Non-Native Plants Influence Forest Vegetative Structure and the Activity of Eastern Temperate Insectivorous Bats

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The introduction is well structured and provides the reader with the problem on a wider view to. When describing the problem according to bats I understand the influence a prey density but I miss an explanation why vegetation structure is important.

Material and methods are well structures and described very detailed. Some aspects may be shortened (analysis of bat calls, statistical analysis)

3.2 Vegetation and Arthropod Surveys – in my opinion prey abundance is the only important variable, total arthropod abundance may be skipped

Line 270 orders considered as bat prey are already described in material and methods, this may be skipped

Figure 2: Wrong figure

Discussion is well structured and considers all parts of the questions formulated in the introduction

I am fine with Implications for Forest Management

Author Response

• The introduction is well structured and provides the reader with the problem on a wider view to. When describing the problem according to bats I understand the influence a prey density but I miss an explanation why vegetation structure is important.
  • We now include language in lines 67-70 to clarify how vegetative structure, especially in the context of non-native plants, can impact bat locomotion, feeding, and predation risk.
• Material and methods are well structures and described very detailed. Some aspects may be shortened (analysis of bat calls, statistical analysis)
  • We appreciate the feedback here. We were not certain of the level of familiarity readers had with bioacoustics, and we therefore added superfluous detail. We have now shortened the methods and moved some descriptive information (e.g., bat echolocation, low frequency vs. high frequency pulses) to the introduction. We also shortened the statistical methods.
• 2 Vegetation and Arthropod Surveys – in my opinion prey abundance is the only important variable, total arthropod abundance may be skipped
  • Thank you for the suggestion. We omitted total arthropod abundance but retained total arthropod order diversity and richness to capture the overall arthropod community more broadly.
• Line 270 orders considered as bat prey are already described in material and methods, this may be skipped
  • Arthropod orders omitted.
• Figure 2: Wrong figure
  • Thank you for pointing this out: we attached the correct figure.
• Discussion is well structured and considers all parts of the questions formulated in the introduction
  • Thank you for the positive feedback.
• I am fine with Implications for Forest Management
  • Thank you!

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper presents a study designed to examine the potential effects of exotic, invasive plants on the activity of aerial insectivorous bats. The authors expected differences in the structure of forest patches and prey abundance and composition depending on the "degree of invasion" by the invasive plants. Several significant effects are recognized, but they cannot conclusively show that exotic, invasive plants promote the activity of aerial insectivorous bats. 

 

The paper has the potential to serve as an initial work to understand how the introduction of exotic vegetation may affect the ecology of North American bats and to do so several aspects need to be improved. 

Title. As indicated earlier, and as recognized by the authors in the paper, there is no conclusive evidence of a positive effect of the exotic, invasive plants on the activity of bats. Modify the title.

Abstract. The authors present hypotheses and predictions in the introduction, but not in the abstract. The abstract must summarise the key parts of the document, and all the document should revolve around the authors' ideas, i.e., the hypotheses and predictions. 

Introduction. The authors use "invasive species" or "invasive plants". However, based on the paper context, it seems they mean "exotic" rather than "invasive" plants because native plants can also be invasive. Probably the best option is to talk about "exotic, invasive plants''. This idea must be clear for the readers from the beginning of the paper. In addition, the authors speak about the "degree of invasion", but I could not find a clear definition for this key concept in the Introduction of the paper. I strongly suggest the authors explain to the reader what they mean by "degree of invasion" because in the analyses you try to relate the "degree of invasion" to the activity of the bats. This explanation must serve as context to understand the hypotheses of the paper.

The authors should define the concepts of habitat and ecosystem. Habitat is a species-specific concept, whereas an ecosystem includes a collection of species. I suggest checking Hall, L.S., Krausman, P.R., Morrison, M.L. 1997. The habitat concept and a plea for standard terminology. Wildlife Society Bulletin 25: 1 173-182. Around this point is where the paper may need the main improvements. The group of aerial insectivorous bats is a collection of different evolutionary histories and ecologies. Different species have different requirements and different levels of tolerance, i.e., they have different niches. Examining the activity of a group of bats assumes that they may respond similarly to a particular factor, i.e., such a factor is potent enough to generate a similar ecological signal in all species studied. This may not always happen. I strongly suggest the authors analyze the particular responses of the species present at the study site as the paper's central idea and complement such analyses with those for the whole ensemble. By doing so, the authors will have patterns that will be easier to interpret because the responses they find can be analyzed in the light of the current knowledge of particular species, rather than trying to find a general rule that will apply to all bats. North American bats are well known and the necessary literature is readily available to evaluate the specific responses of each for the species found at the study site.

Methods. Several details about the methods are missing, and I highlighted the ones I detected in the MS. The one that worries me the most is the height of the insect traps. This is an important detail because not all bats forage at the same distance from the ground or vegetation surface. The paper by Althigham et al (1981), which the authors quote, shows how aerial insectivorous bats may partition space based on wing morphology and the characteristics of their echolocation signals. Some bats may fly well above the canopy because their prey is there and can be registered by a microphone near the ground. Consequently, if the traps are placed near the ground they may not reflect the actual prey availability for such bats.

Results. Figures. Consider including in the figure only the factors with significant effects. But probably more important, I strongly suggest explaining how to interpret the results. The authors indicate that they evaluated correlations but did not run correlation tests, which may confuse some readers. I suggest avoiding the term "correlation" and rather indicate which factors significantly affect bat activity. Also, explain the x-axis in the graphs. Not all readers may be familiar with the Scaled effect size and figures must be understood independent of the main test. Hence, consider following the suggestions by Kroodsma (2000) about how to improve figure legends; Kroodsma, D.E. 2000. A quick fix for figure legends and table headings. The Auk 117 1081-1083.

 

Discussion. Implications for Forest Management. If the authors decide to run tests based on the response of particular species will probably recognize how modifications linked to exotic plants in the forest may affect bat activity. With that information, the authors may be able to provide more focused recommendations on how forest management will affect different species of bats.

Additional specific comments are included in the pdf file.

I hope all the comments will help the authors to build a more robust scientific contribution.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

NA

Author Response

 

• The paper has the potential to serve as an initial work to understand how the introduction of exotic vegetation may affect the ecology of North American bats and to do so several aspects need to be improved.
  • We appreciate the reviewer’s perspective here. We agree that our work represents an important first step toward understanding the effects of non-native vegetation on bats.
• As indicated earlier, and as recognized by the authors in the paper, there is no conclusive evidence of a positive effect of the exotic, invasive plants on the activity of bats. Modify the title.
  • We amended the title to: Non-native Plants Influence Forest Vegetative Structure and the Activity of Eastern Temperate Insectivorous Bats
• The authors present hypotheses and predictions in the introduction, but not in the abstract. The abstract must summarise the key parts of the document, and all the document should revolve around the authors' ideas, i.e., the hypotheses and predictions.
  • We have added our hypotheses in the abstract and provided the summary statistics for percent non-native (see below) and generalized linear models.
• The authors use "invasive species" or "invasive plants". However, based on the paper context, it seems they mean "exotic" rather than "invasive" plants because native plants can also be invasive. Probably the best option is to talk about "exotic, invasive plants''. This idea must be clear for the readers from the beginning of the paper. In addition, the authors speak about the "degree of invasion", but I could not find a clear definition for this key concept in the Introduction of the paper. I strongly suggest the authors explain to the reader what they mean by "degree of invasion" because in the analyses you try to relate the "degree of invasion" to the activity of the bats. This explanation must serve as context to understand the hypotheses of the paper.
  • We appreciate the reviewers’ suggestions regarding the use of various terminology with respect to non-native plants. We prefer not to use the word ‘exotic,’ but we understand and agree that native plants can also become invasive in certain contexts. Our vegetation surveys only differentiated between native and non-native plants rather than differentiating between invasive vs. non-invasive. We therefore changed all mentions of “invasive” to “non-native” to be perfectly clear.
  • Given this modification, we also changed “degree of invasion” to “percent non-native”, which we now clearly define as the average non-native cover of the ground and midstory vegetative layers.
• The authors should define the concepts of habitat and ecosystem. Habitat is a species-specific concept, whereas an ecosystem includes a collection of species. I suggest checking Hall, L.S., Krausman, P.R., Morrison, M.L. 1997. The habitat concept and a plea for standard terminology. Wildlife Society Bulletin 25: 1 173-182. Around this point is where the paper may need the main improvements. The group of aerial insectivorous bats is a collection of different evolutionary histories and ecologies. Different species have different requirements and different levels of tolerance, i.e., they have different niches. Examining the activity of a group of bats assumes that they may respond similarly to a particular factor, i.e., such a factor is potent enough to generate a similar ecological signal in all species studied. This may not always happen. I strongly suggest the authors analyze the particular responses of the species present at the study site as the paper's central idea and complement such analyses with those for the whole ensemble. By doing so, the authors will have patterns that will be easier to interpret because the responses they find can be analyzed in the light of the current knowledge of particular species, rather than trying to find a general rule that will apply to all bats. North American bats are well known and the necessary literature is readily available to evaluate the specific responses of each for the species found at the study site.
  • Excellent suggestion. We restructured the first introduction paragraph to follow a more logical progression: we begin with the impacts of non-native plants on habitats (species-level), which can radiate through trophic levels to affect other species and higher order dynamics (e.g., succession). We used “habitat” as defined by Hall et al. 1997 to describe the set of conditions in an area that produce occupancy by a specific species. For clarity, we also omitted references to “ecosystem-level” effects and instead explained them in the context of species interactions (as ecosystem encompasses both biotic and abiotic components).
  • We concur that aerial insectivorous bats are an extremely broad guild. However, our work was conducted in a region heavily impacted by white-nose syndrome. Prior to emergence of this catastrophic disease, we would have collected adequate sample sizes to generate species-specific statistical models. Unfortunately, we were unable to do so in this study. We did address potential differences in bat species by classifying bat calls in our dataset into two guilds: bats that produce low frequency pulses (which typically prefer to forage in more open habitats) and bats that produce high frequency pulses (which tend to be more clutter-loving). For further clarification, we moved the background information about this guild distinction from the methods to the introduction.
• Several details about the methods are missing, and I highlighted the ones I detected in the MS. The one that worries me the most is the height of the insect traps. This is an important detail because not all bats forage at the same distance from the ground or vegetation surface. The paper by Althigham et al (1981), which the authors quote, shows how aerial insectivorous bats may partition space based on wing morphology and the characteristics of their echolocation signals. Some bats may fly well above the canopy because their prey is there and can be registered by a microphone near the ground. Consequently, if the traps are placed near the ground they may not reflect the actual prey availability for such bats.
  • We added the height of the blacklight traps. Our response to the remaining insect trap comments in the PDF are included below.
• Figures. Consider including in the figure only the factors with significant effects. But probably more important, I strongly suggest explaining how to interpret the results. The authors indicate that they evaluated correlations but did not run correlation tests, which may confuse some readers. I suggest avoiding the term "correlation" and rather indicate which factors significantly affect bat activity. Also, explain the x-axis in the graphs. Not all readers may be familiar with the Scaled effect size and figures must be understood independent of the main test. Hence, consider following the suggestions by Kroodsma (2000) about how to improve figure legends; Kroodsma, D.E. 2000. A quick fix for figure legends and table headings. The Auk 117 1081-1083.
  • Thank you for the suggestions. The pairwise generalized linear models and linear mixed effect models that we performed for percent non-native and the other predictors (e.g., canopy cover, ground cover, midstory trees and shrubs) indicated correlations. We amended Figure 2 to only include significant relationships.
  • We changed the x-axis in Figure 3 to “model averaged effect size,” which we explain in more detail in the methods and the caption.
• Implications for Forest Management. If the authors decide to run tests based on the response of particular species will probably recognize how modifications linked to exotic plants in the forest may affect bat activity. With that information, the authors may be able to provide more focused recommendations on how forest management will affect different species of bats.
  • Please see above comment about separating bats into the low-frequency and high-frequency call guilds and our small sample sizes.
• Additional specific comments are included in the pdf file.
  • Please see responses below to comments included in the PDF.
• I hope all the comments will help the authors to build a more robust scientific contribution.
  • We greatly appreciate the constructive feedback provided. We have addressed the comments, and we agree that the manuscript is improved based on these amendments!

 

Reviewer 2 PDF:

• Title: Consider a more cautious approach in the title. The paper does not present conclusive evidence that exotic, invasive species of plants promote bat activity.
  • We amended the title to: Invasive Plants Influence Forest Vegetative Structure and the Activity of Eastern Temperate Insectivorous Bats.
• [Line 25]: This is a proper name
  • Thank you for the catch. We fixed the capitalization.
• [Line 34]: This effects has been verified for all herbivorous insects?
  • No, good point. We changed the sentence to reflect that changes to the native vegetative community can negatively affect some herbivorous insects.
• [Line 60]: Please indicate how many studies did you find and what was their subject
  • We appreciate the suggestion, but because we did not conduct a systematic review, we do not feel comfortable providing a discrete number for how many studies have examined the effects of non-native plants on bats. Instead, we included a citation for a review about the impacts of invasive species—pathogen, animal, and plant—on bats, which was heavily biased toward island bat species (Welch & Leppanen, 2017).
• [Line 78]: You need to indicate what variable related to the vegetation you are going to measure
  • We indicated that we are measuring the plot percent non-native, which we defined as the average non-native cover of the ground and midstory vegetative layers.
• [Line 83]: I cannot really understand this expression. Consider using a measurable indicator, e.g., areas with invasive plants cover more than 0.5 ha or >50% of its area covered with invasive plants.
  • We changed “significant” to high percent non-native. We did not want to predict specific numerical cutoffs, so we dichotomized our hypotheses for plots with high and low percent non-native.
• [Line 84]: Uninvaded plots have native forest?
  • We changed “uninvaded plots” to “plots with low percent non-native.”
• [Line 95]: Inedible to whom?
  • We changed the language to reflect that deer are selectively avoiding such non-native plants.
• [Line 104]: indicate the number of plots in each category
  • We included the number of plots in each category and color-coded Figure 1 to represent the different site types.
• [Line 109]: This is a key concept for your paper. You should probably present it and explain it in the context for your hypotheses.
  • See comments above.
• [Line 111]: Explain how did you measure these variables
  • We explained how we measured these variables in section 2.3 Vegetation Surveys.
• [Line 115]: The figure has 3 sections and each one of them should be explained to the reader
  • We changed Figure 3 to only display the study area, but we simplified the land use classifications and added locations and types of all study sites.
• [Line 156]: Do you mean "pulses"?
  • That specific instance of “call” was deleted, but we changed all ambiguous mentions of “calls” to “pulses.”
• [Line 158]: The concept of "bat call" is rather ambiguous. Consider using "pulse" or "sequence of pulses" instead
  • Thank you for the suggestion. We changed all ambiguous mentions of “calls” to “pulses” but retained our definition of “pass” as a succession of pulses.
• [Line 160]: sonotype?
  • We changed “species” to “sonotype.”
• [Line 207]: What was the height of the trap? Not all bats fly at the same distance from the ground or vegetation.
  • We added that blacklight traps were held ~0.3 m off the ground. Please see response to your other comment about blacklight traps below.
• [Line 224]: This analysis assumes that all insects caught in the traps are bat prey. Please include the references or evidence that support that
  • We defined “putative prey” for bats as insects in the orders Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Trichoptera (Lines 216-217). We decided to conduct a linearized mixed effect model using total arthropod (all arthropods captured) order diversity because we greatly limited the diversity of putative prey by only including certain orders. We provide citations for dietary studies corroborating these orders as putative prey.
• [Line 272]: This is not a proper name
  • Thank you for the catch. We fixed the capitalization.
• [Line 282]: Remind the reader what do you mean by "degree of invasion"
  • We changed our “degree of invasion” terminology to “percent non-native,” which we redefine in the results.
• [Line 292]: Do you mean whiskers?
  • Figure 2 in this draft was incorrect. The correct figure has been attached and the caption should be correct.
• [Line 313]: As indicated earlier, consider improving the legends by using the suggestions in Kroodsma (2000)
  • Thank you for the suggestion. We changed all figure legends to better highlight the result(s) of interest and explain axes labels.
• [Lines 321-322]: This arguments contradicts the ones presented in the next paragraph. The results about the community of arthropods are not really conclusive, and the lack of taxonomic resolution appears to prevent concluding that "invasive vegetation has little impact on forest habitat used by bats". It also seems necessary to evaluate which arthropods at the study site are preyed by bats.
  • We modified the language in our first discussion paragraph to interpret our results more cautiously. We changed our claim that invasive vegetation has little impact on bats to “non-native vegetation does not have a completely negative impact on forest habitat use by bats.” Unfortunately, we neither sorted arthropod specimens finer than the order level nor classified them as native or non-native, so we cannot provide more refined details about the impacts of non-native plants on arthropod species composition. However, for the purposes of this paper, we feel that evaluating broad-level arthropod order abundance and richness was appropriate.
• [Lines 367-370]: I'm not convinced by the argumentation here. The cited literature mentions the effects registered in one species of bat. However, the assemblage of bats at the study site are a collection of different evolutionary histories and on may not expect that all of them will react in the same way. The authors recognize that there the insectivorous bat at their study site can be divided at least in low- and high-frequency bats, and consequently the may perceive changes in the environment differently. Some of them fly above the canopy, whereas forage near of inside the canopy. In this sense, it appears to be missing a group of analyses about the specific response of the species at the study site.
  • Addressed above.
• [Line 411]: The authors should probably be more cautious in this section. I'm not sure where did they place the traps to capture insects, but if the traps where not where the bats forage, their measurement may not be an appropriate estimation of food availability. The authors suggest that most bats use low frequencies and prefer open spaces, which in this case may be above the vegetation level, probably more than 10 m above the ground. If the insect traps where close to the vegetation, the measurements are probably only accurate for high-frequency bats that forage near the vegetation.
  • Thank you for this comment. While it is possible that placing the blacklight traps higher off the ground might have changed the sample characterization, we followed published precedence for placing blacklight traps at a height of 0.3 m to sample for prey consumed by bats (see Lacki et al. 1995 and Wolbert et al. 2014). Such studies have found that bat foraging and activity were correlated with insect abundances derived from blacklight traps placed on the ground.
• [Line 443]: Cite literature here
  • We changed this language to reflect that disease and wind energy infrastructure are pre-existing stressors that could exacerbate other factors that negatively impact bats.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have examined the effects of invasive vegetation on bat activity. Their research question is interesting and valid. Overall, a very well executed and written research article, with great implications for the conservation management of insectivorous bat populations.

 The article’s topic is relevant in the field of wildlife ecology and conservation and within the scope of the journal. Such studies are much needed.

 The research design is valid and field data well collected and analyzed. This allowed for drawing safe conclusions, consistent with evidence and main research question.

 The article has been appropriately referenced with relevant research and findings have been compared with existing similar up-to-date evidence. All tables and figures are relevant and help explain and showcase findings.

One omission. Graphs in Figures 2 and 3 are the same. Please check and replace appropriate graph in Figure 2.

Author Response

• The authors have examined the effects of invasive vegetation on bat activity. Their research question is interesting and valid. Overall, a very well executed and written research article, with great implications for the conservation management of insectivorous bat populations.
  • Thank you for the positive feedback!
• The article’s topic is relevant in the field of wildlife ecology and conservation and within the scope of the journal. Such studies are much needed.
• The research design is valid and field data well collected and analyzed. This allowed for drawing safe conclusions, consistent with evidence and main research question.
• The article has been appropriately referenced with relevant research and findings have been compared with existing similar up-to-date evidence. All tables and figures are relevant and help explain and showcase findings.
• One omission. Graphs in Figures 2 and 3 are the same. Please check and replace appropriate graph in Figure 2.
  • Thank you for pointing this out: we attached the correct figure.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors Dear Authors, revise the manuscript according to recommendations and comments.    

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

• Title does not reveal the full essence of the article. Perhaps the following or an alternative title should be used: Influence of Invaded Forest Ecosystems Through Arthropods and Vegetative Structure on Acoustic Activity of Easter Temperate Insectivorous Bats
  • Excellent suggestion. We amended the title to: Invasive Plants Influence Forest Vegetative Structure and the Activity of Eastern Temperate Insectivorous Bats
• [Line 13-14]: This should not be put in Abstract. It is better to include data on the number of invasive plants in the study sites.
  • We replaced the previous statement about previous literature with sentences detailing the methodology and results of the vegetation surveys, specifically summary statistics about the percent non-native and its correlations with vegetative structure variables (i.e., ground cover and midstory clutter) and the abundance of putative bat prey.
• [Line 30-31]: This should not be written, as it was known initially and for a long time. There is no need to focus attention within the framework of this study.
  • Although this phenomenon is generally accepted to be true, we believe it is still important to address, especially in the context of how invasive vegetation can directly influence forest vegetative structure and indirectly affect arthropod abundance. These ideas are central to our study justification.
• [Line 35]: Many species of mammals living in their native habitats are forced to adapt to the introduction of invasive plants (Montgomery et al. 2015; Silaeva et al. 2021).
  Montgomery, W.I., S.S. Montgomery, N. Reid, Invasive alien species disrupt spatial and temporal ecology and threaten extinction in an insular, small mammal community. Biological Invasions, 2015. 17(1): p. 179-189.
  Silaeva, T., A. Andreychev, O. Kiyaykina, L. Balčiauskas, Taxonomic and ecological composition of forest stands inhabited byforest dormouse Dryomys nitedula (Rodentia: Gliridae) in the Middle Volga. Biologia, 2021, 76: p. 1475-1482.
  • This first introduction paragraph was restructured, but we incorporated this comment into the second paragraph.
• [Line 39]: Thus, studies of changes due to the introduction of invasive plants into ecosystems should be studied in different groups of animals.
  • See above comment.
• [Lines75-78]: The aim of the study should be clearly stated. And write down the tasks to be solved while achieving the aim.
  • We added clarifying language to describe our main objective: determining if bat activity, measured acoustically, is correlated with plot percent non-native.
• [Line 93]: Add author and year
  • We added the authority for every Latin binomial.
• [Line 96]: Add author and year
  • We added the authority for every Latin binomial.
• [Line 104]: Why? Give explanations in the text.
  •  
• [Lines 105-111]: Why was a control plot with a minimum number of invasive plant species not selected for comparison? If there was such a section, then it is necessary to indicate this in the manuscript. This is important from the standpoint of identifying differences in bat activity in areas with different degrees of plant invasiveness.
  • We appreciate this comment, but we performed and observational study, not an experimental control vs. treatment. We selected our plots to vary along habitat gradients (e.g., percent invasive cover, number of midstory trees and shrubs, etc.), which we believe adequately encompassed a range of habitat types and amount of non-native cover. Thus, we are confident that our statistical analyses can address questions of how the relative amount of invasive cover at a site impacts bat activity.
• [Lines 115-116]: Show all 23 circular plots on the map with numbers. Write in the text at what distance they were located from each other.
  • We amended Figure 1 to display the survey sites and included the statement that plots were positioned at least 200 m apart to ensure that the same bats were not being recorded by detectors in adjacent plots.
• [Lines 162-175]: This part is not methodological. Most likely this either needs to be reported in the Introduction and Discussion.
  • We moved this to the introduction.
• [Lines 177-180]: similarly [as previous comment]
  • We believe this is appropriate context in the methods to explain how we calculated total low frequency passes and total high frequency passes.
• [Line 183]: You write about it. Therefore, in the results you need to present the species composition of plants in the research plots in the form of a table. It is necessary to note how many species of invasive plants are found in each of the 23 plots. What are the differences? What difference was revealed in comparison with the control plot? How does this affect bat activity?
  • We appreciate this comment, but we did not identify non-native plants to species when collecting data. We changed “composition” to “nativity”. We quantified the percentage of each plot covered by non-native plants, without recording identities. Therefore, we do not have species-specific percentages (e.g., Multiflora rose, 15%). In the results, we do discuss how the percent non-native varies among plots and affects bat activity.
• [Line 185]: n the work it is necessary to identify dominant species among woody plants. Indicate from which families there are more invasive plants.
  • Again, we appreciate the suggestion, but we did not identify vegetation to species. We removed statements about the most common woody vegetation observed in plots, which was not a quantitative measure, but rather an observation made while surveying.
• [Line 258]: You need to start presenting the results with the plant composition. I repeat, we need results from a comparison of 23 plots for invasive plants. This is the goal of the work, because you determined the difference in bat activity depending on the invasive plants in the areas. But you missed this moment. It is important.
  • We changed the order of the methods and results to reflect the primary goal of the vegetation surveys.
• [Line 267]: move this part above and describe in detail the differences across plots.
  • We restructured the results so that vegetation surveys are discussed first. Because we did not identify vegetation to species, the only difference across plots was the range of percent non-native, which we reported.
• [Line 268]: Give the species composition of arthropods in the form of a table.
  • Unfortunately, we did not identify arthropods to species. However, a table of the arthropod order composition is provided in the appendix.
• [Lines 276-278]: It is necessary to provide in detail the number of native and invasive plants for each of the 23 plots. These brief data are not enough.
  • We did not identify plants to species, so we cannot provide more detailed information about non-native species composition. Such summary details were documented as notes, but not quantified.
• [Lines 319-320]: There is not yet enough data on the results (plants and arthropods) to make such a conclusion.
  • Thank you for the suggestion. We agree and changed our language to more cautiously reflect our results. Namely, we claim that non-native vegetation does not have a completely negative impact on forest use by bats.
• [Line 331]: Which? Indicate how many there are in each plots.
  • We intended this sentence to act more as a hypothetical that could explain why arthropod abundance did not seem to correlate with percent non-native. We neither identified arthropods to order nor classified them as native or non-native. Therefore, we cannot say anything about the arthropod nativity composition in our plots.
• [Line 358]: How?
  • We changed the wording of this statement to “percent non-native was significantly and positively correlated with…” because we performed linear models which demonstrated that percent non-native was significantly correlated with both the number of midstory trees and shrubs and ground cover. We also added an explanation for such trends: non-native plants proliferate in the ground and midstory layers and potentially outcompete native vegetation.
• [Line 373]: indicate numbers
  • We came to such conclusions from our model averaged effect size analysis, which provides the relative effect sizes of predictors. As far as we know, we cannot calculate discrete numerical values for the predictor variables that result in high values of the response variable (i.e., bat activity). Therefore, we changed the language in the sentence to reflect that bats were more active when there was a “higher” percent non-native and “fewer” midstory trees and shrubs.

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,
I am satisfied with the revisions to your manuscript and approve it for the journal. Title of the manuscript now reflects the essence of the work. The research material used was selected appropriately, as well as the statistical methods used to analyze it. Own results and their discussion in the Discussion are properly described and were compared with previous studies by other authors. Thank you.