Spatial Distribution of the Anecic Species of Earthworms Dendrobaena nassonovi nassonovi (Oligochaeta: Lumbricidae) in the Forest Belt of the Northwestern Caucasus

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have appropriately addressed the reviewers’ comments. According to the current version, I have no further comments and recommend to accept.

 

The last suggestion regarding Figure 2 does not seem to have been revised by the author? And there was no reply. I don't see any difference, although I do see that Figure 2 is marked in red.

 

"While the figure notes for Figure 2 indicate what forests 1-5 are respectively, it is still strange to use numbers for the horizontal coordinates of the figure. Also, based on your results, you counted the number of earthworms and could make another figure for the number of earthworms to put together with this figure for earthworm biomass.".

 

Of course, the authors could decide for themselves whether to revise it or not.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

Your comment: 

1. "While the figure notes for Figure 2 indicate what forests 1-5 are respectively, it is still strange to use numbers for the horizontal coordinates of the figure. Also, based on your results, you counted the number of earthworms and could make another figure for the number of earthworms to put together with this figure for earthworm biomass.". Of course, the authors could decide for themselves whether to revise it or not.

Answer: We give the number of earthworms in the text of the article. The horizontal axis is used to indicate community types, which is a common presentation practice in scientific articles. Therefore, we decided to leave the Figure 2 as is.

2. We are attaching a version of the article after improving the English language.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have  addressed the majority of the  concerns raised in the first round.

Minor changes still required:

1- Line 94-95: "the most effective is the Maximum Entropy method implemented in the Maxent program." Please rewrites this as ".....is one of the widely used models" instead of "the most effective"

2- Line 357: "ArcGis" should be "ArcGIS" please.

Best wishes,

Author Response

Dear reviewer!
Thanks for your valuable comments.

1. Line 94-95: "the most effective is the Maximum Entropy method implemented in the Maxent program." Please rewrites this as ".....is one of the widely used models" instead of "the most effective"

   Answer: We rewrited. This is line 78-79. Among the “presence-only” models, one of the widely used models is the Maximum Entropy method implemented in the Maxent program. Corrections are highlighted in yellow.

   2. "ArcGis" should be "ArcGIS" please.                                                     Answer: We've made a correction. Corrections are highlighted in yellow.

We are attaching a version of the article after improving the English language and making corrections.

Best wishes,
Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript entitled "Spatial distribution of the anecic species of earthworms Dendrobaena nassonovi nassonovi (Oligochaeta: Lumbricidae) in the forest belt of the Northwestern Caucasus" scientifically evaluated the spatial distribution of the endemic anecic species of earthworms in different forests of the Northwestern Caucasus. The author conducted a field investigation. The results were interesting and of value, suggesting that mid- and high-mountain forests are the perfect habitat for these earthworms. Despite this, some parts of the manuscript need to be improved. In particular, the introduction and discussion are less theoretical. Hope the below comments will be able to help to further improve this work.

 

Introduction

Lines 24-62 The introduction is relatively clear for an overview of earthworms and the species studied, but a research paper should be more than just limited to an investigation. You should ask a scientific question in the introduction, which will attract more potential readers. For example, why are you studying the distribution of earthworms? Will this provide a scientific basis for other wider researchers (e.g. other invertebrate researchers)?

 

Materials and Methods

Lines 84-85 Was the identification done on site? Or was all the soil taken back to the lab?

 

Results

Lines 160-161 While the figure notes for Figure 2 indicate what forests 1-5 are respectively, it is still strange to use numbers for the horizontal coordinates of the figure. Also, based on your results, you counted the number of earthworms and could make another figure for the number of earthworms to put together with this figure for earthworm biomass.

Lines 236-237 This is a similar issue. Both the figure and the table should be independently readable, rather than having to view something else to make sense of it. Instead of BIO, you can use the abbreviated but still understandable name

 

Discussion

Lines 273-275 Different soil fauna also have different tendencies to select for plant litter. You could refer to this paper, Plant Soil 487, 93–108 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05954-3. It can assist you in proving the selection of earthworms for localised environments.

 

Conclusion

Line 304 The sudden introduction of commercial operations here makes it feel a bit stiff. Your study's methodology doesn't address anything related to urbanisation.

Line 306 Perhaps you could offer some suggestions for future research or conservation based on your results.

 

Reference

Lines 320-397 Current reference formats are not consistent.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript titled “Spatial distribution of the anecic species of earthworms Dendrobaena nassonovi nassonovi (Oligochaeta: Lumbricidae) in the forest belt of the Northwestern Caucasus" uses a distribution modeling approach (i.e., Maxent) together with relevant environmental variables to model the current and potential habitat suitability distributions of earthworms. Although similar methodologies are common, the results of the study and the provided information could have useful implications for management actions. The manuscript requires MAJOR changes before it is ready for publication.

Comments and suggestions:

Abstract:

Please report the suitable areas for the species.

Introduction:

Line 46-52: Please at least some effort is needed to report previous works. In other words, the introduction lacks a proper review of the target species at the local and regional scales, where similar modeling approaches were used. In addition, mentioning available modeling techniques is missing.

2. Materials and Methods

 2.1. Study area

Line 65-78: This section needs revisit please. Describe the study area only in this section. Then from lines, 79-87 add another subsection (possibly 2.2) call it ‘Data collection’.

The structure and logical flow of the ‘Materials and Methods’ should be organized and restructured as follows:

2.2. “Field work or sample points”

2.3. “ Environmental predictors (including climate variables)”

2.4. “ Model building by Maxent”

2.5. “Model evaluation”

Line 110: AUC alone is not sufficient to evaluate the model's performance. Why was TSS not considered alongside the AUC?

 In the methodology section, the following are not clear:

1-    It is not clear whether any spatial filtering was performed for the occurrence points. What is the minimum distance between two occurrence points?

2-     It is not entirely clear how the Maxent model was built or what kind of settings were selected. For example, how many background points were used against the occurrence records?

3-    It is not clear how the issue of collinearity was dealt with.

4-    It is not clear what threshold was used to delineate suitable areas from unsuitable areas.

Discussion:

Adding two subsections to the discussion section covering both the implications and limitations of the applied modeling techniques in the context of this study is necessary.

Major concerns:

1-    Modeling part is described insufficiently, in particular the Maxent model building.

 

2-    Modeling part is not evaluated sufficiently.