Three-Dimensional-Printed Coral-like Structures as a Habitat for Reef Fish

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I congratulate the authors for this successful work, which is quite interesting and may be of interest to the readers. There are only some minor typos in MS. I therefore invite the authors to reconsider MS with the following recommendations.

I think the 3rd paragraph in the introduction can be omitted from the text.

The purpose of MS can be made more compelling

The discussion could have been a little more fluid. I wonder if the authors would have preferred to dive into 3D coral reefs rather than natural reefs? The answer to this question should also be discussed.

References spelling should be checked.

Author Response

Re: Submission of a revised manuscript titled “ 3D Printed Coral-like Structures as a Habitat for Reef-Fish” by Asa Oren, Ofer Berman, Reem Neri, Ezri Tarazi, Haim Parnas, Offri Lotan, Majeed Zoabi, Noam Josef and Nadav Shashar

 

 

Response to comments

 

We would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful and supportive comments. In the following text we provide a detailed response to each of the comments. The original comments of the reviewer are highlighted in black, our response is in bold.

 

We accepted nearly all comments and revised the manuscript accordingly, as described below. We believe that the revised manuscript addresses the comments and suggestions of the reviewers and is now presented explicitly and will cater to a broader readership.

 

reviewer #1

I congratulate the authors for this successful work, which is quite interesting and may be of interest to the readers. There are only some minor typos in MS. I therefore invite the authors to reconsider MS with the following recommendations.

I think the 3rd paragraph in the introduction can be omitted from the text.

Thank you for this comment but we find this paragraph important to show the variety of fields this technology can be used in

The discussion could have been a little more fluid. I wonder if the authors would have preferred to dive into 3D coral reefs rather than natural reefs? The answer to this question should also be discussed.

Indeed, this is an important comment. The discussion was edited to answer the comments which came up (Lines 561-566)

References spelling should be checked.

Checked and fixed, thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This study examines reef-fish behavior and reaction to three-dimensional printed (3DP) corals based on scanned Stylophora pistillata and modified 3DP models. In particular fish respondence was investigated to the color, shape, morphology, and material of the 3DP models, both in-vitro and in-situ experiments. 

The study is well designed and conduct properly. The scientific presentation is in good form but minor spelling checks need to preform before the final publication.

Author Response

Spelling check has been preformed

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

It is an interesting and important research that deserves consideration mainly due to the aplicability that it could be in a short- and medium term related to coral reef conservation.

The most important comments that must be considered are:

1.  You don´t have a Discussion. The 1 page in your manuscript is just an introduction of your technique, the advantages, etc. You need to discuss your results, raise hypothesis and compare with others similar papers.

2. You need to include also in the beginning (or and) of the Discussion section the disadvantages of this technique and also the flaws of your experimental research.

3. How did you evaluate the effect of the artefact (aquarium)? The confined habitat couldn´t interfere on your results?

Other small comments are included in the revised version of the manuscript that I attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Re: Submission of a revised manuscript titled “ 3D Printed Coral-like Structures as a Habitat for Reef-Fish” by Asa Oren, Ofer Berman, Reem Neri, Ezri Tarazi, Haim Parnas, Offri Lotan, Majeed Zoabi, Noam Josef and Nadav Shashar

 

 

Response to comments

 

We would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful and supportive comments. In the following text we provide a detailed response to each of the comments. The original comments of the reviewer are highlighted in black, our response is in bold.

 

We accepted nearly all comments and revised the manuscript accordingly, as described below. We believe that the revised manuscript addresses the comments and suggestions of the reviewers and is now presented explicitly and will cater to a broader readership.

reviewer #3

 

and what are the disadvantages?

Thank you for this comment, indeed discussion about the disadvantages is important, but we think this should be in the discussion part instead of the introduction

 

how did you evaluate the effect of the artefact (aquarium)? the confined habitat couldn´t interfere on your results?

Thank you for this comment, indeed the aquarium might play a part in the fish shelter choice, but since all tests were conducted at the same tank at the same location even if the tank itself has an affect it applies to all runs. Still, we changed the locations of the shelters so that side won't have an effect.

 

 

do you have the number of individuals at each observation? this could be a sign.

We do, it was between 4-10 individuals at each observation (1-3 in each shelter). Since this test was just to prove that fish interact with the artificial 3d printed models (yes or no) we didn’t include that in the paper

 

 

these are not colors. why do you included this comparison (skeleton X live shelters) here?

you are correct, the comparison is between the colors, but to highlight the fact that these are not 3D printed models in different color but a live coral and coral skeleton, we named them as such.

in the methods section (line 209-213) it is mentioned that what is the color of each and there is the reference for figure 2 which shows the reflectance spectra.

 

you need to include the disadvantages of your methodology and even the flaws that could interfere or bias your results.

 

you have 1 page of discussion showing the benefitials of 3D coral reefs. However you only can conclude this after a discussion of your results. Then you will be able to raise some hypothesis or even answer your questions at the of the introduction section.

The discussion section was edited and more focus on the experiment results, its disadvantages and analyze was made (line 463-526)

 

Based

Changed, thank you

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

the improvemt is quite evident