Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments to the authors [3100246]

The present study is about “Invasive glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) has a weak impact on native understory plant and saprophagous macroarthropod communities in a wet deciduous woodland”.

 

The manuscript has many flows, and error, which needs to be fixed. I have listed some of these in the specific comments below, although the list is not exhaustive:

 

Specific comments:

 

Title- The title needs a modification. The title looks like a sentence.

 

Introduction

What is “Successful invasive alien plants species”? correct it.

L33-34 needs rephrase.

L54- “The resource specialization hypothesis”?

L63-Pl add. spp.

 

Method

L118- F. alnus should be italic

L121- m2 into m²

L186; 197 Check the botanical name for italic; such kind of tiny mistakes are observed throughout the Ms, so correct it.

 

Results

saprophagous macroarthropods; Explain it in the text before writing it.

Figures are not clear.

Tables- Please indicate the abbreviations details below the table.

 

Discussion

The discussion part of the study must be interesting to get study well, have a perfect follow and coherence, which is missing from the section. A rigorous revision of the manuscript is suggested.

 

Conclusion

Pl write a separate conclusion from your findings.

 

References- Too much references, but the no current literature were cited. The below listed references might help to improve the manuscript.

 1.      Rawat Y.S., Singh, G.S. and Tekleyohannes, A.T. (2024). Editorial: Impacts of invasive plant management on forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. Front. For. Glob. Change 7: 1403746. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1403746

2.      Rawat, Y.S., Singh, G.S. and Tekleyohannes, A.T. (2024). Optimising the beneficiation of invasive alien plants biomass in South Africa. Sustainability 16: 1876. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16051876

 

I strongly suggest authors to revise the manuscript accordingly and the comments given above.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Its okay !

Author Response

Comment: We noticed that there are many repetitive parts between the sentences in the
manuscript and your master's thesis. We have attached a duplicate check
report. Please modify these sentences and reduce the repetition. Thank you
for your understanding.

Response: Indeed, there are some similarities between my submitted master’s thesis and the submitted article given that our university authorizes the submission of article-based theses. It is typical that the article continues to evolve and improve following the initial friendly peer-review of the thesis jury and multiple revisions of all co-authors. That said, while interpretations become refined, there is evidently little change to sections like the methods which remain the same. We have continued to make changes to improve the quality of the manuscript, but there will be inevitably some repetition between the thesis and this article as they are the same study.

 

Comments of reviewer 1

Comment 1: The manuscript has many flows, and error, which needs to be fixed. I have listed some of these in the specific comments below, although the list is not exhaustive:

Response: We would like to thank you for the constructive feedback and the opportunity to improve the manuscript.  We have re-read the manuscript and modified the text to improve flow and remove grammar and typo errors.

Comment 2: The title needs a modification. The title looks like a sentence.

Response: Message-driven titles are encouraged by a majority of journals. If the editor wishes a descriptive title, we could consider modifying but prefer to maintain a message-driven title as it is more informative. This being said we reduced the title by five words by removing ‘in a wet deciduous woodland’ as it adds little to the main message.  By doing so we hope that we remove ‘the sentence’ feeling and focus on the main message

Comment 3: What is “Successful invasive alien plants species”? correct it.

Response: We agree that this term could be more precise. We therefore decided to delete ‘’successful’’, because by definition, an invasive species is inherently successful, or established, in its new environment (L35).  We also added a definition of IAPS to guide the reader in our context.

Comment 4: L33-34 needs rephrase.

Response: We reformulated the sentence by adding a ‘potentially’’ and ‘’IAPS, as opposed to established exotic plants species, have strong competitive effects, […].’’ We want to have emphasis on the fact that IAPS are well, and globally, studied.(L37-L39)

Comment 5: L54- “The resource specialization hypothesis”?

Response: We have reformulated this sentence to clarify (L61): ‘’A decrease in resource diversity can lead to a decrease in consumer diversity [24], also referred to as the Resource specialization Hypothesis, whether taxonomically or functionally [25].’’

Comment 6: L63-Pl add. spp.

Response: We added a period after ‘’spp”. (L66, L69, L400, L401)

Comment 7: L118- F. alnus should be italic

Response: We modified ‘’F. alnus’’ to be in italics

Comment 8: L121- m2 into m²

Response: We changed ‘’m2’’ to m²

Comment 9: L186; 197 Check the botanical name for italic; such kind of tiny mistakes are observed throughout the Ms, so correct it.

Response: We revised all botanical names and apologized for this oversight.  F. alnus was corrected in italics 4 times (in addition to L118, mentioned above) throughout the manuscript (L199, L211, L219, L220).

Lespedeza cuneata (L393) was also corrected.

 

Results

Comment 10:  saprophagous macroarthropods; Explain it in the text before writing it.

Response: We added specific characteristics of saprophagous macroarthropods (in bold) in the following sentence (L97 to L102):

‘’Saprophagous macroarthropods, (detritus eaters larger than 5 mm) such as millipedes and woodlice, were selected because they are known to be sensitive to disturbance [45, 48] and are the first line of organic matter shredders in the brown food web playing an essential role in the decomposition of organic matter [42, 49-51]. Despite the importance of saprophagous macroarthropods to ecosystem function [42-45], no study has previously assessed their relationship with F. alnus. ‘’

Comment 11: Figures are not clear.

Response: We have added more details in the figure legend to clarify the RDA figures.

Figure 2 – we added ‘’cover percentage’’, ‘’environmental variables’’, ‘’represented by dots’’ and ‘’for each plot’’.

Figure 3 – we added ‘’average abundance’’, ‘’environmental variables’’, ‘’represented by dots’’, ‘’For each plot”.

Comment 12: Tables- Please indicate the abbreviations details below the table.

Response: Table 4 was modified. All abbreviations were changed to the complete word, as on reflection we judged that abbreviations were not necessary.

Comment 13: The discussion part of the study must be interesting to get study well, have a perfect follow and coherence, which is missing from the section. A rigorous revision of the manuscript is suggested.

Response: The discussion has been revised to improve flow and coherence.

Comment 14: Pl write a separate conclusion from your findings.

Response: We added a conclusion (L468).

Comment 15 : References- Too much references, but the no current literature were cited. The below listed references might help to improve the manuscript.

1. Rawat Y.S., Singh, G.S. and Tekleyohannes, A.T. (2024). Editorial: Impacts of invasive plant management on forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. Front. For. Glob. Change 7: 1403746. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1403746
2. Rawat, Y.S., Singh, G.S. and Tekleyohannes, A.T. (2024). Optimising the beneficiation of invasive alien plants biomass in South Africa. Sustainability 16: 1876. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16051876

Response: We thank the reviewer for these suggestions. If editors wish that we use less references, we will take remove some of them as needed.

We added the suggested reference ‘’ Rawat Y.S., Singh, G.S. and Tekleyohannes, A.T. (2024). Editorial: Impacts of invasive plant management on forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. Front. For. Glob. Change 7: 1403746. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1403746’’ (L51), because it supports the importance of assessing the impacts of IAPS in forest ecosystems in order to understand them better, which is coherent with our main research objective.

Although the second proposed paper is of high value , this paper does not fit in the scope of our study, which focuses on the interaction of an IAPS with ecological communities.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study of the effects of the abundance of the introduced shrub Frangula alnus on the community composition of native plant species abundances and diversity, in addition to those of saprophagous macroarthropods, is properly and thoroughly conducted. The finding of Frangula alnus abundance essentially having no effect on native plant and saprophagous macroarthropod abundance and diversity is important, in my opinion, and essentially surprising given what I see as a strong bias by the authors of entertaining only ecosystem disservices of invasive alien plant species (IAPS). Mention is never made of ecosystem services of IAPS and any plant ecology literature suggesting IAPS may not necessarily cause a reduction in native species abundance and diversity. Regardless, the paper is excellent, well conducted, interesting to read, and of general importance.

My main concern has to do with the tone of the manuscript, which is highly biased against introduced plant species as if they truly are invasive and always have a detrimental effect on native biodiversity. For example:

The end of the Abstract should end like the last sentence of the Discussion, which could be reworded and reported as something like "The abundance of IAPS does not necessarily cause a reduction in native species diversity." That last sentence of the Discussion (lines 440-442) is really important but overall the tone of the manuscripts renders that assertion weak and easily overlooked.

The Introduction uses the biased name of invasive alien plant species (IAPS) and goes onto assume only ecosystem disservices and no ecosystem services of IAPS. The Introduction is biased in favor of finding negative results (yet no significant negative influences were detected and this important result is weakly sold to the reader). For example, is the literature referring to allelopathy in Rhamnus cathartica really representative of this species? All the examples of the supposed detrimental effects of IAPS could be exemplified by native plant species or else not be related to IAPS. That is, the abundance of IAPS might well be a symptom rather than cause of ecosystem degradation including total arthropod abundance (i.e., the Litt et al reference). In this regard, the mention of a long history of peatland exploitation of the study area (lines 104-105) might explain Frangula abundance rather than the ability of this introduced shrub to invade (this long and impactful disturbance history should be expanded a bit to give the reader a fair background that includes why Frangula alnus might be present and abundant for reasons other than its ability to invade).

In the Results section, other invasive species are reported from the study plots, Phragmites australis and Galeopsis ladanum. Yet these species are uncommon in the area. Why call them invasive? Also, Phragmities australis ssp. americanum is native and has all the attributes listed by the authors of Phragmites australis ssp. australis, which is native to Eurasia and is supposedly invasive in North America. To what subspecies of Phragmites australis are the authors referring? This point should be addressed throughout the paper where Phragmites australis is mentioned.

The Redundancy analyses shows that the abundance of Frangula alnus essentially had no effect on native species abundances and diversity, plant and saprophagous macroarthropods. So, statements such as "a trend towards lower abundance" of saprophagous macroarthropods (line 300-301) should not be made.

Mention is made of two exotic macroarthropods, one of which is an abundant woodlice species. These two exotic species are treated by the authors and their study design as if they are ecologically equivalent to the native species of saprophagous macroathropods. They probably are ecologically equivalent so the authors should state why they do not include in their study design the influence of abundance of these exotic macroarthropods on native macroarthropod abundance and diversity.

In summary, this is an excellent and well design study that should contribute to the literature that shows ecological equivalence of introduced and native species. As it is written, this important result may well be overlooked or considered not compelling.

Author Response

Comment 1:  Mention is never made of ecosystem services of IAPS and any plant ecology literature suggesting IAPS may not necessarily cause a reduction in native species abundance and diversity. […] My main concern has to do with the tone of the manuscript, which is highly biased against introduced plant species as if they truly are invasive and always have a detrimental effect on native biodiversity.

Response : We agree with the reviewer that many introduced (non-native) species are not invasive and constitute important novel ecosystems across the planet that provide many important ecosystem services to people. We have now specified this on L34-L36 in the introduction, to acknowledge that exotic plant species and IAPS have different effects on plant species communities. We explain explicitly that only a subset of non-native species is invasive but that these invasions are one of the top five drivers of biodiversity loss and species extinctions worldwide.

(L34) We added the IPBES definition (in bold) of an invasive alien plant species (IAPS): ‘’Invasive alien plants species (IAPS) are defined as exotic plant species that are successfully established in a novel environment and are causing negative impacts on biodiversity, local ecosystems, human health and ecosystemic services [1].’’

(L38) IAPS, as opposed to established exotic plant species, have successful mechanisms and strong competitive effects, including advantageous reproductive mechanisms, earlier and later growth phenology, no (or few) natural predators and the capacity to alter biotic and abiotic conditions in invaded ecosystems [1, 5, 6].

In re-reading the introduction we searched for terms that could leave the reviewer with a feeling that the tone was negative.  We removed potentially pejorative adjectives like ‘alarming’ (line 79) which may have left the reviewer with the sentiment of a biased tone.

Comment 2 : The end of the Abstract should end like the last sentence of the Discussion, which could be reworded and reported as something like "The abundance of IAPS does not necessarily cause a reduction in native species diversity." That last sentence of the Discussion (lines 440-442) is really important but overall, the tone of the manuscripts renders that assertion weak and easily overlooked. The Introduction uses the biased name of invasive alien plant species (IAPS) and goes onto assume only ecosystem disservices and no ecosystem services of IAPS.

Response: Please note that the term “invasive alien species” is the chosen and recognized term by the United Nations designating non-native species that are invasive and leading to biodiversity loss worldwide. We situate our understanding of this term by citing the latest IPBES (Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) report published in 2024 on IAS that we highly recommend for a recent integrated assessment.

We have now modified the two last sentences of the abstract as follows (L26 and L28): ‘’Despite several decades of F. alnus invasion at the scale of our study site, the consequences on the selected indicator taxa were overall relatively small, suggesting that the magnitude of effects is variable. We suggest that further investigation at a larger scale should be performed to evaluate the effect of F. alnus on a broad diversity of indicators and understand any context-dependency.’’

 

Comment 3.1: The Introduction is biased in favor of finding negative results (yet no significant negative influences were detected and this important result is weakly sold to the reader).

Response: We remind the reviewer that at the end of the first paragraph we conclude that the effect of different invasive species should be evaluated --- ‘it is important to understand which species pose the greatest’ threat’.

Comment 3.2: We therefore state at the outset of the introduction that effects should be evaluated.  The notion of a bias in favor of finding certain results is questionable. For example, is the literature referring to allelopathy in Rhamnus cathartica really representative of this species?

Response: We reformulated the first sentences (L34-L40) by adding a definition of IAPS and added ‘’Some’’ (L44) to suggest that these examples are results demonstrating that some IAPS are causing disturbances. The introduction is meant to situate the reader within the contest that IAPS are one of the biggest threats to biodiversity and to justify our articulated hypotheses, whereas the discussion clearly shows the nuances in interpretation that are important to take into account after considering our results. Allelopathy is only one of the mechanisms by which the scientific literature has identified negative effects of Rhamnus cathartica.

Comment 4: All the examples of the supposed detrimental effects of IAPS could be exemplified by native plant species or else not be related to IAPS. That is, the abundance of IAPS might well be a symptom rather than cause of ecosystem degradation including total arthropod abundance (i.e., the Litt et al reference).

Response: Thank you, yes, it is true that there are possible other drivers of change that are unrelated to the community composition of the vegetation that may be contributing to structuring saprophagous arthropod communities which we did not measure in our study. We mention this L452 of the discussion. However, please note that there are also studies showing how vegetation can be an important driver for structuring arthropod communities and this was the justification of the hypothesis we sought to test. Although the ability to invade is often a result of disturbance (i.e. a symptom) if these species impede or reduce indigenous species then they are also a cause of ‘degradation’.  The two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Comment 5: In this regard, the mention of a long history of peatland exploitation of the study area (lines 104-105) might explain Frangula abundance rather than the ability of this introduced shrub to invade (this long and impactful disturbance history should be expanded a bit to give the reader a fair background that includes why Frangula alnus might be present and abundant for reasons other than its ability to invade). 

Response: Before peat extraction there is no documentation of Frangula alnus on the site. The abundance of this species has been expanding rapidly. Consistent with much scientific literature, we use the word invasion to describe the situation where a species that is not native to the site rapidly colonises and replaces indigenous species.  We recognise that disturbance is a mechanism by which invasive species rapidly colonise as we also acknowledge above. Thus the reviewer is correct that the peatland exploitation facilitated the establishment (i.e. Invasion) of F. alnus at the site as we mention explicitly on L115.  We use the term invasion in the sense of the USDA definition as per USDA definition,  an "invasive species" is a species that is:1) non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and, 2) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm and the convention on biodiversity - Invasive alien species (IAS) are species whose introduction and/or spread outside their natural past or present distribution threatens biological diversity’’.

Comment 6: In the Results section, other invasive species are reported from the study plots, Phragmites australis and Galeopsis ladanum. Yet these species are uncommon in the area. Why call them invasive?

Response : Reviewer’s statement is correct for G. ladanum, as it is an exotic species, but not classified as invasive in Canada. We corrected the statement (L252) by changing ‘invasive alien’’ by ‘’exotic’’. Nonetheless, Phragmites australis ssp. australis is recognised by the Quebec Ministry of the Environment as invasive. P. australis ssp. australis was once uncommon in the sampled plots but is now abundant in the studied area. There are many projects to confine and reduce Phragmites australis ssp. australis as it is replacing many indigenous species.  We specified this subspecies throughout the manuscript (L42, L253, Table 2).

Comment 7: The Redundancy analyses shows that the abundance of Frangula alnus essentially had no effect on native species abundances and diversity, plant and saprophagous macroarthropods. So, statements such as "a trend towards lower abundance" of saprophagous macroarthropods (line 300-301) should not be made.

Response: Thank you for your rigour. Indeed, we should not discuss non significant trends and have removed this statement.

Comment 8: Mention is made of two exotic macroarthropods, one of which is an abundant woodlice species. These two exotic species are treated by the authors and their study design as if they are ecologically equivalent to the native species of saprophagous macroathropods. They probably are ecologically equivalent so the authors should state why they do not include in their study design the influence of abundance of these exotic macroarthropods on native macroarthropod abundance and diversity.

Response: Thank you for this suggestion which would make a very interesting but different study. Recent literature criticizing ecological studies states that hypotheses should be developed and put into depositories and not be created post-hoc. Our initial hypotheses were on the effect of Frangula alnus on native understory plant species and saprophagous macroarthropods.  We were not aware of the presence of these woodlice until after the study. Additionally, the non-native macroarthropods are not considered as invasive and thus not of interest for a study on the effect of invasive species.

Comment 9: In summary, this is an excellent and well design study that should contribute to the literature that shows ecological equivalence of introduced and native species. As it is written, this important result may well be overlooked or considered not compelling.

Response: Thank you for the encouraging words. We hope that the suggested revisions have clarified the distinction between non-native and IAPS in our terminology but also that our concluding message regarding variability in the strength of effects of IAPS and the importance to better understand context-dependency to better assess threats is now clearly communicated.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments to the authors [3100246]

The present study is about “Invasive glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) has a weak impact on native understory plant and saprophagous macroarthropod communities in a wet deciduous woodland”.

 

Authority of the species are needed to add for each species. Editorial is also needed for the manuscript to improve the quality.

Clarity is needed in the tables and figures.

 

Specific comments:

 

Title- The title needs a modification. The title still looks like a sentence so modify it and add the authority in the species. Please take the comments seriously, otherwise do not waste the time of the reviewers. How about this title “Impact of Invasive glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus….authority) on native understory plant and saprophagous macroarthropod communities in a wet deciduous woodland” Whether is weak or strong, pl. discuss it in the results, discussion part and conclusion.

 

Introduction

L54- “The resource specialization hypothesis”?  Explain it before you write it. The audience may not know what is “The resource specialization hypothesis”.

 

 

I have suggested previously that a rigorous revision of the manuscript is needed but authors have not taken it seriously. Firstly, author should understand the crux and core values of the manuscript. Secondly, the results and discussion part should be strong that validates your findings. Finally, they should know what they have done and how it is to be presented and its implications for the IAPs management and so on.

 

Conclusion

“In conclusion, our study demonstrates that F. alnus negatively influences understory 460 plant diversity but that this effect is small.” How it is small? Explained it with authenticity? How did you quantify it as “small”? Explain it in the results and discussion parts.

 

In the first review, I have suggested that write a separate conclusion from your findings. But authors have not incorporated the comment.

 

The references are not in the format of the journal, so correct it.

 

 

I strongly suggest authors to revise the manuscript accordingly and the comments given above.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The editorial is suggested for the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Here are the responses to your comments for round 2. Please note that some of them were already addressed in the first round. Nonetheless, we value your input on this new critique, and we included modifications on several pertinent comments.
 

Comments from reviewer 1, round 2

Comment 1: The present study is about “Invasive glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus) has a weak impact on native understory plant and saprophagous macroarthropod communities in a wet deciduous woodland”. 

Response: Please note that the reviewer cites the original title here. The title was changed in the revised version and shortened to feel less sentence-like as explained in the detailed point by point response letter.  This was a request of the reviewer in the original review and was addressed as requested.  The track changes version clearly shows all of the modifications, and we question if the reviewer looked by mistake at the original version and not the modified version?

Comment 2: Authority of the species are needed to add for each species. Editorial is also needed for the manuscript to improve the quality.

Response: We added then authority of each species first mentions in the manuscript using the International Plant Name Index (IPNI) and World Flora Online (WFO) for understory plants and different cited articles for saprophagous macroarthropods. Abbreviations of authority were added in table 2 (understory plants) and table 4 (saprophagous macroarthropods).

Authorities were selected based on the most recent published work and used in north American context. We added this process in the methodology section.

Comment 3: Clarity is needed in the tables and figures.

Response: Manuscript, tables and figures were all edited according to comments in revision. Explicit detail was provided in our detailed point by point letter of response.

If indeed the reviewer consulted the revised version and still has concerns, more explicit feedback would be needed to understand where further revision is needed.

Comment 4.1: The title needs a modification. The title still looks like a sentence so modify it and add the authority in the species. Please take the comments seriously, otherwise do not waste the time of the reviewers.

Response: Respectfully, all comments were taken very seriously. Please see the detailed point by point answer provided in letter of response. The authority of the species has now been added to the title. The practice of adding the authority to the title varies depending on the journal and hence we had only mentioned authority in first sentence of the abstract.

Comment 4.2: How about this title “Impact of Invasive glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus….authority) on native understory plant and saprophagous macroarthropod communities in a wet deciduous woodland” Whether is weak or strong, pl. discuss it in the results, discussion part and conclusion.

Response: Message-driven titles are encouraged in the majority of high impact journals. Therefore, we decided to keep the title we chose after the first comments round.  Nonetheless, if the journal editors wish to use a different title, we can use the title proposed by the reviewer.

Comment 5:  L54- “The resource specialization hypothesis”?  Explain it before you write it. The audience may not know what is “The resource specialization hypothesis”.

 Response: Please see the detailed point by point answer provided in letter of response. The manuscript was already revised to explain this concept (L61).

Comment 6.1: I have suggested previously that a rigorous revision of the manuscript is needed but authors have not taken it seriously. Firstly, author should understand the crux and core values of the manuscript.

Response: Respectfully, all comments were taken very seriously. Please see the detailed point by point answer provided in letter of response. Explicit detail would be necessary to address these comments any further.

Comment 6.2: Secondly, the results and discussion part should be strong that validates your findings. Finally, they should know what they have done and how it is to be presented and its implications for the IAPs management and so on.

Response: We agree that IAPS management is very important and is key in order to address invasions by exotic species. But our research puts biodiversity and community ecology on the forefront, which we are convinced is as important as management. We intended to use a point of view that is less anthropocentric.

Please note that the second reviewer (who provided a very explicit and detailed review of our work engaging with highly specific results and interpretation that were addressed in the submitted revision) emphasized the overall excellent quality and clarity of our contribution. A senior editor’s opinion would be needed to reconcile these contrasting opinions of reviewers.

Comment 7: “In conclusion, our study demonstrates that F. alnus negatively influences understory 460 plant diversity but that this effect is small.” How it is small? Explained it with authenticity? How did you quantify it as “small”? Explain it in the results and discussion parts.

Response: Throughout the results and discussion, it is shown with the RDA results that the effects of F. alnus are statistically significant, but percentage of each axis show that F. alnus have a very weak effect on the variation of species distribution across the sampling sites. We also observed a similar tendency with all linear regressions on diversity indices: we obtain p-values that are significant, but R² are relatively still low for Richness, Shannon-Weiner and abundance indices.

Nonetheless, it is true that our scale for ‘’weak’’ was not properly mentioned. We used Cohen (1988)  (L303 and L371) to guide us into what a ‘’weak’’, ‘’moderate’’ and ‘’strong’’ R² in ecology, which brought a little modification to our results, mostly for the understory plant species. Nonetheless, our results are still not showing strong effects on diversity of both taxa groups.

We also decided to remove this sentence (L303-305), as it may indeed cause an ambiguous message: ‘’Our model predicted that an increase of one F. alnus individual m-² was associated with a loss of 78 % measured by the effective number of species, a loss of 12 % measured by Shannon-Weiner, and 5 % as measured by evenness indices (Table 3).’’ We also added ‘’

The same modifications were made for saprophagous macroathropod results. We retrieved this sentence (L365-367): ‘’As showed by the estimates in our linear model, the effective number of species decreased by 19.5 % when F. alnus increased by one individual per m² (Table 5).’’ We also added a sentence and reference explaining why results are weak (L3670-L369): ‘’Similarly to understory plants, we observe a decrease in the diversity indexes, but variation is weakly explained by the density of F. alnus [78]’’. We hope these modifications will provide more clarity in their interpretation.

Comment 8: In the first review, I have suggested that write a separate conclusion from your findings. But authors have not incorporated the comment.

This comment was explicitly addressed, and an entirely new paragraph was added. Please read the detailed point by point answer provided in letter of response. In order to make this paragraph more explicit, the title “Conclusion” was now added.

Comment 9: The references are not in the format of the journal, so correct it.

We apologize for this evident mistake. All references were corrected and adjusted.

Comment 10: The editorial is suggested for the manuscript.

 

In addition to the above comments, we corrected spelling, grammatical and spacing errors that we found in our manuscript.

As also mentioned by the reviewer, it would be important that the editorial board get involved in the process further on.

We would like to thank, once again, all the people involved in this publication process.   Hopefully, all reviewers, editors and authors will end satisfied with the paper and the progresses made in this process. We are free to answer any further questions and comments you may have.

Sincerely,

 

Mx. Roberge, M. Juette, Dr. Handa and Dr. Kneeshaw.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx