The Structure of Saproxylic Beetle Assemblages in View of Coarse Woody Debris Resources in Pine Stands of Western Poland

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comment

This is an interesting contribution to the knowledge of saproxylic beetles in comparatively lesser-studied area of Poland. That said, I have quite some comments to increase both the scientific soundness of conclusions and the readability of this ms.

 

Specific comments

L28-30: sounds more like Methods.

L31: how do you define ‘biodiversity indices’?

L33-34: that is actually the reverse pattern (decrease in diversity), no?

L34,35,36: most results were written in past and suddenly tense goes to present.

L53: please replace ‘many’ by ‘several’.

L70: I missed the meaning of ‘recently’ here.

L97-L130: I found this part extremely (too) detailed, and it looked more like a discussion than to an introduction to the topic. Why not focusing on processes to build solid expectations?

L153-154: A map would be very useful to better figure out the sampling design.

L169: I missed the ‘Identification’ part: which keys / books you used, which stages you identified, who did the identifications / confirmations, where are the specimens stored, etc. This is the basic data in community ecology so it is important to know exactly how they were gathered and how to control them.

L170-183: I guess these paragraphs belong to another section than the one they are placed in.

L181-183: Much more details are needed to understand properly this analysis: which raw data were used, what was the aggregation criteria, type of link, etc.

L223-224: why not testing for statistical differences between means? In the table and elsewhere in the text I missed what was the ‘Share of’?

L254: Maybe it would be good to recall the family of species in the table?

L266-267: Did you consider test for Indicator Values (IndVal) of species associated with each cluster?

L285-286 vs L296-298 vs L308-309: I really missed the complementary between the table and the figures.

L313-319: You cannot say anything with so few points. Please omit the figures and the related analysis.

L320: The authors used only one type of sampling method, which is not discussed at all. Is window flight trapping biased by habitat structure, wing development of different families / species, etc.? I’d like to see the methodological aspects (including number of replicates, period of sampling vs number of individuals) discussed. Along the same line, it would be good to estimate the total species richness by rarefaction / extrapolation techniques.

L323: What do you mean by ‘not comprehensive’? They are not exhaustive or they are not giving a comprehensive picture of e.g. assembly rules?

L326: Please edit the ms by an English native speaker.

L328: differs->differed

L338: hurricane-affected stands have different volume/time, and dynamics, no?

L356-316: the point is that most are analyses are descriptive, so most statistics would help to support conclusions.

L367: Please revise ‘Fig. X’.

L395: diversity ->diversities.

L446: Please replace ‘agglomerations’ by ‘clustering’.

L476-477: There was no analysis of economic values, right?

L499-500: Again I think it would be good providing the beetle families in the list of species identified.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

Thank you for your really inspiring comments!

All editorial comments (L53, 70, 328, 395, 446) have been corrected.

The manuscript will be sent back for linguistic proofreading at the MDPI.

In detail:

L23-30: sentence removed from the paragraph "results"

L31: ‘biodiversity indices’ changed into indicators of species diversity

L33-34: Yes, that's how we understand it

L34-36: Sentences were corrected

L97-130: The paragraph was shortened and the sentences about change trends were left

L153-154: The map has been added as Figure 1.

L169: A relevant paragraph has been added giving examples of determination keys, taxonomic monographs and internet sources. The collection address was provided, which is actually relevant

L170-183: The paragraph was left unchanged

L181-183: Details of the similarity analysis have been completed

L223-224: "share of" has been removed from the table and the text

L254: Families to species have not been added to the table as the table would be large. On the other hand, families have been added in a revised Appendix

L266-267: No, we didn't apply this testing to beetle assemblages by number of species

L285-286 vs L296-298 vs L308-309: The sentences are clarified

L313-319: True, there are too few points to draw conclusions. But the results were surprising to us and we decided to include them
But as suggested, they will be removed

L320: A relevant paragraph was added in the discussion

L323: Explanations have been added and new papers have been cited

L338: New papers have been added

L356-316: We believe the note concerns the paragraph: "Presented results show the course of transformation ..."
In fact, we aren't making radical conclusions. Descriptive statistics confirm our inference. The problem for us is the fact that with the enormous amount of work involved, the number of repetitions is not overwhelming

L476-477: KA was a member of the research team. The order of the authors' names has been changed so that there is a project manager AŁ at the end

L449-450: Families have been added in the appendix and an alphabetical arrangement has been adopted. The layout of the table has been completely changed

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Claude Elwood Shannon suggested the so-called Shannon index in 1948 in his article "A mathematical theory of communication", The Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 27, P. 379–423, 623–656. And he was the only author!  
2. On the basis of which guidelines did you assign species to a particular ecological group? Clarify the names of these guides.
3. The authors should indicate the guide with which they defined the taxa.
4. Were seasonal dynamics and microclimatic conditions taken into account when setting up experiments?
5. Line 328-329. Specify which publications you are talking about.
6. Line 338-343. Not only hurricanes, but also large fires affect the indicators of insect diversity. Give such examples (https://dx.doi.org/10.24189/ncr.2019.009; DOI: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2017.02.006; DOI: 10.1890/0012-9658(2007)88[465:LFFNLT]2.0.CO;2; https://dx.doi.org/10.24189/ncr.2019.033; DOI: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2012.07.005; DOI: 10.1016/j.cois.2018.07.015).
7. Line 367. Give an explanation regarding the figure "X"!
8. Line 398-399. Ampedus balteatus was also caught in traps with bait from fermenting beer. See here https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12050407
9. There is no discussion of the results obtained by families in the manuscript. How many species are there in different families? Which families dominated by species and abundance?
10. Abbreviations are not clear in the legend to Appendix A. For example, "xylophagous" abbreviated as "ks". However, it would be logical to shorten it as "xyl". The same question applies to "phytophagous, coprophagous, saproxylic".
11. In the appendix to the manuscript, we do not understand the logic of making a list. Is it alphabetical order? Are these taxonomic ranks (families)? What's it? Give it in taxonomic order.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer #2
thank you very much for your constructive comments. Below are our answers:

1. Thank you for clarifying. Index name is corrected.
2. Information about sources of information about ecological groups of beetles is originally contained in lines 187-191. The sentence was unclear.
   The source for our data was in the Polish Fauna Catalog (21 volumes) and its counterpart is the online version, which is quoted [71].
3. We recited 10 sample items covering taxonomic monographs, identification keys and internet sources
4. Seasonal dynamics were accounted for over a 2-year beetle harvest period, but each season was not analyzed separately.
5. The paragraph was supplemented with new citations: the range of plant communities (pine forests) within the borders of Poland and the probable impact of the length of the growing season (different in the entire territory of Poland) on the occurrence of rare beetles.
6. The text was supplemented with quotations from the works of Butenko et al. 2017 Koltz et al. 2018.
7. The results of the regression analysis were surprising, but the number of points was too small to conclude, so we decided not to include the results (in accordance with the comments of Reviewer # 1)
8. The citation has been supplemented.
9. Relevant paragraph has been added.
10. The abbreviations in the table have been changed.
11. The arrangement of species in the appendix was based on the species fidelity classis.
    The order was changed to alphabetical, adding families.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the authors did a great job revising their job, thanks and happy to see such an interesting study to be published.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors. I am grateful to you for the answers.