The Assessment of Biodiversity Changes and Sustainable Agricultural Development in The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region of China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors 1. What is the main question addressed by the research? The paper focuses on identifying areas with agricultural ecosystem diversity potential in 12 the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and explores the mechanisms for assessing the health of agricultural ecosystems and for promotion sustainable agricultural development through intuitive interpretation of results and 28 careful selection of policy time points.2. What parts do you consider original or relevant for the field? What
specific gap in the field does the paper address? The paper describes a 40-year pattern analysis of biodiversity, and the results of spatial analysis using 24 GIS to identify areas with high potential for agricultural restructuring, underlines the importance of agroecological health in promoting agricultural green development.
3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published
material? The study is based on the longtime monitoring data.
4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the
methodology? What further controls should be considered?
In the Chapter 3.5. InVEST Model GLOBIO, describing the data used for modeling, it would probably be useful to clarify what kind of flora species were taken into account: woody, herbaceous or in a complex; common for the region or indicator, etc.
And the same for the "species richness" (for instance, on the line 296, Fig. 4).
5. Please describe how the conclusions are or are not consistent with the
evidence and arguments presented. Please also indicate if all main questions
posed were addressed and by which specific experiments. The conclusions are completely consistent with the obtained data.
6. Are the references appropriate? The references are appropriate.
7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures and
quality of the data. In Fig. 4 the «species richness» should be detailed in terms of taxonomy.
In the Chapter 3.5. InVEST Model GLOBIO, describing the data used for modeling, it would probably be useful to clarify what kind of flora species were taken into account: woody, herbaceous or in a complex; common for the region or indicator, etc.
And the same for the "species richness" (for instance, on the line 296, Fig. 4).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors- The title corresponds to the content of the paper.
- This study represents a significant contribution to the development and strengthening the application of the InVEST model in the field of agrobiodiversity, and supporting for policymaking to ensure ecological security and protection of ecosystem function and promote sustainable agricultural development in China.
- The main question of paper addressed to study the landscape patterns and habitat quality, and assessing landscape changes affecting biodiversity, including the impact of fragmentation and threats from infrastructure and urbanization in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region of China
- The aim of research is not clearly and fully pointed out on the end of chapter of Introduction. It should be pointed out aim of investigation at the end of Chapter of introduction.
- Key words are appropriate, but should be write single key word.
- Scientific methodology is applied correctly for this type of study.
- Results are clearly presented and discussed.
- Tables, figures, pictures are clear.
- The conclusions are clear and based on research results
- This study represents complementary to the previous ones.
- Manuscript is acceptable after minor corrections, but not in this Journal!
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe purpose of the study is to quantify the impact of individual and synergistic effects on biodiversity resulting from changes in land use, infrastructure development and intensive agricultural development. The authors believe that determining the precise impact of each factor, as well as their combined impact on biodiversity, is critical.
The authors in their work proceeded from two hypotheses: 1) Changes in land use, infrastructure development and intensive agricultural development negatively affect regional biodiversity. 2) Average species abundance values ​​used to reflect cause-and-effect relationships provide more accurate measurements than traditional methods. Mean species abundance is the average proportional change in the abundance of individual species at a site relative to the original flora at a site within the same site.
The article presents the results of assessments of: 1) spatial changes in land use structure; 2) spatial changes in the quality of the habitat; 3) spatial changes in the average species abundance index.
Questions: 1. The authors do not explain why the criterion of biodiversity was chosen in this study as the decisive, leading criterion. Indications of the policies of the Communist Party and the Chinese government cannot be accepted as scientifically based arguments. In addition, in agricultural landscapes with a high proportion of urbanized and mountainous areas, biodiversity may have obviously low indicators that do not allow reliably identifying the mutual influence of factors, and assessing biodiversity is a labor-intensive task that requires numerous field studies.
2. The authors indicate the GIS they use. Apparently, this is the basis for the study. At the same time, the article does not provide a description of this system, what layers of cartographic and attribute information does it consist of, what modules and algorithms does this GIS include, where is their description presented? How, when and from what sources was the original information obtained, and how often is it updated? How was the verification and validation of the algorithms used?
3. The results obtained by the authors revealed spatial changes in indicators, but did not reveal quantitative estimates of the share of influence of each factor, as well as their joint impact on biodiversity. It is also unclear what the synergetic effects are and from what mathematical model do they follow?
I believe that the main drawback of the study is its irreproducibility, that is, the difficulty of verifying the results. Obviously, the information presented in the article is not enough to analyze the results obtained. The article needs to be significantly improved.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Colleagues.
I am quite satisfied with the responses to my comments. I believe that the article has improved as a result of the clarifications made. I believe that the article can be published in its present form.
