Forest Management, Barred Owls, and Wildfire in Northern Spotted Owl Territories

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The introduction in general is good, but I think there is a need to insert more information about the biology of the Northern Spotted Owl emphasizing its relationship with these forest areas and why they depend on these environments for survival. This would give the reader a better understanding of the problem addressed.

In materials and methods, it is necessary to clarify whether there is a difference in the field sampling effort through NSO field survey forms and other sources, in order to be able to assess whether possible differences between areas would not be just a sampling artifact produced by the source of the data. Then there may be a problem in the standardization of obtaining detection data for Northern Spotted Owl in the field and this may generate inaccurate data on the population size in each area and imply in generalization errors.

In general, the article brings important results for the conservation of the Northern Spotted Owl, which will allow improvements in the management of the areas where the species occurs, enabling an increase in its natural population.

Author Response

Reviewer 1.

The introduction in general is good, but I think there is a need to insert more information about the biology of the Northern Spotted Owl emphasizing its relationship with these forest areas and why they depend on these environments for survival. This would give the reader a better understanding of the problem addressed.

>>Thank you for your comments. As per your suggestion, we added lines 31-40 to the intro about the NSO’s selection of old forests and how degradation of old-forest conditions reduces reproduction and occupancy.

In materials and methods, it is necessary to clarify whether there is a difference in the field sampling effort through NSO field survey forms and other sources, in order to be able to assess whether possible differences between areas would not be just a sampling artifact produced by the source of the data. Then there may be a problem in the standardization of obtaining detection data for Northern Spotted Owl in the field and this may generate inaccurate data on the population size in each area and imply in generalization errors.

>>This is a good point, and the second reviewer mentioned this as well. There was not a trend in surveys, but overall survey reporting was inconsistent as now noted in lines 301-304. However, our paper was not focused on population size or population trends because the sparsity of field surveys precluded such analyses. Instead, we investigated amount of logging and fire in known NSO territories that at some point prior to the study supported NSOs. We used all available survey detection data to determine where to place the center of the territory to quantify forest attributes. We clarified how we used the field survey data by stating “The detections were then used to determine the ‘center’ of the site each year and to quantify forest attributes around that center” (lines 117-119) and adding “For each year that a NSO site was surveyed, the site was assigned a single core location at the geographic mean of all observations“ (lines 121-124) and “This geospatial analysis was repeated for each year of the study as the amount of severe wildfire and logging within the home range circles changed over time, and as the owls might have shifted their location(s) within the site” (lines 132-133).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

The study shows relevant data on a topic of great concern, such as severe forest fires, their control, and their impacts on wildlife. In particular, in the case of old-growth forests where NSO inhabits, there is an assumption that severely burned forests are no longer suitable habitats for NSO. However, fire management actions may affect the recovery of the NSO habitat since it does not consider the effect of logging and the presence of BO.
The authors' findings contributed to understanding the scope of forest management activities in NSO sites and proposing adjustments in the habitat recovery plan.

 

Suggestions:

Introduction

Line 61-67

The reading is confusing; it is suggested to revise the writing.

 

Methods

Is there any trend in the NSO survey records from the 18 years considered?

 

line 108-110. I could not find the information about locations of nests, young, daytime roosts, and nighttime detections at the spreadsheet Online Supplemental Table S1 (raw data sheets and summary report materials organized by NSO site) ber

 

Line 118. Number five appears twice; should the second one be number six?

 

Line 178. Word “only” is repeated in the same sentence.

 

Conclusions and Management Recommendations

The second paragraph seems better suited to the Discussion section.

 

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The study shows relevant data on a topic of great concern, such as severe forest fires, their control, and their impacts on wildlife. In particular, in the case of old-growth forests where NSO inhabits, there is an assumption that severely burned forests are no longer suitable habitats for NSO. However, fire management actions may affect the recovery of the NSO habitat since it does not consider the effect of logging and the presence of BO.

The authors' findings contributed to understanding the scope of forest management activities in NSO sites and proposing adjustments in the habitat recovery plan.

>>Thank you for the positive review of our manuscript and your helpful suggestions, which we respond as noted.

Suggestions:

Introduction

Line 61-67: The reading is confusing; it is suggested to revise the writing.

>>We agree this sentence is confusing. We added a numbered list (lines 73-76) to clarify the specific reasons why logging may not be an advisable management activity in NSO habitat, and streamlined the wording.

Methods

Is there any trend in the NSO survey records from the 18 years considered?

>> The NSO surveys were not consistently conducted and the data were too sparse to estimate population sizes or trends. Our focus instead was on logging and wildfire in sites that were known prior to the start of the analysis to support NSOs. We were not associating forest attributes with occupancy or population trends, but quantifying the threats in the known sites. Therefore, we used the survey data simply to determine where best to place the center of the site based on the best location.

Line 108-110: I could not find the information about locations of nests, young, daytime roosts, and nighttime detections at the spreadsheet Online Supplemental Table S1 (raw data sheets and summary report materials organized by NSO site)

>>Thank you so much for pointing this out. We deleted this sentence in the text because we did not include detections and geographic locations in our online supplemental table. That information was used only to create a center of the NSO territory based on all known locations, so we could then quantify the forest proportion, logging, and wildfire covariates.

Line 118: Number five appears twice; should the second one be number six?

>>Yes, it should be 6, thank you for pointing this out. We corrected it.

Line 178: Word “only” is repeated in the same sentence.

>>We agree this was awkward, and we changed the first “only” to “just” (line 191).

Conclusions and Management Recommendations

The second paragraph seems better suited to the Discussion section.

>>Agreed, and moved.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx