Peer Review Record

The manuscript presents a field-based assessment of plastic pollution and its impact on the coastal environment and marine biodiversity along the Thoothoor coastal region of Tamil Nadu, India. The study was judged relevant and within the scope of JOSTA. Reviewers raised substantive concerns regarding the justification for site selection, the novelty of the study relative to existing plastic pollution literature on the Indian coast, the adequacy of a single year of seasonal sampling, the representativeness of the quadrat-based survey design, the strength of biodiversity-impact claims drawn from a single turtle-entanglement observation, the evidentiary basis for statements on microplastic transfer to humans, the omission of environmental covariates such as wave energy and sediment grain size, and quality-control measures to avoid double-counting plastic items across repeated seasonal surveys. Reviewers also requested clearer reporting of seasonal results, separate analysis of beach and rock-revetment habitats, disclosure of the calculation method behind Table 1, and removal of citations from the Results section. The authors satisfactorily addressed all comments, after which the manuscript was accepted for publication.

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