assessments under the low-level enrichment for 31 days of thermal stress. Overall, colonies under tested elevation (Nitrate: +0.51 μM, Ammonium: +0.75 μM, and Phosphate: +0.56 μM) showed no notable consequences with delayed signs of dysbiosis when compared to low nutrients under identical thermal stress. For all species tested, the onset of bleaching was delayed by 3.4 days in nutrient-enriched heated groups, which was likely due to the reduction in paled colonies midway through the heating period.

low-level enrichment ? something is off here. low-level nutrient
Overall, colonies under tested elevation  - again something is off, please correct accordingly. What does "no notable consequences" mean?? physiological consequences?
The term "dysbiosis" appears here for the first time, please provide a clear definition of it.

Line 879: "This study is the only published account of prolonged exposure (>30 days) of coral to elevated temperature and minimal balanced nutrient enrichment. Other research involved short-term exposures to elevated temperature and (or) nutrients (Baker et al. 2018; Ezzat et al. 2016; Hadjioannou et al. 2019; Tanaka et al. 2014; Wiedenmann et al. 2013)."

What do the authors would like to underline, aside from the fact the study was conducted over a longer period compared to others?

Line 1061: "In this context, the N:P ratio has been identified as a controlling factor influencing coral response (Rosset et al. 2017; Wiedenmann et al. 2013)."

I agree with the authors, yet the nitrogen identity remains together with N:P an important factor that shapes coral health and physiological response under normal vs thermal stress conditions. This should be acknowledged as well.
Experimental design: -
Validity of the findings: -
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ZMIAA5 REGULATES MAIZE ROOT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT BY INTERACTING WITH ZMARF5 UNDER THE SPECIFIC BINDING OF ZMTCP15/16/17
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: In this study, the authors comprehensively studied the ZmIAA5 by phenotypic analysis of overexpression/mutant lines and identification of its regulatory gene as well as interacting proteins. The study shows some applicability and novelty. This manuscript has been prepared well. While there are some minor problems need to be revised before it can be acceptable for PeerJ.
1. Introduction is insufficient and needs to be further enriched.
2. The figures resolution is too low to be clear.
3. There are some inaccurate and confusing English usages in the manuscript. The authors should revise their paper carefully.
Experimental design: No question
Validity of the findings: No question
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ZMIAA5 REGULATES MAIZE ROOT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT BY INTERACTING WITH ZMARF5 UNDER THE SPECIFIC BINDING OF ZMTCP15/16/17
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors of this manuscript investigated ZmIAA5 regulates maize root growth and development by interacting with ZmARF5 under the specific binding of ZmTCP15/16/17.Through the study of the overexpression of the ZmIAA5 gene and the phenotype of mutants in maize, combined with a series of molecular experiments, the regulatory relationship between the upstream and downstream of the gene was elucidated. The article is clear in thought and detailed in the data but I have several concerns on the presented data as described below.
Experimental design: 1.	The background part of the article abstract should be enriched.
2.	The conclusion part of the article abstract should be described in more detail.
3.	The manuscript would benefit from some improvements in English writing. The text includes a few typing errors and some minor grammar mistakes.
4.	The format of gene names in the article needs to be uniform, some in italics, some without italics.
5.	Some of the figures in the manuscript are not clear, and it is recommended to replace the clearer figures to facilitate the reader to clearly obtain the results of the experiment.
6.	What is the main formula of liquid medium for cultivating corn? It should be reflected in the materials and methods section.
Validity of the findings: 7.	The growth of maize tends to be more in arid environments, and whether culturing maize in liquid medium will cause stress to maize, the authors need to explain in the article.
8.	The data statistics on the root phenotype of maize at 65 days of growth are carried out in the article, and the conditions and processes of maize growth should be explained in the article.
9.	The conclusion section of the article can be added to a regulatory pathway figure to more intuitively represent the conclusion.
10.	The drawing in Figure 5C is not standardized, and the added text obscures the picture.
11.	The red ellipse callout in Figure 2S should be modified and should not extend beyond the main body.
12.	The icon in Figure S3B should be readjusted to make the picture more aesthetically pleasing.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ZMIAA5 REGULATES MAIZE ROOT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT BY INTERACTING WITH ZMARF5 UNDER THE SPECIFIC BINDING OF ZMTCP15/16/17
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The authors report the function of the ZmIAA5 gene and its involvement in new pathways that regulate maize root growth and development. This article is well written and contains useful and interesting data, the data presented supports the conclusions reached in the manuscript. However, I have a few issues that the authors should address before publication.
1.Pay attention to the problem of language expression, and the authors need to find a fluent English speaker to modify it.
2.The issue of writing format should be taken seriously. For example, when gene names appear in the article, some use italics, some not, the format should be unified.
3.What does EMS mean? The full name should be used when writing for the first time.
4.The article mentions many gene names, and each gene should be marked with its original gene number when it first appears.
5.Figure 1, I suggest using a clearer picture to facilitate the reader's observation.
6.Figure 4 and Figure 5 needs to indicate repeat number of the experiment.
7.Typically, the same control maize lines are required to be used for the experiments, but the control maize lines selected in Figures 4 and 5 are different (B73 and KN5585) and should be explained by the authors.
8.In Figures 5G and 5E, attention should be paid to the distance between the ordinate labels and the histogram
9.There is a typo in Figure 6B, "elIAA5" should be changed to "el-IAA5".
10.The text description in the article and the mark in the picture should be unified. For example, in the Supplementary Material part of the article, a, b, c... are used, while in the figure, A, B, C...


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ZMIAA5 REGULATES MAIZE ROOT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT BY INTERACTING WITH ZMARF5 UNDER THE SPECIFIC BINDING OF ZMTCP15/16/17
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 4

Output:
Basic reporting: In this study, the authors comprehensively studied the ZmIAA5 by phenotypic analysis of overexpression/mutant lines and identification of its regulatory gene as well as interacting proteins. This manuscript is somewhat innovative, but requires major revisions to be accepted by PeerJ.
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: 1.	There are some inaccurate and confusing English usages in the manuscript. The authors should revise their paper carefully.
2.	When a protein or gene appears for the first time in the manuscript, please use the full text.
3.	Line36,37. The word “Maize” repeated.
4.	Line188,189,190. Gene names need to be italicized.
5.	The figures resolution is too low to be clear.
6.	Authors need to unify usage of the word “corn” or “maize”.
7.	Gene names need to be italicized, but protein names do not, and authors should check the manuscript carefully.
8.	In the results of the phenotypic experiments, why not use maize material from the same background as a control? The author should explain reason in the manuscript.
9.	In the phenotypic results, the authors should select maize with the same growth period to observe the plant height phenotype.
10.	Line 490. Please take care to check the writing of the references, remove the question mark.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ZMIAA5 REGULATES MAIZE ROOT GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT BY INTERACTING WITH ZMARF5 UNDER THE SPECIFIC BINDING OF ZMTCP15/16/17
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: the authors revised the manuscript carefully, the article answered all the questions in my comments.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LAND USE AFFECTS THE RESPONSE OF SOIL MOISTURE AND SOIL TEMPERATURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN THE LOESS HILLY REGION OF CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The language can be improved, but some words used need to be definitely replaced. Literature references are not sufficient, excluding the introduction section. There is no background provided in the introduction section on the four crop types and similar studies for these. The article structure can be improved. More figures are required to graphically show the patterns of the variation of the soil moisture, maps for regional topography, geography, and geology.
Experimental design: The manuscript matches the aim and scope of the journal but lacks in providing significant information. The research gaps are ill-explained and the utilization of the solutions is not discussed. The investigation falls short due to several misses in parameter selection. Methods are rudimentary and discussed in sufficient detail.
Validity of the findings: This work lacks significant novelty, and the impact is uncertain, as there are issues with the design of the study and in the discussion of the sources of error and uncertainty.
Additional comments: The authors investigated the inter-relationship between different meteorological parameters and soil moisture for four different types of crops in a hilly region. The objectives of the manuscript are weak, there are some missing ends not considered in the analysis, the study itself is fairly rudimentary and the write-up is poor. I reject the publication of this manuscript on these grounds. Detailed comments are as follows.
•	The introduction section doesn’t discuss the four different types of crops for which the investigation is conducted.
•	Line 121: “Situation”?
•	There is no map of the study area or Figure illustrating the geographical location, the topography, and the geology of the area.
•	The topography is not discussed at all.
•	Please discuss the specifications of the two sensors used, particularly their precision. References should be cited which indicate the application of these sensors in previous studies. There is no discussion on why these were used and what advantages these have against conventional sensors such as the hydra/theta probes.
•	A map of the area with the spatial distribution of the different crops would be appreciated by the readers in this manuscript.
•	The referencing is insufficient except in the introduction section.
•	The impact of slope-aspect is missing.
•	The impact of soil properties is missing.
•	The impact of surface and soil temperature is missing.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LAND USE AFFECTS THE RESPONSE OF SOIL MOISTURE AND SOIL TEMPERATURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN THE LOESS HILLY REGION OF CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: the basic reprting is clear and easy to read. but  the authors did not provide some erferences in old days. It is very importent for use to use the references which publishied at the begining of this research field.

language is not concise and clear in some paragraphs.
Experimental design: if possible, please add one or two photographes of experiment landuses .
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: soil moisture could be deeply affected by envrinment factos in semi- dry land. it is well studied since last century. based on the new techniques in soil moisture and air teperature survy, the landuses affects on the response of soil moisture and soil teperature to environment factors can be precisly studied. this paper has done the field experiment and comprehensive analysis to reveal the linkage of land use and soil moisture and surronding environment. the paper did not provide enough new foundinds in the mechanism, but provise very sound presentation in the reseach area.
  Your introduction needs more detail, such as the basic foundings in last century. I suggest that you improve the description at lines 44- 69 to provide more justification for your study.
 for table 1, you may need to add the real meaning of X1--X6, give a note below to interpret the letters stead for.
L136 to L140 is not clear in meaning. L150-151 IS NOT CLEAR that  the "10 -meter " here.
you need to give the reason why you choose the 4 types of land uses. what is the difference among landuses. such as the crop height and leaf area index. eigher in the experiment design or in the discussion section.
L510 -515, I am not understand your meaning. please make the sentence much clear. do you mean that Zhang' research did not input the aie teperature in Zhang's study.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LAND USE AFFECTS THE RESPONSE OF SOIL MOISTURE AND SOIL TEMPERATURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN THE LOESS HILLY REGION OF CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Thank you for submitting your manuscript on Land use affects the response of soil moisture and soil
temperature to environmental factors in the loess hilly region of China. With the changing climactic conditions globally soil moisture is a very important parameter in determining the productivity of land for sustenance of food security. The authors have touched a very important aspect in this regard. The manuscript needs a lot of improvement in text such as introduction and conclusion. Literature review is sufficient however too old references may be avoided. The background and the context is relevant though however too lengthy. The structure and flow of the article is good and the figures/tables are self explanatory. The authors set the goal of this research is to uncover the mechanisms by which various environmental factors influence the soil moisture.

 Therefore, I giving some suggestions  which I hope useful to the author.
Experimental design: The experiment design is good however lacks novelty, the authors may explain how their methods are different from other researchers. Although, lot of effort has gone into the research but the research questions are not well defined. The research fills the knowledge gap but authors have not clearly expressed the same.
Validity of the findings: All the data has been provided and is supported by robust statistical analysis and tests, however validation of results has not been performed.
Although the authors set the goal of this research is to uncover the mechanisms by which various environmental factors influence the soil moisture, a section has been dedicated for the same however it discussed the relations only I could not find any explanation for "mechanism".

The conclusion again repeats the detailed results. The conclusion must be crisp and should summarize the results with applicability of results and methods globally, it should highlight limitations and recommendations inferred from the results.
Additional comments: Although the research is well thought and has applicability in current food security scenarios, the paper needs major improvements in defining the goals and achieving them and then explaining them. The authors may explain the relevance of their research in terms of its impact on global food security and sustainable development goals. Discussion and Conclusion needs improvement. English language needs to be lucid and understandable, although it is but at some places its giving misleading meanings. I have highlighted few of them. The authors may check entire manuscript for such rephrasing.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SYNTHESIS OF GEOLOGICAL DATA AND COMPARATIVE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF LOWLAND TETRAPODS SUGGESTS RECENT DISPERSAL THROUGH LOWLAND PORTALS CROSSING THE EASTERN ANDEAN CORDILLERA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: these are all suitable.
Experimental design: Methods are adequately described and hypotheses are clearly stated.
Validity of the findings: My only concern is how far away some sample localities are from the cordillera (see Additional comments).
Additional comments: This manuscript uses divergence ages of published and new mtDNA from 37 tetrapods across the northern Andes along with a summary of geological evidence regarding uplift of this region to understand whether lineages diverged due to simple vicariance. I do not have many comments, and I think this manuscript serves an important role in emphasizing the oversimplification that often happens with vicariant studies in orogenic contexts. I do think the geology portion will be too detailed for many biologists, but I think the detail is necessary to the aim of the paper and to reconstruct the dual biotic and abiotic histories.
I suggest that the authors consider how different generation times would impact the distribution of their ages (i.e. a range of divergence ages would be expected as a function of generation time). Finally, regarding lines L542-558, were these passes always low or did they become low at this time? Given the importance of uplift history that the authors review early on, it seems surprising to mention only in the discussion that there are low passes that could have accommodated dispersal all along?

Figure 1 – (i) is it possible to increase the hillshade on this to show topography? (ii) if these are sample localities for the genetic data on the inset, is it a concern that some of the sampling points are extremely far away from the cordillera?

Figure 2 – I think for this figure to be useful to biologists it requires more explanation as to how it relates to this study. Adding the ages for middle Miocene to the figure itself would also help as well as defining the subduction zone/fault lines.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SYNTHESIS OF GEOLOGICAL DATA AND COMPARATIVE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF LOWLAND TETRAPODS SUGGESTS RECENT DISPERSAL THROUGH LOWLAND PORTALS CROSSING THE EASTERN ANDEAN CORDILLERA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a very nice multi-taxon approach to vicariance across the Andes. We need more such comparative studies to make broad biogeographic statements. The main limitation is that it is based entirely on mtDNA, which can “reset” divergence times through subsequent introgression, but the authors fully appreciate this fact and comment on it. The paper is very well-written and referenced, with the possible exception of reviews on Andean phylogeographic studies.

52-54	My interpretation has always been that mountains are not so much a physical barrier, but a habitat break (i.e. alpine splitting montane or lowland distributions), just as the tropics isolate (cool)temperate species in each hemisphere.

156-263	This section on geology is too long and detailed for readers. It would be better to focus only on geology as it relates to specific questions, when they are defined, and only give a brief “geological setting” in the Intro. Could it be reduced by using Figures?

In general, there is minimal reference to phylogeographic studies on the Andes. Mention more reviews of studies of the area.

389	It is more usual to talk about drift being “greater”, not “faster”, since it is a stochastic dispersive process. Fixation might be faster- yes.

517-18	Why mention nDNA again when it is not relevant for this paper? You’ve already said this earlier anyway.
Experimental design: The main limitation is that it is based entirely on mtDNA, which can “reset” divergence times through subsequent introgression, but the authors fully appreciate this fact and comment on it.
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: No comment


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SYNTHESIS OF GEOLOGICAL DATA AND COMPARATIVE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF LOWLAND TETRAPODS SUGGESTS RECENT DISPERSAL THROUGH LOWLAND PORTALS CROSSING THE EASTERN ANDEAN CORDILLERA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: This is an extremely well written article that uses cutting-edge methods to reach important and general conclusions. I have an uncharacteristically short list of criticisms. (1) Given the number of taxa and trees, it would be useful to post the alignments (not simply the Genbank accession numbers) on a public repository (e.g. Figshare); (2) given the large number of sequences downloaded from public genetic repositories, it would help orient the reader to the extent of the authors' own sequencing efforts if the Data Availability section included the range of newly added Genbank accession numbers. These were not apparent in Table S1. (3) I could not find a legend for abbreviations used to identify voucher specimens in Table S1. What does FIELD mean? FMNH or a released specimen? (4) I could not find a table containing elevational ranges of the various taxa included in the analysis, their body sizes, locomotory mode, and geographic range size. their
Experimental design: Remarkably comprehensive, utilizing four tetrapod classes to address the evidence for co-distributed patterns.

Because the authors acknowledge that (a) the orogenic elevation of the EC-MA was asynchronous, and (b) that it varies along its length as a barrier to distribution (in m.a.s.l.) and is punctured by low elevation passes, it would be interesting to know if (1) the test species (or species pairs) occur on either side of these passes, and (2) if there are shared haplotypes between them (and which phylogenies are involved). Shared mtDNA haplotypes for taxa thought to have diverged in the Miocene might reflect more recent or ongoing introgression events
Validity of the findings: The only determination in this paper that gives me pause is the argument that the EC-MA reached effective heights ("significant" as used in the abstract should be replaced) 38-33 Mya. As the authors acknowledge in the Discussion, it is not the highest heights of the EC-MA that are relevant to their test of vicariance--it is the elevation of the passes. When did the passes reach their current elevation?  (and why was a 2000 m range maximum chosen if one of the passes is currently 1900 m?)

On line 95, the authors state "Hoorn et al. (2010) shows that Andean uplift was a gradual process that occurred during more than 20 million years..." However, with reference to the Northern Andes, Hoorn et al actually state "However, the most intense peaks of Andean mountain building followed during the late middle Miocene (~12 Ma, Fig. 1C) and early Pliocene (~4.5 Ma, Fig. 1E and figs. S3 to S5)." I am not enough of a geophysicist to challenge their orogenic interpretations, but think they should carefully examine their assertions, particularly with respect to their timing, as they contrast with most traditional interpretations.
Additional comments: When the authors discuss dispersal versus vicariance in the Introduction (e.g. line 45),  they might also point out that dispersal models don't generate predictions for other species--they are idiosyncratic. On the other hand, vicariance models yield general area cladograms and are open to tests with co-distributed species.

The legend to Fig 4 states the median divergence time for mammals was 1.03 Ma, yet the dotted line appears at >1.5 Ma...


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SYNTHESIS OF GEOLOGICAL DATA AND COMPARATIVE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF LOWLAND TETRAPODS SUGGESTS RECENT DISPERSAL THROUGH LOWLAND PORTALS CROSSING THE EASTERN ANDEAN CORDILLERA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 4

Output:
Basic reporting: This study represents a novel approach to integrating geological asynchronous change with lowland tetrapod vicariance in Colombia. The authors test whether the classical model of speciation in the region was due strictly to the northern Andes uplift, rather than having any impact from species’ life history and physiological characteristics on the montane barrier. The integration of geological changes into their models was cohesive with the biological data, and helped to illuminate some of the patterns observed in the models explaining the variance in divergence time.

The geological background of the area was appropriately described in the introduction, and the prose flowed well from the hypotheses into the methods section. The geological history of the area is complex, and needed a thorough description for the reader to understand the variation of geological barriers on the ground. As the authors clearly took great care in their editing of t the manuscript prior to submission, I do not recommend any major structural changes to these sections.

This study provides a valuable increase in understanding for the impact of physiological and life history variation as it interacts with varying times of formation of physical geographic barriers.

Figures:
Figures are all clear with good representation of the geographic and paleogeologic area for the reader. The descriptions of the subsampling were made clearer by Figure 3. Figure 4 clearly denoted estimated time of divergence by the four lowland groups, and Figure 5’s breakdown of potential thermoregulatory effects on divergence time was clearly communicated.

However, Figure 1 has a minor change needed, in that both 75ºW and 70ºW longitude need to be in black rather than in white, and perhaps both the ticks and font size for latitude and longitude could be a bit larger.

Tables:
Tables sufficiently described the sequences used for the 37 species, along with the assumptions of each model, organizing by AIC. 95% CI of each species’ time to divergence was important to include to allow for adequate interpretation of the results of those models.

Supplemental Tables, Figures, and Appendices all appear to be in order.

Line-by-Line Notes:

Line 417: “km2” should be “km2” with the 2 as a superscript or written out as square kilometers (this does not show easily in PeerJ's review system).

Line 577: It seems that utilizing a single reference (Ghalambor, 2006) for thermal physiological responses in lowland vs. tropical poikilotherms is a bit thin here. There has been much work done on the variation in this area, from anurans onward, that can inform this statement. I would suggest that the authors strengthen this connection to their findings with more literature.
Experimental design: The authors carefully constructed both the assumptions of the genetic data included in their model, and the caveats of those data in constructing their estimates. They thoroughly explain their reasoning at each step.
Validity of the findings: The interpretation of the findings appear to be aligned with asynchronous divergence, and the resolution provided here above the usual 5-2 Ma divergence event provided a meaningful insight into divergence in the northern Andes. It will be a valuable start to exploring these hypotheses for other taxonomic lineages not covered here.
Additional comments: I have no additional comments not stated above.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SYNTHESIS OF GEOLOGICAL DATA AND COMPARATIVE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF LOWLAND TETRAPODS SUGGESTS RECENT DISPERSAL THROUGH LOWLAND PORTALS CROSSING THE EASTERN ANDEAN CORDILLERA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors have done a great job with the feedback received
Experimental design: I have no remaining criticisms
Validity of the findings: PeerJ should publish it!
Additional comments: None


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SYNTHESIS OF GEOLOGICAL DATA AND COMPARATIVE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF LOWLAND TETRAPODS SUGGESTS RECENT DISPERSAL THROUGH LOWLAND PORTALS CROSSING THE EASTERN ANDEAN CORDILLERA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors updated their work well in regards to the reviewers’ comments. I want to reiterate that the geological background of the area was appropriately described in the introduction, and very important to the context of this work. Other reviewers thought that it needed to be shortened, but the geological history in that part of the world is complex, and therefore, merits some depth of explanation. Where there is ambiguity in the geological timing, this is now noted by the authors.

This study provides a valuable increase in understanding for the impact of physiological and life history variation as it interacts with varying times of formation of physical geographic barriers.

Figures:
Figures are all clear with good representation of the geographic and paleogeologic area for the reader. They were improved in response to my comments and those of other reviewers.

Tables:
Tables sufficiently described the sequences used for the 37 species, along with the assumptions of each model. No further comment.

Supplemental Tables, Figures, and Appendices all appear to be in order, except that Appendices S3 and S4 still have tracked changes present in the files. The addition of the “newly generated sequence” column as suggested by Reviewer 3 was welcome in Table S1.

Line-by-Line Notes:
None.
Experimental design: I have no additional comments beyond my initial review. The authors thoroughly explain their reasoning at each step.
Validity of the findings: I have no further comments beyond my initial review: The interpretation of the findings appear to be aligned with asynchronous divergence, and the resolution provided here above the usual 5-2 Ma divergence event provided a meaningful insight into divergence in the northern Andes. It will be a valuable start to exploring these hypotheses for other taxonomic lineages not covered here.
Additional comments: I have no additional comments not stated above.The authors took great care in updating and responding to the comments by the reviewers, and the additional details they provide improved the manuscript.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: POSTEMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRACHEAL SYSTEM OF BEETLES IN THE CONTEXT OF APTERY AND ADAPTATIONS TOWARDS AN ARID ENVIRONMENT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This study focuses on the description of post-embryonic development of adult trachea in the wingless beetle G. tibialis. The authors employed a 3D morphometric analysis to analyze and compare the tracheal morphology of wingless beetle G. tibialis and the winged beetle T. molitor. The results reveals a reduction of tracheal density in the thoracic segments as well as relevant differences in spiracle size. Interestingly, such reduction of the thoracic tracheal in G. tibialis correlates with the reduction of the flight muscles and the consequent development of the elytra cavity. In addition, those tracheal differences are achieved during pupal development as tracheal larva of both species are almost identical. Finally, the authors associate the diminish of tracheal system in G. tibialis with its specific habitat adaptions to arid environments, as it correlates with an increase of the digestive system and the arise of the elytra cavity, two features related to water retention.
In general, the study contributes to the understanding of tracheal development and its possible association to adaptation of different habitats, being of interest for a broad number of readers. That said, I think that the quality of the manuscript can be improved by clarifying and elaborating on a few points, which I detail below. It would particularly be useful to include more information on the morphological description of the G. tibialis trachea, the T. molitor larval tracheal network and on the subelytra cavity. I also suggest a substantial rewriting of the results and discussion sections to make it more appealing to a general audience. These changes would significantly increase the repeatability and clarity of the study.
Experimental design: 1.	My main concern of the study is that the Ms is not well structured. The results are not well organized and therefore are difficult to follow. Some figures are cited in the text in a wrong order (Fig 1F is mentioned after Fig 2) and some results are not illustrated in the figures (Subelytrala cavity and digestive system plots are not included in any figure).  In addition, some results are only well described in the discussion, whereas others are only found in this section. Thus, I strongly recommend restructuring the results and the discussion to make the Ms more readable. Below I give some advises to improve the report.
2.	Fig. 1 illustrates the tracheal morphology of G. tibialis in imago (A), pupa (B) and larva stage (C). As development proceeds from larva to imago, it should be better to show them in the opposite order, from the larva to the adult. In addition, it would be useful to indicate the position of the spiracles in each stage. Finally, including the 3D reconstruction of T. molitor tracheal tree of larva, pupa and adult in this figure would help the reader to understand the difference and the posterior analysis presented in panels D and E.
3.	Description of tracheal of G. tibialis (line 152-161) are difficult to follow as some of the tracheal branches are not well depicted in the 3D reconstruction. For example, the following sentence “The pupa of G. tibialis differs from T. molitor by having only rudimentary basal hind wing trachea” is not well illustrated in the figures, making difficult to interpret the results.
4.	The statistical analysis should be integrated in the description of the results as it is a tool but not a result by itself. Therefore, it should not have the category of a subtitle.
5.	Spiracle distribution. In this part, Fig 3B is again mentioned before Fig 3A. The description of the relative spiracle size in both species, should be presented in this part (plot of Fig1F). Thus, I recommend to move panel F of Fig 1 to Fig 3.  I do not understand what it is represented in Fig3B. According to Fig 3C, spiracle distribution in panel B of G. tibialis represents the imago and the pupa, in other words the transition from pupa (lower diagram) to imago (upper diagram). The draws of stages in the middle, therefore are confusing and should be changed.  In addition, a larval diagram of T. molitor spiracles, should be included to better understand the spiracles distribution in all transitions.
6.	Interestingly, the thin plate spline grid shows clearly a progressive reduction of as1 from larva to imago in G. tibialis whereas in T. molitor as1 is clearly expanded, this could be related to the reduction of the muscle wing mass. Surprisingly, this result is only mentioned in the discussion. Regarding to that, is it this expansion already observed in T. molitor larva or it is again a feature developed during metamorphosis?
7.	Body volume, Subelytral cavity and Digestive system analysis are not illustrated in any figure. The plots showing the significative differences should be added in the Figures and described properly in the results. In addition, an 3D dimensional image of Digestive system (without the tracheal system) of the two species should be shown as it would help to visualize the difference on size and the loops formation.
8.	Subelytral cavity 3D dimensional image connected to the bigger spiracle is required.
9.	Line 333. The relative size of the larva tracheal tree should be reported in the results with an appropriate plot in the Figures.
10.	Line 345-354. This paragraph should be in the results and not in the discussion.
11.	This study compares the tracheal system of two different species. However, it would be interesting to discuss the different morphology in species with winged and wingless individuals like the ants. In fact, a recent study has analyzed the morphological differences between the queens (winged) and the workers (wingless) and their implications in ecological adaptations
12.	In conclusions line 371, impossible should be replace to incompatible.
Validity of the findings: In summary the data presented in this report is robust and the conclusions are supported by the results. However a deep restructuration of the results and discussion sections is required to significantly increase the repeatability and clarity of the study.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: POSTEMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRACHEAL SYSTEM OF BEETLES IN THE CONTEXT OF APTERY AND ADAPTATIONS TOWARDS AN ARID ENVIRONMENT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Overall the document is well written.  There are some places where the language should be checked for clarity.  The authors missed some relevant references in the introduction  Kaiser et al. (2007). Increase in tracheal investment with beetle size supports hypothesis of oxygen limitation on insect gigantism.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104:13198-13203.; Greenlee et al. (2013) Hypoxia-induced compression in the tracheal system in the caterpillar, Manduca sexta L. Journal of Experimental Biology. 216:2293-2301. PMID: 23531813; Helm et al. (2018) Characterizing metamorphic development in the solitary bee Megachile rotundata using micro-computed tomography.  Arthropod Structure and Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asd.2018.05.001.
Experimental design: The authors used 3D morphometric analysis of the tracheal system to examine differences between one species of wingless beetle and one winged beetle.  The authors show beautiful images of 3D tracheal reconstructions, and they used a large sample size for this type of study.
Validity of the findings: The conclusions are overstated.  The use of only two species to draw conclusions about evolutionary adaptations is incorrect (Garland, T., Jr., and S. C. Adolph. "Why not to do two-species comparative studies: limitations on inferring adaptation." Physiological
Zoology 67.4 (1994): 797-828).  This is especially problematic when one of the species has a very different lifestyle, living in the desert, and one is considered a cosmopolitan warehouse pest.  Thus, the first hypothesis cannot be supported as a general statement on winged versus wingless species.  The second hypothesis also cannot be supported because the authors only looked at one species that is desert adapted.  The third hypothesis is clearly supported with the images.
Additional comments: Line 		Comment
45		This suggests they are controlling their environment.  Consider rephrasing.
54		Please correct trachea to tracheae, which is the plural form.
73		Unclear what is altering trachea arrangement.
117-141	This part of the methods section is formatted with lots of very short paragraphs or singular sentences.
255-256	The statement that the digestive system required reduction of flight musculature is making the assumption that the evolution of the increased digestive system drove the reduction of flight musculature.  However, it could easily have happened the other way.  This is where a truly comparative study that looked at multiple species across a known phylogeny may be able to answer such a question.
Fig. 1	Please arrange the developmental stages in order A) larva, B) pupa, and C) imago.  What life stage was used to compute the data in Fig. 1D?  In Fig 1F, suggest to use transparent symbols for the two species, because there is so much overlap.  Possibly consider using a log scale for the y-axis so that we can see what the spiracle volumes are.
Fig. 3	It is unclear what is being shown in 3B and 3C.  It is not clear where the comparison between the two species is on 3C.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: POSTEMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRACHEAL SYSTEM OF BEETLES IN THE CONTEXT OF APTERY AND ADAPTATIONS TOWARDS AN ARID ENVIRONMENT
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors have sufficiently responded to all of my concerns on the structure of the report.
Experimental design: The authors have sufficiently responded to all of my experimental issues.
Validity of the findings: The Ms meets all the standars of the journal.
Additional comments: No additional comments