Ecological Adjustments and Behavioural Patterns of the European Badger in North-Western Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In many places, more references can be added to support the writing. You have only one reference from 2020 and one from 2022. All others are before 2020. Nearly 80% of the references are from more than 10 years ago. Please add more recent studies to your references.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript ID: diversity-3174062

Ecological Adjustments and Behavioural Patterns of the European Badger (Meles meles) in North-Western Italy

by Elisa Torretta *, Alessia Tortini, Alberto Meriggi

 

Review

Authors aimed to investigate the behavior of European badgers in north-western Italy, focusing on feeding habits, diel activity patterns, and sett site selection across diverse landscapes. They hypothesized that: i) earthworms would dominate the diet in natural landscapes, while badgers would consume more anthropogenic foods in mixed/agricultural areas; ii) badgers would be primarily nocturnal, with activity patterns varying by landscape; and iii) badgers would prefer sett sites with high vegetation cover on steep, sun-exposed slopes for protection and food resources.

 

The research methods have been chosen appropriately, meet the objectives, and are well implemented. However, description camera trapping requires more information.

The statistical analysis is very varied and well documented, the only thing I miss is the mention of the method in the results (e.g., Watson’s test in Table 6).

Text flow in Introducion and Discussion is smooth.

Selection of References is adequate to the Aim of study, maybe a short summary showing what is new in this particular study in comparison with already published sources is a bit lacking.

I had no problems with the language.

In conclusion, manuscript has scientific merit but needs revision before acceptance.

 

General comment 1: badger diet in NW Italy is well known, so it would be nice to see, what is new or different in this publication. Could be placed in the Introduction, before the Aim, or in Discussion. The said concerns also spatial organization of badger in (NW) Italy, necessary references are given, but, again, a short comparison with previous knowledges is required.

General comment 2: Lines 262–264, mentioning two periods. This required at least explanation. I presume, badgers have no winter tropor in NW Italy and are active all year round, therefore, September and October, are these months really so cold to be related to a cold period?

General comment 3: captions must be self-explainable, e.g., in the Figure 1 caption, site abbreviations must be accompanied by site names.

General comment 4: all used abbreviations must be explained at the first use, e.g. – LCI and UCI in Lines 338–340, what are these?

General comment 5: Lines 202–222: how this information differ from that presented in the Table 2? Information must not be duplicated, therefore please consider which one is not needed.

General comment 6: MDPI has certain format for references, e.g., year of journal publications should be shown in bold, journal names abbreviated, none of the references can end with “;”

 

Tables and Figures

Table 2: third column is not required, add units to the second column in parentheses or after comma, e.g., Difference between the air temperature in open air and the air temperature of the site (°C), or Distance of the site from cultivated lands (m).

Table 2: be specific – you mean the nearest distance or average distance throughout the variable descriptions?

Table 2: is description of “Vegetation cover” correct?

Table 3: transfer to Material and Methods, this is sample size. Could be placed after Line 196.

Figure 2: VM% abbreviation should be explained in the caption

 

Specific comments

Title: remove (Meles meles), place Latin name to keywords, now keywords miss essential information

Line 168: how long was one sampling session? Or, in different words, add trapping effort to description of camera trapping method. How many cameras you used per one site? How many times they were set in new position during the season/whole period?

Line 231:” –20”

Lines 253: use Figure S1 instead of (Supplementary Material 1).

Line 258–259: rewrite, “6-25% = 15.5%; 26-50% = 38%; 51-75% = 63%; 76-95% = 85.6%; 96-100% = 98%” is not acceptable. I understand what you want to say, but presentation needs change.

 

 

Supplementary materials

They should have form of Figures and Tables (in this case), then they must be referred as Table S1, Figure S1, etc. Captions of Tables and Figures must be given in the Back Matter. Please revise you Supplent accordingly.

Do not use abbreviations of sites in the captions of Supplementary Tables, and explain all presented variables.

Check Supplement for mistakes, e.g., “Gliradae”, “Gasteropoda”

As for the diet tables, what is the logic of presenting diet items not eaten? Removing empty lines would makes tables smaller, thus more undertandable.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

 

I have no further comments.