How Do Biological and Functional Diversity Change in Invaded Tropical Marine Rocky Reef Communities?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A splendid work that has, in my opinion, all the conditions to be published in its present form after minor checks for english spelling and syntax.

My sincere congratulations to the authors,

Author Response

Thank you!

Reviewer 2 Report

 

Translator      

 

I think that the ms entitled :

How do biological and functional diversity change in invaded tropical marine rocky reef communities?

is an original work and should be accepted for publication. I have added in the .pdf in attached some suggestions/modifications to add value to the ms.

The  only thing that remains unclear to me is why the authors made two sampling in two years ( different months ? seasons ?). No data are reported about the two samplings. Data were processed altogheter I presume, but why ?

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 2

I think that the ms entitled : How do biological and functional diversity change in invaded tropical marine rocky reef communities? is an original work and should be accepted for publication. I have added in the .pdf in attached some suggestions/modifications to add value to the ms.

 

R: Thanks for the suggestions and modifications, they were fundamental for the improvement of the manuscript; we have accepted all suggestions on the pdf except one (see below)

 

The only thing that remains unclear to me is why the authors made two sampling in two years (different months ? seasons ?). No data are reported about the two samplings. Data were processed altogether I presume, but why ?

 

R: Sampling took place in the same season (winter) in 2017 (PB and IA in July; IC in September) and an additional sampling took place in 2018 (PV). In September 2017 Sansibia sp. had not yet been reported for PV so we took the opportunity to widen our study to include Sansibia sp. We have added more detailed information in the manuscript to make this clear.

 

PDF comments:

R: We have accepted all suggestions on the PDF, namely:

1. we have accepted all minor points;
2. described the origin of the studied species and included further details about the study sites;
3. explained why the two years;
4. included further information about how the digital images were obtained;
5. included full names for the diversity indices;
6. changed words to numbers;
7. modified Table S2 to include Phyla;
8. Modified the symbols in Figs. 4 and 5;

With regard to including the numbers in Fig. 3 we prefer to keep it as it is because we believe it would be visually polluted if we included all that information; the data are in Table S2 so anyone can consult the rank there.