A Comparative Analysis of Island vs. Mainland Arthropod Communities in Coastal Grasslands Belonging to Two Distinct Regions: São Miguel Island (Azores) and Mainland Portugal

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper present an interestig study comparing the arthropods communities in island and mainland in Portugal, the results gave important informantion to biogeographical studies and also to the island biogeography theory and to understand colonization patterns. There are some suggested references that can be useful to the authors. The main recomendation is considered analyze the beta diversity with the nessted and turnover species, that can be useful to the discussionn and conclussions. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

First of all, I would like to thank you again for the work you did in reviewing our article.

We tried to do our best to improve the quality of the article, trying to follow your recommendations.

Best regards,

Renato Calado

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This work is important and adds to the limited information it exists on the field. However, my general impression is that it can be considerably improved if the authors try to make a synthesis of the story and give more informative and insightful discussion of the results and more relevant conclusions. 

The most important comment is that the discussion reflects an effort to give some convincing explanation of the results found step by step, with no further comments on findings from other similar studies. This would make the discussion far more interesting. 

In the first paragraph of the discussion it is said that the lower numbers of species in the azorean coastline is related to the poor and disarmonic communities expected to be found on island systems. However, the diversity metrics and the eveness do not suggest such poorness or disarmony. It is still not well explained why, although there is a big difference between numbers, the metrics comparison does not support a statistically important variation.

The second paragraph is rather difficult to follow and perhaps needs more analysis. For example, what is regional diverity and spatial processes, and then disturbance regimes? These findings should receive more attention I think...

The last paragraph should be shortened (see comments on the text).

Lastly, the conclusions are mainly dedicated to a discussion about the loss of species, the effect of alien species and of anthopogenic activities on the fauna of a region. But all those seem a bit irrelevant to the findings of this work since there has been no focus on the compositional differences, or on alien or exotic species taht would not be expected in the Azores. 

It is therefore recommended that the data provided here are better presented and synthetically treated, also with respect to comparative literature, to improve the quality of the discussion and conclusions.

Other comments may be found on the text

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are many small mistakes throughout the text. I tried to detect most and suggest corrections but a revision by an english native speaking reader would be important

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

First of all, I would like to thank you again for the work you did in reviewing our article.

We tried to do our best to improve the quality of the article, trying to follow your recommendations.

Best regards,

Renato Calado

Author Response File: Author Response.docx