Manuscript on DNA barcoding and dark taxa

In the’ summary’ – line 34 – there is a phrase that sequence databases are growing exponentially, but growth in barcode data is more modest. That is true – but in a paper about barcodes (not depth of coverage on individual samples of their genome sequences) it might give the uninitiated the impression that few barcode sequences are being generated. Subjective I know – but isn’t the point here - that compared with new species publications that ‘barcode sequence data are growing more rapidly’? Worth a minor reword?

A related point to this is the heading ‘Genomics’ on page 3. Might this better be ‘Genetic data’? Don’t feel too strongly about this – just some people have fixed views that barcodes and genomics are not the same thing.

Figures. Fig 2: On my PDF - the legend key for ‘digital’ is black. I can see why black appears as grey for most of the figure – but it is a bit disconcerting to have a key for two things, and shades for three. Can the graph be presented so that it is the data line (rather than the shading below it) that does the communicating work? Also in this figure - as the legend describes a dip attributable to 2015, but the data are ‘decadal’ and the x-axis stops at 2010 – - the reference to 2015 is also a bit counterintuitive. Is there a wording fix for that?

Fig 3: Worth a label to the zookeys point (or at least in the legend say ‘first-ranked journal’, rather than just first journal)?

Fig 4. In the legend add a single phrase explanation for the 2010 dip to make self contained?