Diversity and Endemism of Southern African Gekkonids Linked with the Escarpment Has Implications for Conservation Priorities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The ms should be accepted for publication as having proirity interest for zoologists and biogegraphy.  I am not expert in application of statictical programs and could not evaluate correctness of their using - I am sure that other colleagues -reviewers will do it. I would like to see illustration for the chapter Gekkonid Diversity in aspect of biotopical preference. 

Author Response

Reviewer 1:

The ms should be accepted for publication as having proirity interest for zoologists and biogegraphy.  I am not expert in application of statictical programs and could not evaluate correctness of their using - I am sure that other colleagues -reviewers will do it. I would like to see illustration for the chapter Gekkonid Diversity in aspect of biotopical preference. 

Figure 1 was redone to include a graphical illustration of the biotopical preferences and the altitudinal zone distinctions. 

 

Additional changes made:

Grammar, spelling, and punctuation checked and modified where needed. 

1. Introduction

“furthermore, with the group… conserve phylogenetic diversity” -> grammar corrected

 

 

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Map production

“each genera to be generated.” -> “each genus to be generated.”

3. Results 

3.1 Generic distribution

“These three genera occur along the coastal plains and the fold mountains in the south and west of South Africa.” -> “These three genera occur along the coastal plains and the fold mountains in the south and west of South Africa (known as the Cape Fold Mountains)”

“with few species inhabiting the Grassland biome in the central part of South Africa and the high elevation region in the east (namely the Drakensberg Mountain range; Figs. 2 & 3).”  -> “with few species inhabiting the Grassland biome in the central part of South Africa and the high elevation Lesotho region in the east (Figs. 2 & 3).”

 

“The interior plateau has poor species richness, diversity and phylogenetic diversity (Figs. 3-5), with no endemics (either neo- or paleoendemics), and in fact lower than expected endemism (Fig. 6E & F), found in this region.”  -> “The interior plateau has poor species richness, diversity, and phylogenetic diversity (Figs. 3-5), and in fact lower than expected endemism (Fig. 5E & F), with no endemics (either neo- or paleoendemics; Fig. 6) found in this region”

4. Discussion 

4.3 Conservation Considerations

“When identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), regions with high reptile diversity would safeguard the greatest diversity.”  -> “When identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), regions with high reptile diversity would safeguard the greatest diversity. -> Identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) with high gecko diversity would aid in safeguarding the greatest diversity”

 

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a highly informative and well written manuscript.  In fact, I found nothing in the author's results to critically comment on.  The only edit I would suggest is a very minor correction regarding the use of double parentheses.  I would prefer to see the following:  ([.....]).  In other words, use brackets inside parentheses instead of parentheses inside parentheses.   

Author Response

Reviewer 2:

This is a highly informative and well written manuscript.  In fact, I found nothing in the author's results to critically comment on.  The only edit I would suggest is a very minor correction regarding the use of double parentheses.  I would prefer to see the following:  ([.....]).  In other words, use brackets inside parentheses instead of parentheses inside parentheses.   

We corrected this in all the instances we could find.

 

Additional changes made:

Grammar, spelling, and punctuation checked and modified where needed. 

1. Introduction

“furthermore, with the group… conserve phylogenetic diversity” -> grammar corrected

 

 

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Map production

“each genera to be generated.” -> “each genus to be generated.”

3. Results 

3.1 Generic distribution

“These three genera occur along the coastal plains and the fold mountains in the south and west of South Africa.” -> “These three genera occur along the coastal plains and the fold mountains in the south and west of South Africa (known as the Cape Fold Mountains)”

“with few species inhabiting the Grassland biome in the central part of South Africa and the high elevation region in the east (namely the Drakensberg Mountain range; Figs. 2 & 3).”  -> “with few species inhabiting the Grassland biome in the central part of South Africa and the high elevation Lesotho region in the east (Figs. 2 & 3).”

 

“The interior plateau has poor species richness, diversity and phylogenetic diversity (Figs. 3-5), with no endemics (either neo- or paleoendemics), and in fact lower than expected endemism (Fig. 6E & F), found in this region.”  -> “The interior plateau has poor species richness, diversity, and phylogenetic diversity (Figs. 3-5), and in fact lower than expected endemism (Fig. 5E & F), with no endemics (either neo- or paleoendemics; Fig. 6) found in this region”

4. Discussion 

4.3 Conservation Considerations

“When identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), regions with high reptile diversity would safeguard the greatest diversity.”  -> “When identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), regions with high reptile diversity would safeguard the greatest diversity. -> Identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) with high gecko diversity would aid in safeguarding the greatest diversity”

Reviewer 3 Report

Diversity and endemism of South African gekkonids linked with the escarpment has implications for conservation priorities

In the manuscript ‘diversity-2218414’, Gary Nicolau and Shelley Edwards try to identify areas of significant gekkonid species richness and phylogenetic diversity, and assess which areas are protected or are important to conserve gekkonid species richness and phylogenetic diversity in South Africa, Lesotho, and eSwatini etc. I believe that this topic is potentially interesting, the manuscript show us some novel idea and summaries and explanations, which will be potentially launch some readers' (just like me) expectations. The study proposed to address some infrastructural but obviously scientific questions and could potentially be one of valuable works on regional species taxonomy and conservation biology to date, by combining several different available datasets and approaches. Also, I checked the analytical results and supplementary_material. The presentation of all of results and data is reasonable and solid. The present manuscript is a good written version, but a few minor errors need to be revised. I consider that this manuscript contributed to some scientific advances and can be a publication paper.

Specific comments:
1). The goal of this study is seemingly to explain potential drivers of diversity within the habitat regions of gekkonids in South Africa and other countries. Why did the authors not try to examine the evolutionary relationships with more traits (static vs. dynamic, ecology vs. morphology, alpha vs. beta niche, etc) and test methods to explain potential drivers of gekkonids diversity in the regions of the African continent? There are different species in different range or genus clade, which imply someone or more traits do driving the ecology and evolutionary pattern. To test the relationships with different combined datasets (traits and rates, or genus/species level) will be more effective to uncover the mystery.

 

Minor points:

1). The genus (for example Ag. Ad. …) that initial appears in the text should indicate the full name.

2). Change “Genbank” to “GenBank” in Table S1 and main text.

3). Statistical analysis software should be specified in detail in Methods section.

4). Figure 3 needs to be provided a higher resolution, because it is now very blurred, and the graphic information cannot be recognized

Author Response

Reviewer 3:

Diversity and endemism of South African gekkonids linked with the escarpment has implications for conservation priorities

In the manuscript ‘diversity-2218414’, Gary Nicolau and Shelley Edwards try to identify areas of significant gekkonid species richness and phylogenetic diversity, and assess which areas are protected or are important to conserve gekkonid species richness and phylogenetic diversity in South Africa, Lesotho, and eSwatini etc. I believe that this topic is potentially interesting, the manuscript show us some novel idea and summaries and explanations, which will be potentially launch some readers' (just like me) expectations. The study proposed to address some infrastructural but obviously scientific questions and could potentially be one of valuable works on regional species taxonomy and conservation biology to date, by combining several different available datasets and approaches. Also, I checked the analytical results and supplementary_material. The presentation of all of results and data is reasonable and solid. The present manuscript is a good written version, but a few minor errors need to be revised. I consider that this manuscript contributed to some scientific advances and can be a publication paper.

Specific comments:
1). The goal of this study is seemingly to explain potential drivers of diversity within the habitat regions of gekkonids in South Africa and other countries. Why did the authors not try to examine the evolutionary relationships with more traits (static vs. dynamic, ecology vs. morphology, alpha vs. beta niche, etc) and test methods to explain potential drivers of gekkonids diversity in the regions of the African continent? There are different species in different range or genus clade, which imply someone or more traits do driving the ecology and evolutionary pattern. To test the relationships with different combined datasets (traits and rates, or genus/species level) will be more effective to uncover the mystery. 

We reworded the aims and objectives of the study (last paragraph of the introduction section) to better reflect the content of the study. We agree that the study didn’t address the driving forces of diversity, however this was done intentionally as we aimed to assess patterns of diversity and endemism in the region. We feel that this study provided a good fundamental springboard for studies on the driving forces in future studies. Therefore, we have not included any analyses on driving forces in this study. We thank the reviewer for the useful suggestions - we are keen to conduct those investigations on this group!

 

Minor points:

1). The genus (for example Ag. Ad. …) that initial appears in the text should indicate the full name.

Corrected as suggested

2). Change “Genbank” to “GenBank” in Table S1 and main text.

Corrected as suggested

3). Statistical analysis software should be specified in detail in Methods section. 

All software was already provided with version numbers and citations; however, we have modified the following sentence to reflect how the CANAPE was done:

“Categorical Analysis of Neo-And Paleo-Endemism (CANAPE; [67]) method.” -> “Categorical Analysis of Neo-And Paleo-Endemism (CANAPE; [67]) method conducted in the BioDiverse program from the iterations run using the rand_structured model.”

4). Figure 3 needs to be provided a higher resolution, because it is now very blurred, and the graphic information cannot be recognized

We have now created the figure in a vector-image processing program, which should provide a better resolution.

 

Additional changes made:

Grammar, spelling, and punctuation checked and modified where needed. 

1. Introduction

“furthermore, with the group… conserve phylogenetic diversity” -> grammar corrected

 

 

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Map production

“each genera to be generated.” -> “each genus to be generated.”

3. Results 

3.1 Generic distribution

“These three genera occur along the coastal plains and the fold mountains in the south and west of South Africa.” -> “These three genera occur along the coastal plains and the fold mountains in the south and west of South Africa (known as the Cape Fold Mountains)”

“with few species inhabiting the Grassland biome in the central part of South Africa and the high elevation region in the east (namely the Drakensberg Mountain range; Figs. 2 & 3).”  -> “with few species inhabiting the Grassland biome in the central part of South Africa and the high elevation Lesotho region in the east (Figs. 2 & 3).”

 

“The interior plateau has poor species richness, diversity and phylogenetic diversity (Figs. 3-5), with no endemics (either neo- or paleoendemics), and in fact lower than expected endemism (Fig. 6E & F), found in this region.”  -> “The interior plateau has poor species richness, diversity, and phylogenetic diversity (Figs. 3-5), and in fact lower than expected endemism (Fig. 5E & F), with no endemics (either neo- or paleoendemics; Fig. 6) found in this region”

4. Discussion 

4.3 Conservation Considerations

“When identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), regions with high reptile diversity would safeguard the greatest diversity.”  -> “When identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), regions with high reptile diversity would safeguard the greatest diversity. -> Identifying Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) or Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) with high gecko diversity would aid in safeguarding the greatest diversity”