Is Biodiversity of Uropodina Mites (Acari: Parasitiformes) Inhabiting Dead Wood Dependent on the Tree Species?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study presents a very interesting and valuable dataset which addresses an important issue in forest management and overall conservation and promotion of biodiversity in forests.

However, the analyses used and their interpretation is poor and needs to be revisited. In many cases no objective reasons are given for interpreting the analyses as was done and issues around differences in sample sizes and the relationship to the numbers of species recovered require the use of more robust statistical methods. In other cases, e.g. in the use of CCA, the significance levels are not reported and it may be that they are non-significant.

The English is poor throughout and requires significant editiong before the paper could even be considered for publication.

Overall, I feel that the data are valuable and should most definately be published but the paper should be completely rewritten using more robust statistical analysis and with the help of a person who is fluent in English.

I have made multiple comments on the manuscript which I hope will highlight the types of isses that I am worried about.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Is biodiversity of Uropodina mites (Acari: Parasitiformes) in-habiting dead wood dependent on the tree species?

 

The authors of the study are grateful to the Reviewer for all comments and suggestions. All of them have turned out to be extremely helpful, which obviously has considerably improved the overall quality of the manuscript.

 

Detailed responses to the Reviewer #1: 

 

The study presents a very interesting and valuable dataset which addresses an important issue in forest management and overall conservation and promotion of biodiversity in forests.

However, the analyses used and their interpretation is poor and needs to be revisited. In many cases no objective reasons are given for interpreting the analyses as was done and issues around differences in sample sizes and the relationship to the numbers of species recovered require the use of more robust statistical methods. In other cases, e.g. in the use of CCA, the significance levels are not reported and it may be that they are non-significant.

• As Reviewer suggested, we added significance levels and pseudo-F statistic in CCA results. We used CCA to interpret possible differences of uropodina assemblages between tree species and between regions. We think that ordination analysis is the best solution for comparison of community and its differentiation among any gradients. However, we transferred figures presenting regional difference between communities to Appendix and commented it as preliminary data.

The analysis concerning differences in number of species and number of individuals in relation to tree species and decades was based on ANOVA with two factors. We decided that no more factors are no need to be used in analysis. Therefore we applied ANOVA that in our opinion in these circumstances seems to be most proper according to sampled data – dependent variable (number species and individuals) in relation to environment type (tree species) having time (decades) as a second factor.

 

The English is poor throughout and requires significant editiong before the paper could even be considered for publication.

- The manuscript has been checked by a professional proofreader. All stylistic corrections and other necessary linguistic corrections have been made.

 

Overall, I feel that the data are valuable and should most definately be published but the paper should be completely rewritten using more robust statistical analysis and with the help of a person who is fluent in English.

I have made multiple comments on the manuscript which I hope will highlight the types of isses that I am worried about.

- The comments to the other suggestions are given below.

 

Detailed responses to the comments on the manuscript:

• is this a commonly used term? /merocenoses/
• The term “merocenoses” is very commonly used in the literature about unstable microhabitats.

 

• Why use these scales rather than actually giving the actual percentages?

- Scales D and F have been deleted because in Tab. 1 there are relevant values.

 

• I am not familiar with this software but was it actually Kruskal-Wallis that was carried out?

- Kruskal-Wallis is not proper for factorial analysis – here we had two factors thus we need to apply glm. In case of K-W test we need to test each factor separately in two analysis. Here we tested both factors in one analysis. Thus results are more objective.

4) These could be incorporated into a table or given in the legend of a figure.

- We thought that giving these abbreviations in the Material and methods would be a better solution due to the lack of space instead of giving them below each figure or as a long tabulation.

 

5) This is an interesting result and should not be ignored. IT appears to represent zeros in the dataset rather than missing values.

- The samples from these tree species had no specimens of Uropodina due to the low number of the collected samples (these results are not reliable). This is explained in the section Material and methods.

 

6) Why do you pick four? Could it be two or 8?   and..

7) Again the definition of groups is arbitrary. Use a method which provides an objective method of determining the groups.

- The classification into groups (Figures 3 and 4) is rather subjective and it was employed only for the interpretation of the obtained results. The dotted line in Figure 3 means similarity on the level 50%.

 

8) This is a rather unusual way of representing this relationship and suggests that the relationship might be linear. Why not use rarefaction or a similar method which is more standard?

- In our opinion this method suits best to illustrate the problem.

 

9) What does this mean? /positive/

- Positive sample is the sample with at list one specimen of Uropodina.

 

10) These values appear small given the number of species collected.

- The number of collected species is high, the H' values are low because many of the collected samples had no specimens of Uropodina mites.

 

11) I would remove the standard deviations.

- I agree that in some cases SD may looks weird but I think that it is relevant characteristic that supply information concerning presence or absence of significant differences between means. I would present SD on given figures.

 

12) Are these graphs mixed up?

- Yes, the order of the graphs had been  mixed up by mistake. It has been corrected already.

 

13) Why were pseudo-F and probabilities not reported? I suspect they moay not be significant given the low proportion of the variation explained by the first two axes.

- Pseudo-F and probabilities have been added.

 

14) It is difficult to read the labels for the regions.

- The figures have been corrected.

 

16) Statistical evidence?

- Both the statistical analysis (ANOVA test for 5 selected tree species) and the differences in the species composition of Uropodina in the examined tree species show that the tree species  is in fact an important factor, which has significant impact on communities of Uropodina mites inhabiting dead wood.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is a very interesting contribution about biodiversity showing 37 species of Uropdina mites from Poland considering preference for different tree species and region. The data were well analysed using proper statistical tools. The results are there for relevant giving very interesting conclusion about mentioned preferences and diversity.

However, the authors should be clearer in the Material and method chapter. It is not clear to me how dead wood was sampled nor where it was stored (1956-2020), under which conditions? Does that influence the mites found? It should be clarified.

Figures 7-11 should be supplement material because the paper will be too long.

Because there are mites found in the woods in decaying trees it should be mentioned in the Discussion: presumption or citation of studies how these mites change the suitable wood material (what about phoresy with beetles etc.).

Author Response

Is biodiversity of Uropodina mites (Acari: Parasitiformes) in-habiting dead wood dependent on the tree species?

 

The authors of the study are grateful to the Reviewer for all comments and suggestions. All of them have turned out to be extremely helpful, which obviously has considerably improved the overall quality of the manuscript.

 

Detailed responses to the Reviewer #2: 

The manuscript is a very interesting contribution about biodiversity showing 37 species of Uropdina mites from Poland considering preference for different tree species and region. The data were well analysed using proper statistical tools. The results are there for relevant giving very interesting conclusion about mentioned preferences and diversity.

However, the authors should be clearer in the Material and method chapter. It is not clear to me how dead wood was sampled nor where it was stored (1956-2020), under which conditions? Does that influence the mites found? It should be clarified.

• The information about the method of sample collection, specimen extraction, and the place of storage of the samples is given in the section Material and methods. The dead wood from which the specimens were obtained is no longer stored.

Figures 7-11 should be supplement material because the paper will be too long.

• Figures 8-11 have been moved to the Appendix, as suggested by the reviewer.

Because there are mites found in the woods in decaying trees it should be mentioned in the Discussion: presumption or citation of studies how these mites change the suitable wood material (what about phoresy with beetles etc.).

• The appropriate information with a citation is now provided in the section Discussion.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper has been improved. My major problem is with the analysis of the broader survey where an illusion is given that analyses have been carried out but it seems to me that the interpretation of groupings in the graphical analysis is totally aribitrary and lacks rigour. I think that the idea behind this section is great but it needs to be totally rewritten to describe the patterns rather than to group the dead wood species. Also, the analysis of the relationships between sample size (number of individuals) and species richness needs to be done in a more rigourous manner.

In short, I think the paper has been improved over the previous version but that the description of the broader study should describe the extents of variation and patterns rather than suggests groupings which seem to me to be totally aribitrarily constructed.

The paper requires another rewrite.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Is biodiversity of Uropodina mites (Acari: Parasitiformes) in-habiting dead wood dependent on the tree species?

 

The authors of the study are grateful to the Reviewer for all comments and suggestions. All of them have turned out to be extremely helpful, which obviously has considerably improved the overall quality of the manuscript.

 

Reviewer #1: 

This paper has been improved. My major problem is with the analysis of the broader survey where an illusion is given that analyses have been carried out but it seems to me that the interpretation of groupings in the graphical analysis is totally aribitrary and lacks rigour. I think that the idea behind this section is great but it needs to be totally rewritten to describe the patterns rather than to group the dead wood species. Also, the analysis of the relationships between sample size (number of individuals) and species richness needs to be done in a more rigourous manner.

In short, I think the paper has been improved over the previous version but that the description of the broader study should describe the extents of variation and patterns rather than suggests groupings which seem to me to be totally aribitrarily constructed.

The paper requires another rewrite.

Detailed responses to the comments on the manuscript:

- Most of the stylistic corrections suggested by Reviewer have been made. The manuscript has been checked by a professional proofreader.

 

L.43-46: This sentence should be rewritten

 

- We have no idea what should be changed in this sentence because it is grammatically and stylistically correct – the reviewer should have explained more precisely what they meant.

L.61: replace "in the whole area of" with "across"

- Our proofreader claims that the phrase „in the whole area of  Poland” is a better choice from the stylistic point of view than „across Poland”.

1. 96: This is not the correct terminology. /full joining analysis/

- This term and method have been widely used in many acarological and ecological publications (see: Romaniszyn W. 1970 – Próba interpretacji tendencji skupiskowych zwierząt w oparciu o definicje podobieństwa i odległości [An attempt at interpreting agglomerative tendencies of animals based on definition of similarity and distance] – Wiad. ekol., 14: 306–327). If the reviewer claims that this term is not correct, they should provide an alternative solution.

L.101: Where is the Kruskal-Wallis test used?

- The test was used in the last subsection of the section Results: “Habitat preferences of Uropodina mite species for particular tree species”.

L.150 and 161: These species should be included in Figure 1.

- In the manuscript of the article we provide the tree species in which no specimens of Uropodina have been found, and for this reason we think that there is no apparent reason to include them in the figure.

L: 178: I still cannot see where the value of four comes from. This whole section should be reworded to just describe the similarities and not to suggest distinct groupings.

- The classification of the tree species into different groups as to the similarity of the examined Uropodina communities has been discarded. The section has been paraphrased as the reviewer suggested.

L: 197: This analysis should be replaced by a more formal analysis using something like rarefaction. Also, once again, the division into groups is totally arbitrary.

- The index we used was „relative abundance”, which is a common method employed to evaluate biological diversity (https://www.britannica.com/science/relative-abundance, e.g. Gao, Wanli, Zhaojin Chen, Yuying Li, Yangdong Pan, Jingya Zhu, Shijun Guo, Lanqun Hu, and Jin Huang. 2018. "Bioassessment of a Drinking Water Reservoir Using Plankton: High Throughput Sequencing vs. Traditional Morphological Method" Water 10, no. 1: 82. https://doi.org/10.3390/w10010082; Tesakovaa E. M., Glinskikh L. A. 2020. Callovian Ostracods of Central Dagestan: Stratigraphy and Geological Correlation, 2020, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 402–415). The division of the tree species into groups has been discarded as suggested by the reviewer.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors improved the manuscript and can be accepted for publication in Diversity.

Author Response

Is biodiversity of Uropodina mites (Acari: Parasitiformes) in-habiting dead wood dependent on the tree species?

 

The authors of the study are grateful to the Reviewer for all comments and suggestions. All of them have turned out to be extremely helpful, which obviously has considerably improved the overall quality of the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf