Two-Dimensional Projection of Distribution and Abundance of Common Species of Spiders and Beetles in South Korea Caused by Climate Change
Pietro Brandmayr
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript concerns with a re-elaboration of previous studies made in S. Korea on several collection sites based on a two dimensional approach, temperature plus rainfall. Basically the survey method is perhaps not fully exhaustive, because the trap exposition time is very short especially for beetles, but this is correctly examined in the discussion, where also the possible taxonomy failures and difficulties are argued. What is important for the publication of the paper is a deeper description of the study area of S. Korea, especially concerning the altitudes investigated (details in the enclosed PDF), because the reader cannot sent back to older papers to get a more precise idea about Korean mountains and environment.
In several parts of the manuscript there are errors of orthography e.g. Oder instead of Order and the tables 1 and 2 should be re-organized as indicated in the PDF, sometimes the text seems to be copied by other manuscripts or papers (ants instead of spiders and carabids), I tried to correct all these points.
The discussion is entirely based on a comparison with the previous Korean studies, except for the well known abundance/occurrence relatinship, which is relatvely out of the climate change problem, even if the results are correctly discussed and well presented. A general comparison with studies on changes in other countries makes this study a little too of local value, for example an altitudinal shift from 426 to 1090 metres asl as proposed for Planetes puncticeps is very unusual and should be compared with already measured uphill shifts found in other carabids/taxa, where also altitudinal shifts have been recorded. I proposed in the commented PDF a review paper which could help if the authors are interested in enlarge the discussion panorama.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors test the effect of future change in rainfall and temp. on the future distribution of some arthropods.
I think that this title is confusing, and the treatment of two variables as two-dimensional projection can be simplified. Rainfall and temp is almost always expected to have an effect on arthropods - via direct affect and indirect effect (on their food for example)- yet many other things such as land use and habitat lost also have effects, sometimes more important.
Even if you take only temp and rainfall - why test for just average and not the rainfall distribution and the min and max temp. as well as number of extreme events?
I dont see any relevant biological and ecological on the species themselves - the information on the natural history of the tested species can halp in writing a relevant discussion and biologically meaningful conclusions of the results
see comments in the attached file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
I thank the authors for carefully considering and answering all provided comments.
I have one remaining issue. In the captions of the figure 2 (lines 191-192) and the figure 7 (lines 373-379) , you mentioned the use of “adj-R²” but you talk about the R² in the text. The former (adjusted R²) accounts for a different number of variables while the latter does not. I would mention in the method and elsewhere in the text that you used an adjusted R² and not R².
Author Response
We appreciate your valuable comments. we changed "R2" to "adjusted R2" in the manuscript as you commented. All changes in the revised version of manuscript were highlighted in red color.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
