Flea (Insecta: Siphonaptera) Family Diversity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article seems to me to be interesting, since it tries to include in a global way the information that has been reviewed and that which has not for the different families and number of species of the siphonaptera around the world, giving particularities of these and mentioning those groups of fleas that are less studied. Authors should review the suggestions in the document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

All the suggestions made by reviewer 1 provided at the former version have been settled. Please, check the new version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a fine basic summary of flea family diversity. Useful information, short and sweet.

Author Response

This reviewer did not provide any suggestion or changes in the former version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

This review is very important and necessary, but it is incomplete.  Authors should organize the text so that all points are included in one source. For example: origin of fleas, current distribution, phylogenetic, ecology, morphological and molecular relationship, taxonomy (including taxonomic characters of each family) and finally the epidemiological part as the authors did in Tungidae.

I feel like the manuscript is really important, but it really needs less superficial commentary.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

All the suggestions made by reviewer 3 provided at the former version have been settled. Please, check the new version of the manuscript. We have updated our manuscript by adding information to each of the mentioned families. We have provided more information on the phylogenetic relationships among some families, epidemiological data, and key morphological characteristics that define each of the families under study.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Editor and authors.

This manuscript lists the known flea groups in the world. The manuscript has few English language errors. However, it does not provide new information to the knowledge of the group, mainly by the work published by Lewins (1998) [Lewis, R. E. (1998). Résumé of the Siphonaptera (Insecta) of the World. Journal of Medical Entomology, 35(4), 377–389. doi:10.1093/jmedent/35.4.377], which includes virtually the same information. In addition, the authors did not have "material and methods," which is essential to know the methodology of these surveys.

I suggest the authors improve the manuscript by including molecular data to differentiate it from the previously published ones and providing a list of species and their associations with hosts. Given these shortcomings and little contribution to the group's knowledge, I reject the manuscript as presented.

The manuscript has few English language errors and can be improved.

Author Response

In our opinion, and in concordance with the author guidelines for review articles in the journal Diversity, we do not believe it is necessary to add a materials and methods section to this review article. Furthermore, in this work, we provide information on all the families concerning phylogenetic data, which are in turn based on molecular data, except for those families that have not been studied from this molecular perspective. Additionally, it is true that it would be highly useful to compile a list of all potential hosts that could be parasitized by each species within the mentioned families. However, the aim of this review is to present the most common hosts for each of the described families, serving as a quick and general reference for individuals who are not familiar with this group

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear editor,

I really think that this manuscript is an important contribution. The authors answered my questions and the manuscript is improved.  So I'm satisfied and I think the manuscript should be published.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors and editors, after checking this new version, I accept the manuscript as presented.