Environmental Factors Affecting Amphibian Communities in River Basins of the Southern Apennines

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper reports results on relation between environmental factors (including presence of fish species and otter) and amphibian species in Sila, Calabria region, Italy. The comprehensive data were obtained from 8 river basins, 17 sampling stations, 87 transects (appr. 135m each; two repeated inspections per transects in April). The most valuable results are for 3 species: R. italica, R. dalmatina, B, bufo. The number of confirmed significant interrelations is not high but overall study seems to be quite accurate and prepared carefully. The paper may be interesting for international audience. I will be happy to see this paper published in Diversity.

General comments:

• the title of the MS is about “lotic habitats” but 33 out of 87 transects are isolated pools and ponds… Are they part of river beds? It seems as those isolated water bodies are lentic. In that case, the title about “river basins” may be more correct for this paper.
• Based on comprehensive data from literature, including European part of Russia, the conclusion about non-significant role of fish seems to be unproven. I did not find data on fish and otter in Supplementary materials... It is difficult to check the appropriate conclusions concerning fish-amphibian interactions. On the other hand, authors proposed some possible explanations in Discussion section…

Specific comments:

• measurements of illumination depends on time of a day and weather. This was not reflected in results and discussion. However I do not exclude that Calabria in April is very sunny region and most measures were conducted under similar conditions
• please, formulate your conclusions for value of earlier marked territories of Special Protected Area of NP Sila, if exist
• numeration of references is shifted in the MS and have to be corrected. As example, reference [41] at line 90 have to be changed to [40]. Reference [51] at line 134 = [50]; [52] = [51]; [84] = [85] etc

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

 The manuscript investigates important issues concerning amphibian ecology and environmental interactions. The research was well planned and carried out, and provides interesting results. The manuscript is also well written and organized.

However, there are few minor things that need to be corrected prior to the acceptance of the manuscript. In the abstract (line23) why do you say anurans and bufonids, and you do not mention caudates? In the keywords, remove “lotic habitats” as this is already mentioned in the title. In the line 60, replace on the 20^th century to of.

In Materials and methods section you do not mention monitoring of frog calls as a field method, but you add it in the supplemental data. And also, replace the word singing by calling. As well, description of tree and shrub cover categories are missing so please add this.

In the results section, it is not very clear how you calculated/determined detectability of each of the species. Please, explain a bit more. In the line 194- you start a sentence with “they” but it is not very clear (not until you finish the sentence) to what this refers to. In the line 198 you use English species names, but you do not mention them before, so I suggest to add these names next to the Latin ones.

In Figure 2 you mention black arrows, but they are not visible. There are only blue arrows provided. In the line 219- spell out full genus name since it is the beginning of the sentence.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Environmental conditions in spawning waters are determined by a variety of abiotic and biotic factors. They are the most significant and therefore limiting in the selection of breeding sites and spawning grounds for amphibians. For conservation of the various amphibian populations it is necessary to establish an ecological optimum of specific species. The presented manuscript is dedicated to the study has been conducted in a wide range of environmental conditions typical for the of the Appennine Peninsula. On the basis of the method of multivariate statistics, the main environmental factors significantly affecting the choice of spawning grounds by different types of amphibians: illumination and shore type.

Remark. The potential impact of predators on the state of the population cannot be denied, especially in the presence of a possible invasion of batrachophages, for example, American mink (Filip'echev et al., 2016) and rotana firebrands (Fayzulin, 2021). Or indicate that these factors are unlikely for the study area or for the surveyed watercourses.

Literature sources recommended for analysis, on the influence of factors in Eastern Europe (Korzikov, Aleksanov, 2018).

Note.

Korzikov, V. A. On some factors driving the presence of amphibians in water bodies of the Upper Oka Basin (Central Russia) / V. A. Korzikov, V. V. Aleksanov // Nature Conservation Research. – 2018. – Vol. 3, No. S1. – P. 110-119. – DOI 10.24189/ncr.2018.059

Faizulin, A. I. Impact Assessment of the Amur Sleeper Perccottus glenii Dybowski, 1877 on Amphibians in Samara Oblast / A. I. Faizulin // IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 818, Togliatti, April 28-30, 2021. – Bristol: IOP Publishing, 2021. – P. 12009. – DOI 10.1088/1755-1315/818/1/012009.

Filip'echev, A. O. The American mink Neovison vison Schreber, 1777 (Carnivora, Mustelidae) in the floodplain and right-shore ecosystems of the Volgograd water reservoir: Seasonal changes in its spatial structure, feeding, and temporal activity / A. O. Filip'echev, A. V. Belyachenko, A. A. Savonin // . – 2016. – Vol. 43, No. 10. – P. 1407-1415. – DOI 10.1134/S1062359016100046.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf