Vertical Distribution of Mites (Acari) in a “Miniature Forest” of Sphagnum Mosses in a Forest Bog in Western Norway

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing.

Author Response

Response to the Reviewer 1

We are grateful to the Reviewer for reading our MS and comments on it. We considered them thoroughly and corrected what was possible to correct. We answer below to all specific comments.

Title:

No comments

Abstract:

 This section provides a comprehensive explanation of the manuscript, including the introduction, methods, results, and discussion.

I suggest transferring the last paragraph: “In total, 62 species of Oribatida were recorded, including eleven species known as intermediate host of tapeworms, most of them occurred in the top layer. Over 20% of them were found only in deeper layers, so sampling in these layers is important for better evaluation of the mites’ diversity.”

and place it after the phrase

“In total, 16.880 mites, including 16.384 Oribatida, 466 Mesostigmata, and 30 Prostigmata were studied”.

After thinking it over we prefer to keep the original order of the text, since first we present all information that concerns the abundance of mites, while the two last sentences refer to the species diversity, so we do not want to bland this information with that on the abundance.  

 

Introduction:

It is well-written and explains the reasoning. However, the objectives do not formulate a question to be answered with an explicit hypothesis as a proposed explanation. I understand that there are two questions that are not clearly formulated: 1) to contribute to the knowledge on the vertical distribution of the three main mite groups in bogs, including the juvenile forms, and 2) to check the occurrence of oribatid mite species that are intermediate hosts of tapeworms that may pose a risk of transmission because the bog studied is grazed by the farm animals (cattle and sheep). Both questions should be modified to examine the large differences among the oribatid mite communities sampled. This way, the paper will undoubtedly have better acceptance.

In the Introduction, we rephrased the questions following the suggestions of the Reviewer.

Material and methods:

The main objective of the Material and Methods is to be clear enough for someone else to repeat the whole experiment, which is not the case in some aspects of this paper. For example, the size of the amostral universe is not clearly demonstrated. As a general observation, I think your work faces the problem of having samples of populations that are not distant enough.

We added the data on the distance between the samples. Part of this comment was not clear to us, since we are not sure what the Reviewer means by ‘amostral universe’.

Results and discussion depend upon design and analysis. My main concerns regarding this manuscript are the statistical (experimental) design and the subsequent data analysis. I cannot judge if the sampling site units guarantee the independence of samples (apparently, the experiment is a pseudoreplication).

The debate on pseudoreplication is very open today. We follow the point of view of Smilauer and Leps 'Multivariate analysis of ecological data', 2014, Cambridje Univ Press. In general, ecologists are interested in the relationship between environmental predictors (soil layers) and soil animal communities (response). Speaking strictly, the 'pseudoreplication' term does not apply to studies carried out in the nature. It is used for manipulative studies (laboratory), which is not our case. So, we think that the comparison of communities can and should be done with multivariate analysis and classification tools, taking several samples in each of the sites that are going to be compared.

Gotelli & Ellison (2004) suggest the "Rule of 10" as a minimum sample number per comparison category or treatment. In saying that, I am skeptical about the statistical analysis used, and the results are compromised regarding the use of multivariate analysis. In addition, some indexes, like Shannon-Weiner, are negatively biased at small sample sizes. For example, H' can be similar between sites that are different.

The number of replicates is another unresolved issue. Does not it depend on the biological community? The groups studied in this paper are very abundant animals in peatlands. With four replicates we obtained nearly 17 thousand mites. We identified the most abundant group – Oribatida – represented by more than 16 thousand specimens, to species level. We also identified all juvenile instars, that is not so common approach in the ecological studies done on mites but can add a lot to the results. Taking into account the small size of mites, laborious preparation technique and identification, more difficult identification of the juvenile forms (there is no key to juveniles and identification must be based on many publications), very abundant material, this was a very laborious task and took us long time to identify all material. With the number of 10 replicates this task would be even more difficult.

In summary, if the replicates are not independent, this manuscript must be considered a case study, and multivariate analysis is not recommended.

It is a problem of scale. When samples are taken far away each other, they can be considered as independent. Otherwise, each sample would have to belong to a different forest, which is difficult to do in nature.

However, all the non-parametric analyses must be considered, keeping the valuable information taken from that restricted study site.

When we do ecological studies, what is important, usually, is the observation of gradients. For this we use multivariate analyses, much more permissive with normalities and variances.

Where is the description of the modified Berlese apparatus?

We added a short description of the modification of the Berlese apparatus.

Please explain how the invertebrates were transported to the laboratory for extraction.

We added this.

What was the distance between samples? Are they independent?

We added this. Yes, they were independent. The animals we studied are small and slowly moving.

What was the maximum temperature inside the Berlese extractors?

We added this.

Where is the biological material deposited?

We added where the biological material is deposited.

Results and Discussion:

I cannot understand why Tale 1 was placed in the M&M.

The Table 1 was placed automatically in the Material and methods by the system, we submitted it separately. We will ask the editor to place it in the Result section.

The number of figures is excessive and can be substituted by table or text.

We removed one figure. We would prefer to keep other data in the form of figures since we think they are easier to read.

There is a repetition of the results throughout the discussion. The text is very overflowing and repetitive.

We read the Discussion once again and modified the places where we could detect repetition.

Conclusion

The conclusion repeats the results in parts. A scientific paper's conclusion synthesizes key points in clear and straightforward language. In this manuscript, the conclusion is a loose set of ideas, but it could be stronger if it had a clearer focus.

We wrote the final paragraph closing the discussion, not conclusions.

Final comment: I consider this present submission to have insufficient impact, and its experimental design compromises it. It can be considered a study of a case and cannot be extrapolated to the whole ecosystem studied.

It was not our intention in this study to extrapolate the results to the whole ecosystem.

Once again, we thank the Reviewer for all comments and suggestions.

For the authors

Anna Seniczak

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors in this article studied the vertical distribution of different mites in mosses habitat. There were two mite groups more abundant in top layers but the Prostigmata abundance was varied in soil. The authors reported more than 50 species of Oribatida and among them several were host of tapeworms, some of the oribatid species prefer top level of soil. This is an interesting and a well-written study – the authors elaborated the methodology section in very professional manner providing all the relevant details for the readers. This manuscript is with in scope of journal and well-organized and self-explanatory, I hardly suggest few minor corrections and of the opinion this ms can be accepted for its publication in Forests after minor revision.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The minor grammar check is required

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for all useful comments on our MS, we included all suggestions that were given in the text.

Abstract

• We deleted citation.
• We added brief methods.
• We provided conclusions from this study at the end.

Introduction

• We added objectives of the study at the end.

Material and methods

• We added more details about collecting of the samples and extraction.
• We corrected font style in the word ‘Weigmann’.
• We added df value.

Results

• We corrected figures that were unclear (Figs 3, 5, 6).
• We placed the letters indicating significant differences at the top of values.

Discussion

• We added full scientific species names for the species first mentioned in the text.
• We rephrased some parts where we could detect repetitions of the results.

Once again, we thank the Reviewer for all comments and suggestions that improved the quality of our paper.

For the authors

Anna Seniczak