A Novel Multimodal Species Distribution Model Fusing Remote Sensing Images and Environmental Features

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Specific comments to the authors

1. The main recommendation for authors is to adhere to the template available on the journal website.

2. By not using the template correctly, all the references are wrong.

3. There are important deficiencies, considering that they use some abbreviations that are not clarified before, for example: SBW (L58), CUB (L83), COCO (L84), MSCOCO (L79&80), DAN (L88) and many more. I would be willing to review the manuscript again when it fits the template and the references are properly cited and adequate, considering that the references are not written in the format of the journal.

4. Additionally, it is necessary to review the writing, considering that it was difficult to understand some sentences of the manuscript.

5. The contribution of the authors section does not clearly define the contribution of each one of them.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Summary:

This manuscript provides a good example of novel multimodal species distribution model fusing remote sensing images and environmental features. As authors mentioned that SDMs are critical in conservation decision-making and ecological or biogeographical inference, but the model accuracy need to be improved.  Authors used ResNet50 and Transformer network structures as the backbone for multi- modal data modeling. The science and methodology of the manuscript appear sound, and adequately cited. I believe a major level of revisions should be made to the paper before it is ready to be considered for publication with sustainability.

 

General comments:

How did you deal with multiple resolution raster data? All data layers are exacted by sampling points (x,y)? Climate and soil data (environmental variables) are such low spatial resolution.

I don’t see any predictions (map) from your models, do you have any?

Specific comments:

Caption of Figure 1 need to provide detailed information, for example, what does blue color in CONUS map represent?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

Thank you for your corrections to the manuscript, please consider the attached document

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors did a decent job in revising the manuscript. They have addressed my main concerns and also taken care of minor comments/editorial changes. I recommend that the manuscript be accepted for publication.

Author Response

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for your recommendation.