Determinants of Butterfly Community Structure and Composition at the Local Habitat Level: Importance of Neighboring Vegetation and Management Status: A Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis MS deals with the butterfly community and environment conditions, which are interesting to conservationists. The overall presentation of the MS is reasonably good, with some minor issues to be addressed (see attached PDF). My only major concern is this investigation only carried out for 1 year, and there is no justification and explanation of such design. The random errors in this sole year can affect the analysis significantly. In their results, the difference between transects within a same type of habitat differed significantly. Could this be attributed to the one-year survey? The authors must justify this before this MS could be accepted for publication.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Moderate English editing is required as some sentences are way too long and difficult to follow. Another problem is wording, some can be improved by a native English speaker.
Author Response
Please see attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIn the article under review, the authors identify the factors that determine the species diversity of diurnal butterflies at one site on Mount Fuji. The authors chose an interesting region because of its history of study and because of the presence of various factors that could potentially influence diversity. The main conclusions obtained are convincing and interesting from a scientific and environmental points of view. It is especially gratifying to note that the content of this article perfectly matches the objectives of the Diversity journal. Therefore, I welcome the publication of this work.
My minor comments.
The authors confuse the reasons that determine the structure of biodiversity and the factors that determine the change in this structure. It is obvious that climate and host plants (vegetation) are the basis of this structure, while climate change and habitat alteration are factors in changing this structure.
Perhaps a few words should have been said about the choice of variables that were analyzed. Why are there five of these variables, and could other factors be taken into account? Are all these variables (especially 1, 2 and 5) independent?
A few words about the list of species. I understand that in the Japanese and Chinese entomological literature there is a tradition of identifying the local species of brimstones as Gonepteryx rhamni, but with the naked eye (or even better in ultraviolet light – e.g. see Pecháček et al. 2019) one can see that the East Asian populations belong to a completely different species, for which there is a name Gonepteryx maxima. I understand that this is not important in the context of this article, but the trend still needs to be reversed, and using correct species names is a good thing even in non-taxonomic work.
Reference
Pecháček, P., Stella, D. & Kleisner, K. A morphometric analysis of environmental dependences between ultraviolet patches and wing venation patterns in Gonepteryx butterflies (Lepidoptera, Pieridae). Evol Ecol 33, 89–110 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-019-09969-0
Author Response
Please see attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe revised version addressed all questions and issues in the original version, and I would say it can be accepted for publication in Diversity now.
