Effects of Environmental Traits and Landscape Management on the Biodiversity of Saproxylic Beetles in Mediterranean Oak Forests
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review’s comments
Manuscript Number: Diversity-897714
General comments
The manuscript entitled “Effects of environmental traits and landscape management on the biodiversity of saproxylic beetles
in Mediterranean oaks forests” dealt with diversity of saproxylic beetles in Dehesa. Authors collected the dead or dried
branches in 5 plots and they observed diversity of the beetle under four different temperature conditions.
Although this is interesting approaches, there are several questions about “Material and Methods” and “Data analysis”.
1) Information in “Abstracts” is needed to be described in detail. I wonder whether you collected branches from how many
species of oak trees and how many different temperatures in your experiment. Of course, these were described in Material
and Methods but I recommended that more information is included in “Abstracts’. Which species of your collection
are included in red list? I could not find them through manuscript. And your conclusion in Abstracts was not supported by
your results in Abstracts. The reason why the dry wood is sources for saproxylic beetles in your work clearly is needed
to be explained.
2) Which environmental factors are contributed to high diversity of saproxylic beetles? Could you make a suggestion?
P4 is hot spot in your work. The density of T. impressum is the most dominant species and it mainly collected from tree CS.
Is the dominancy of CS in P4 related to hot spot? Are another environmental factors included? Ordination study or
machine learning can help to elucidate the cause of the dominancy in P4.
However, statistical significance can be issue because only 5 plots were examined.
3) Condition and size of branches that you collected should be described in detail. As you know, coleopteran community in
dead trees or dead branch strongly affected by wood condition such as the degree of decay. Therefore, criteria for colleting
branches is very important points in your work. Size of branches is needed to be described in “Material and Methods”.
Collection methods are also needed to be described in detail.
4) Analysis for emergence pattern of saproxylic beetles is not easy to follow. The emergence pattern of the beetle is
species-specific traits that are affected by environmental factors such as temperature. From Fig. 3 to Fig. 6, authors showed
emergence pattern of the beetle in family level. Almost species were collected less than 20 individuals and I thought that
emergence pattern analysis for these was meaningless. The emergence pattern analysis in response to different
temperatures for S. sexdentatum and T. impressum offers more information about changes in phenology of the saproxylic
beetles under the influence of climate change. Probably the emergence date was changed in response to different
temperature. This can be good points for your work. In addition, label of x-axis is needed to be changed from 1st to Jan.
etc.
5) Some expression of English is needed to be improved. For example, one of my suggestion is that “The study assesses
the effects of environmental traits~ “ in Abstracts is changed to “The aim of this study is to assess the effects of
environmental factors~”. English correction by native is necessary.
Author Response
Please, see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I read carefully and with interest the manuscript “Effects of environmental traits and landscape management on the biodiversity of saproxylic beetles in Mediterranean oaks forests” submitted by Ana M. Cárdenas and our colleagues, for publication in the Diversity Journal.
The authors investigated that is the effects of the environmental traits and landscape management on the biodiversity of saproxylic beetles of "dehesa" located in Sierra Morena Mountains.
This manuscript has a potential to be accepted. The introduction is a good background for the study, research questions are clearly stated, but some important points have to be clarified or fixed before we can proceed and a positive action can be taken:
Title: Please complete title with the study location (southern Iberian Peninsula).
Material and method: Please add more details about collected field materials (the branches was collected from the crown of the trees, or fallen branches on the ground? What is the average diameter of the branches at the thick end?
Lines 139-142: I understand that the all branches (indifferent of plot area) was grouped in four similar groups... Please detail how did you collect the insects that emerged from the branches of a certain species? What insects emerged from the branches from a tree species in a certain plot?
Lines 154-156: Please write the names of the families in normal text, not use the capital characters.
Data analysis: The statistical calculations used are efficient for this data type.
Results: In general, the results are well presented. But, according to the method, you determined the sex and the stage of development of the insects when they emerged from the branches. Please present the results related to these aspects.
Discussions:The discussions will be completed depending on the added results.
Author Response
"Please see the attachment."
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript was improved in many ways. Apparently, this manuscript showed that dry wood is source for saproxylic beetles and this is merit of the study. However, phenological response of saproxylic beetles should be analyzed in species level. Almost species emerged from dry wood less than 40 individuals and this value coincided only 10 individuals per temperature treatment. For phenological analysis, generally 30 individuals per temperature should be tested. Therefore, only two species (T. impressum and S. sexdentatum) are available for phenological analysis. So I strongly recommended re-analysis for phenology of the beetles and modification of fig. 3 to fig. 6.
Author Response
We fully agree with the reviewer that the number of emergencies at level of species is quite low and insufficient except for the two species he mentioned S. sexdentatum and T. impressum. As we justify in first round revision, precisely this was the reason we decided to carry out the analysis at higher taxonomic level.
Accepting the indication of the reviewer, in the newly revised version, Figures 3, 4,5, and 6 have been removed; new Figures 3 and 4, showing the temporal course of emergencies of S. sexdentatum and T. impressum in the different trials have been added.Consequently, the Results, subsection 3.4 and discussion sections have been conveniently modified (please see lines 274-287 and 365-379 respectively).
To give more clarity to the presentation of the data, all the biweekly emergency data obtained for each species in each trial have been included in tables 1-4 of Appendix 3 of the supplementary file.
The English text has been newly revised. In this sense, we should be very grateful if you would tell us what is are wrong so we can make the appropriate corrections.
We thank the reviewer for the comments that have contributed to improve the understanding of our manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
I think this manuscript should be published in its revised form!
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for improving our manuscript whit the comments made in round 1 of revision
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is improved for publication
Lines in Fig. 4 are not clear because the lines overlapped. And legends of Fig. 3 and 4 are needed to be changed to “Emergence pattern of species name from January to July”. In Fig., Y axis title is changed to be “Number of individuals” and x axis title is needed to be modified. Legends in Figs. are changed to be actual temperature rather than T1, T2, T3 and T4.
Author Response
Limit values in the Y axis have restricted to 0-100 to make evident the gap in lines
Text in legends of Fig. 3 and 4 have been changed to “Emergence pattern of species name from January to July”
Y axis title in Figs.3 and 4 has been changed to be “Number of individuals” and X axis title has been changed to be “Emergence pattern from January to July”
Legends in Figs 3 and 4 have been modified to be actual temperature: 20ºC; 23ºC; 25 ºC and 18ºC
