Measured Effects of Anthropogenic Development on Vertebrate Wildlife Diversity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

My comments are detailed in the attached document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The author response to Reviewer 2's report is attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I thank the editor and authors for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I hope that the authors find this review constructive and my feedback helpful as they strive to publish this work.

 

In this review, I have organized my comments by section, with general, overarching comments first followed by more specific line comments.

 

In this paper, the authors studied the effects of urban development projects on vertebrate abundance and richness through transect surveys as part of a before-after, control-impact (BACI) experimental design. They find that sites that were impacted by development had fewer vertebrate species and lower vertebrate richness. The authors then call for more cumulative effects monitoring to better understand the effects of urbanization.

 

Overall, the science provided in this paper is sound, and the results are interesting. From what I could gather, the statistical methods implemented are robust. Furthermore, the information conveyed has direct impact to the readers of this journal.

 

However, my biggest concern I have with this manuscript is the writing. The manuscript is written more like an environmental impact statement/recommendations based on such a statement, and I therefore believe it needs a lot of work before publishing. I elaborate on this point in more detail below, section by section.

 

ABSTRACT

Minor comments

Lines 21-22: would end this sentence with, ‘wildlife in the state’

Lines 30-32: this sentence seems unecessary. Could probably be shortened to something like, ‘. . ., while also controlling for multiple environmental factors’ and added to the preceding sentence

 

INTRODUCTION

Major comments:

This section reads like the introduction of a report sent to clients that have requested an Environmental Impact Statement, not like a peer-reviewed manuscript. There is extraneous detail in much of the paragraphs, as well as information that is not directly relevant to the readers of this journal. Furthermore, too often, the authors let their own personal convictions stray into their framing of the problem, instead of striking a more objective tone. Although I personally sympathize with the majority of their gripes, I mush urge them to, again, approach this particular topic with a purely scientific and objective tone.

 

Minor comments:

Lines 53-58 and lines 61-65: These are great examples of where the intro strays from scientifically framing a problem/project to educating a client on terms they may need to know to fully understand the rest of a report. The majority of readers of this journal should know these basic tenets of ecology, and this adds very little to framing the study in question.

 

Lines 71-78: These things have been studied, yet there are no references. I suggest add them to bolster this paragraph, which I think does a very good job of framing the problem.

 

Lines 81-94 & lines 95-103: Again, as someone that has worked in consulting myself, I understand the need to frame a background like this, with multiple references to individual studies that lend credence to one’s recommendations. However, for a scientific paper, this is unnecessary. This can be greatly shortened, and each of these references can be included at the end of a couple sentences.

 

Lines 105-114: I believe this entire paragraph can be removed.

 

Lines 115-120: This section should be removed.

 

Lines 122-129: This section seems better suited for the Discussion.

 

Lines 130-138: I would remove this section as well, unless it can be shortened, added to the section above, and included the Discussion.

 

Lines 139-148: Again, this reads like a rebuttal to a potential caveat, and it should not be included in the Introduction. It has a place, but not here.

 

MATERIALS and METHODS

Major Comments:

I’m a quantitative ecologist by training, and I personally came away confused on what was actually being statistically tested. The results helped clear much of this up for me, but this is the section where that information should be most clear. There are also many sections where extra information is provided, and not needed.

 

Minor Comments:

Lines 162-165: I would remove this section.

 

FIGURES 2-7 & 9 & 16: Should all be combined into a single figure with multiple panels. Beautiful photos, by the way!

 

Lines 284-287: Symbols and abbreviations in the formula should be labeled and explained.

 

Lines 288-303: Another caveat for the discussion.

 

Lines 310-316: I would remove.

 

Lines 323: This equation needs more teasing out. What are the coefficients a, b, and c actually measuring? How are they then reported in the results?

 

RESULTS

Minor comments:

Lines 386-405: These examples could be shortened substantially, especially when there is a table.

 

Table 3: what does ‘snaky’ mean?

Author Response

I thank the editor and authors for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I hope that the authors find this review constructive and my feedback helpful as they strive to publish this work.

 

Response: We did find the review helpful. Thank you!

 

In this review, I have organized my comments by section, with general, overarching comments first followed by more specific line comments.

 

In this paper, the authors studied the effects of urban development projects on vertebrate abundance and richness through transect surveys as part of a before-after, control-impact (BACI) experimental design. They find that sites that were impacted by development had fewer vertebrate species and lower vertebrate richness. The authors then call for more cumulative effects monitoring to better understand the effects of urbanization.

 

Overall, the science provided in this paper is sound, and the results are interesting. From what I could gather, the statistical methods implemented are robust. Furthermore, the information conveyed has direct impact to the readers of this journal.

 

However, my biggest concern I have with this manuscript is the writing. The manuscript is written more like an environmental impact statement/recommendations based on such a statement, and I therefore believe it needs a lot of work before publishing. I elaborate on this point in more detail below, section by section.

 

Response: We do not prepare EIS or related environmental review documents, so if our writing resembled such a document, it was not out of habit. We have revised our presentation.

 

ABSTRACT

Minor comments

Lines 21-22: would end this sentence with, ‘wildlife in the state’

 

Response: Revised as suggested.

 

Lines 30-32: this sentence seems unecessary. Could probably be shortened to something like, ‘. . ., while also controlling for multiple environmental factors’ and added to the preceding sentence

 

Response: Revised.

 

INTRODUCTION

Major comments:

This section reads like the introduction of a report sent to clients that have requested an Environmental Impact Statement, not like a peer-reviewed manuscript. There is extraneous detail in much of the paragraphs, as well as information that is not directly relevant to the readers of this journal. Furthermore, too often, the authors let their own personal convictions stray into their framing of the problem, instead of striking a more objective tone. Although I personally sympathize with the majority of their gripes, I mush urge them to, again, approach this particular topic with a purely scientific and objective tone.

 

Response: We did not mean to gripe, but rather to explain how surveys are performed in support of environmental review documents in California. We revised to remove any hint of a gripe.

 

Minor comments:

Lines 53-58 and lines 61-65: These are great examples of where the intro strays from scientifically framing a problem/project to educating a client on terms they may need to know to fully understand the rest of a report. The majority of readers of this journal should know these basic tenets of ecology, and this adds very little to framing the study in question.

 

Response: Revised.

 

Lines 71-78: These things have been studied, yet there are no references. I suggest add them to bolster this paragraph, which I think does a very good job of framing the problem.

 

Response: We added references, as suggested.

 

Lines 81-94 & lines 95-103: Again, as someone that has worked in consulting myself, I understand the need to frame a background like this, with multiple references to individual studies that lend credence to one’s recommendations. However, for a scientific paper, this is unnecessary. This can be greatly shortened, and each of these references can be included at the end of a couple sentences.

 

Response: We revised.

 

Lines 105-114: I believe this entire paragraph can be removed.

 

Response: We greatly shortened the paragraph.

 

Lines 115-120: This section should be removed.

 

Response: We shortened it and combined it with a briefer version of the next paragraph.

 

Lines 122-129: This section seems better suited for the Discussion.

 

Response: We shortened it and combined it with a briefer version of the preceding paragraph.

 

 Lines 130-138: I would remove this section as well, unless it can be shortened, added to the section above, and included the Discussion.

 

Response: We deleted nearly all of it.

 

Lines 139-148: Again, this reads like a rebuttal to a potential caveat, and it should not be included in the Introduction. It has a place, but not here.

 

Response: We relocated the caveats to the Discussion.

 

MATERIALS and METHODS

Major Comments:

I’m a quantitative ecologist by training, and I personally came away confused on what was actually being statistically tested. The results helped clear much of this up for me, but this is the section where that information should be most clear. There are also many sections where extra information is provided, and not needed.

 

Response: We reorganized the Methods section.

 

Minor Comments:

Lines 162-165: I would remove this section.

 

Response: We deleted part of this section, but removing the rest of it would remove a vital part of the study area description. The study area changed in a manner that was central to the experiment.

 

FIGURES 2-7 & 9 & 16: Should all be combined into a single figure with multiple panels. Beautiful photos, by the way!

 

Response: Thanks! We combined Figures 2-4, we deleted Figure 7, and we combined two more figures into one.

 

Lines 284-287: Symbols and abbreviations in the formula should be labeled and explained.

 

Response: Added.

 

Lines 288-303: Another caveat for the discussion.

 

Response: We moved them to Footnotes under Appendix 1.

 

Lines 310-316: I would remove.

 

Response: It is removed.

 

Lines 323: This equation needs more teasing out. What are the coefficients a, b, and c actually measuring? How are they then reported in the results?

 

Response: As reported, a, b and c are best-fit model coefficients. Theoretically, a represents the asymptote of the model, and b and c represent rates of growth of the model. We do not report the values of the coefficients in results because we are only interested in the model predictions, which we assessed by indicators of model-fit. We think that unpacking the model’s coefficients would take us beyond the scope of our study and would be distracting, but we are interested in why the reviewer thinks the equation needs teasing out.

 

RESULTS

Minor comments:

Lines 386-405: These examples could be shortened substantially, especially when there is a table.

 

Response: We shortened the examples substantially.

 

Table 3: what does ‘snaky’ mean?

 

Response: That was hold-over text to ourselves, and doesn’t mean anything. We replaced it with “yes”

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors took into account all of my comments. Only one comment was misunderstood, which was probably my mistake. In the present form, models were done on animals onsite and within the project area, "which includes those onsite and those we judged were close enough to the project site to readily make use of it". My suggestion was to run models on animals around the development site (ie. on animals within the project area minus onsite). Such models would better investigate how development projects affect wildlife in adjacent areas, hence the extended effects of such urbanization projects.  

Author Response

Thank you for explaining the misunderstood comment. We implemented it to test for a BACI interaction effect on the number of species detected solely off-site. We added a graph to Figure 7, and one line of results to Table 2 and to Table 3. We lacked sufficient statistical power to test for offsite changes in animal counts, but henceforth we are recording our surveys with the offsite test in mind so that we will accumulate sufficient sample sizes.

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations on a job well done. This is an incredible amount of time and effort. Thank you for your contributions!

Author Response

Thank you!