Biodiversity and Stage of the Art of Three Pollinators Taxa in Mexico: An Overview

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It was a very interesting read, and other than minor spelling mistakes I have nothing to add here. I consider this work very valuable, especially now, when many pollinator species are in decline. It is high time to asses this phenomenon and start tackling it.

Author Response

evision comments:

General remarks

The reviewers require adding and analyze more information, for example, spatial and temporal patterns of the species, methodology of sampled protected areas, and the impact of this protected areas, especially if we want to use the IPBES acronym in the tittle.

In this manuscript we are focusing on getting to know the diversity and stage of knowledge of bees, hummingbirds, and pollinator bats in Mexico in the last 20 years as well as discuss the relevant public policies related to biodiversity and conservation of pollinators in Mexico.

We consider the recommendations made by the reviewers to be correct and highly relevant with respect to spatial and temporal patterns of the species, methodology of sampled protected areas, and the impact of this protected areas. However, due to the large number of species reported in this manuscript and the lack of information on many of these species, we decided to focus on an overview trying to show the importance of knowing the diversity present in Mexico, which is reflected in cases such as hummingbirds and bats where the diversity is well known, which has allowed to generate spatial and temporal patterns of these species (reported in other studies).

Therefore, we consider change the title of the manuscript to “Biodiversity and stage of knowledge of three pollinators taxa in Mexico: an overview” and focus on the stage of knowledge of bees, hummingbirds, and pollinator bats in Mexico in the last 20 years.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript tries to estimate the state of knowledge on three pollinators taxa and to explore the public policies relevant to pollinators conservation in Mexico. The object of the manuscript is important and try to cover an important aspect related to the decline of pollinators. Unfortunately, in the present form, the paper is not worthy of publication for several critical points.

• The choice of the three pollinator taxa (bees, hummingbirds and bats) does not consider important pollinators as flies, moths or butterflies (see for example Rader et al., 2020, Annual Review of Entomology). In addition, authors does not justify their choice. Consequently the choice made in the manuscript seems to be a clear bias towards more common (bees) and flashy (hummingbirds) pollinators.
• Material and Methods are incomplete and does not allow to estimate if results are valid. For example:
  1. Authors do not make explicit the selection criteria used in Google Scholar and PubMed.
  2. In Material and Methods authors do not talk about iNaturalist and GBIF that are relevant in the results and discussion.
  3. Why the selection period cover 20 years (2001-2021)? This may be correct but should be explain the reason.
• Figure 1B. Why authors decided to pool publications in five years periods? I think that a number of publications in each year would be better also to evaluate if there are anomalies in specific years. The statement made by authors at lines 89-90 (“the scientific contributions made on bees and bats have decreased compared to 89 previous years,”) is not correct for bees; the decline of publications in period 2016-20 is only in reference to the period 2011-2015, which could be considered as abnormal (but a publication / year would allow a better evaluation).
• A large part of the manuscript is occupied by table 3; is it necessary? Authors comments the table only as total number of species and morphospecies. I think that some additional information should be added to the table, for example the cleptoparasite genera, the oligolectic/polilectic genera, ecc.
• For bees a large part of the discussion is based on morphospecies, which is correct since taxonomic difficulties associated with this taxon. However since 40 % of species reported in the Tab. 3 and in the Results are morphospecies is difficult to have a correct idea about the real biodiversity of this taxon in Mexico. The figure given by authors (Lines 176-177) is a very approximative estimate.
• Paragraph 3.5 should be implemented with more data. For example authors stated that “CONANP comprises 182 areas … “ and “Bees, hummingbirds, and pollinators bats have been studied in these areas”. This is a very important point but more information are necessary: all areas have been sampled? With the same methodology? There is a single, national project or different local projects? Bees, hummingbirds and bats are a subsample of a larger pollinator taxa? Are some data available about these samplings?
• Authors does not give information about the rule of the three taxa as pollinators. Are there some researches in which the potential of the three taxa as pollinators has been estimated and compared in Mexico? The list of potential pollinators present in an ecosystem is important, but it is also necessary to have some basic research which compare different impact of pollinators.

Some additional minor corrections/suggestions have been reported in the attached manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Revision comments:

• Line 37, 38. The reference and few examples of managed pollinators were included.

• Line 62. Different paragraph.

• Line 63-71. The justification for choosing three pollinator taxa was included.

• Line 70, 71. The reason of the selection period cover 20 years (2001-2021) was included.

• Line 77. The word “status” was deleted.

• Line 82-98. The section of materials and methods was extended.

• Line 104-107. The statement was corrected for bees with respect to the period of publications decline.

• Line 113. The figure 1B was changed to observe each year.

• Line 121. The word “specific” was deleted.

• Line 197-200. The statement was rewritten.

• Line 201. It is difficult to standardize figure 3 as in figure 4 due to the number of genera (128), supplement 3 was included with the total number of genera.

• Line 285-288. The statement was rewritten.

• The table “Total number of genera and species reported in scientific studies focused on bee biodiversity in Mexico from January 2001–October 2020” was removed from the manuscript and added as “Supplemental table 1”

Reviewer 3 Report

sustainability-1240634-peer-review-v1

The manuscript addresses the issue of data availability and data utilization concerning three major pollinator taxa in Mexico. The data utilization aspect focuses on conservation, with cursory reference to ecosystem services.

Biodiversity and ecosystem services are core aspects of the discussion about sustainability, and pollination has received particular attention in this context over the past years. Taking stock of what data are available, what has been done with these data so far, what gaps exist, and what should be done in order to close the gaps are important activities. The topic of the paper is thus suitable for the journal Sustainability. However, major revisions are necessary before it can be recommended for publication.

General remarks

The data that were collated for the study - presence of species extracted from scientific studies and web platforms - should offer potential for more informative analyses than those that are currently presented in the manuscript. The methods section does not explain the way in which the databases were used - this information needs to be added. The records in the databases are probably georeferenced - the spatial information should be visualized and added to the maps showing the sites at which scientific studies were conducted. The spatial and temporal patterns in species presence data should be analyzed, and possible reasons for the patterns should be explored to answer the question 'what determines whether, where and when data on a particular taxon or functional group are collected and made accessible in articles or databases?'. This information is relevant for developing monitoring schemes that are a prerequisite for achieving the goals of IPBES.

The presence data should be used to analyze spatial patterns of diversity as far as possible. Species lists per location should be utilized to extract patterns of species richness; these patterns are likely influenced by survey effort that probably differs considerably across space and time, so this aspect should be addressed explicitly. Discussing the patterns in the light of previous studies should enable you to highlight with more detail how well the information in scientific studies and citizen science schemes reflects the actual distribution of diversity of the pollinator groups. This also relates to the discussion of monitoring schemes, see above.

The information on the conservation status currently does not go beyond what is available in national and international red data books. If conservation status is to be included in the paper, it needs to be embedded into a more detailed analysis of spatial/temporal patterns in the information available on pollinator diversity as outlined above. Leading questions could be e.g. 'Are pollinators that are considered threatened distributed in particular regions or habitats?' or 'Which characteristics do pollinator species have that are included in red data books, what kind of information would be needed to evaluate the conservation status of those species that are currently not included, and how much additional survey effort would be needed to collect this information?' This discussion needs to be linked to the policies and regulatory schemes that have been introduced to protect pollinators. Leading questions related to this topic include 'which policies have been effective in improving the conservation status of pollinators?' or 'Which characteristics do these policies have in common?'

The title suggests that the analysis presented is linked to IPBES. In its current form, the manuscript only mentions the IPBES pollinator assessment as a reference to underline the importance of pollinators and pollination. To justify the use of the IPBES acronym in the title, opportunities for using the data by various IPBES stakeholders should be discussed. The list of objectives that have been set for IPBES (https://ipbes.net/work-programme) can be used as a framework for this discussion.

Specific points

Some English language copy editing is required.

Line 15 ... pollinators have declined in occurrence ... -> ... pollinators have declined in abundance ...

Line 15 ... there is a lack of data ... -> This needs to be reworded: there is not a complete lack of data, but data are insufficient for certain purposes

Line 17 ... the analysis ... -> ... an analysis ...  Check the use of articles (the, a, an) throughout the manuscript

Line 18 Omit 'Here'

Line 20 - 27 The results, discussion and conclusion in the abstract need to be edited to reflect the major revisions as outlined in the general remarks above.

Line 37 ... there is a clear evidence ... -> ... there is clear evidence ...

Line 43 ... of the IPBES ... -> ... of IPBES ... (this may seem counterintuitive, but the acronym 'IPBES' is used as a proper noun; it therefore does not require an article)

Line 74 - 82 The section and materials and methods needs to be rewritten and extended considerably to cover all materials and methods that were used in the study. Suitable statistical methods to evaluate the results need to be added.

Line 107 Add scale bar and north arrow

Line 131 - 133 This sentence makes no sense. Reword.

Table 3 This table is too large and contains too little useful information. It should be moved to the appendix/supplementary material

Line 156 ... the fruits production ... -> ... fruit production ...

Line 158 non-endemic -> non-native

Line 167 ... like no other in the world -> Unspecific and exaggerated expressions like this are not to be used in scientific papers

Line 175 homogenization -> harmonization

Line 177 amount -> estimate

Figures 3, 4 and 5 Consider contrasting the number of occurrences obtained for different taxa between the different information sources (published papers, GBIF, iNaturalist; check if there is overlap in the data included in the different sources)

Line 183 ... it has been reported 58 hummingbird species ... -> ... 58 hummingbird species have been reported

Line 219 Table Table 5 No species numbers are presented

Author Response

Revision comments:

• Line 14, 15. The statement was reworded.

• Line 19. The word here was omitted.

• Line 19-28. The results, discussion and conclusion in the abstract was edited to reflect the major revisions as outlined in the general remarks.

• Line 38. The statement was reworded.

• Line 128. Scale bars and north arrow were added to the maps.

• Line 150. The statement was reworded.

• The table “Total number of genera and species reported in scientific studies focused on bee biodiversity in Mexico from January 2001–October 2020” was removed from the manuscript and added as “Supplemental table 1”

• Line 177. The statement was corrected …. The fruits production…> fruit production.

• Line 179. The statement was corrected …. Non-endemic…> non-native.

• Line 188. The statement was rewritten.

• Line 196. The statement was corrected …. homogenization…> harmonization.

• Line 198. The statement was corrected …. amount…> estimate.

• Line 205. The statement was corrected …. It has been reported 58 hummingbird species…> 58 hummingbird species have been reported.

• Line 244. The number of species was added to the table.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a resubmission of a previous interesting manuscipt about the knowledge of three pollinator taxa in Mexico. The new version has been improved and it seem to be worthy of publication even if some small improvements are still necessary.

In particular:

• In the previous version I underlined as the choice to exclude from the manuscript other important pollinators such as flies or butterflies was not justified. In the new version the authors have modified part of the introduction indicating that this justifies the choice of the three pollinator taxa. I think this part should be improved. At lines 69-72 authors underline as may cultivated plants are pollinated by bees and few by hummingbirds and bats, but they did not list, for example, the rule of flies as pollinators also in cultivated plants (e.g. Forcipomyia fly and cacao plants). I think that, since it is impossible to study all pollinators, authors decided to concentrate on taxa that are considered more important (bees) or showier (hummingbird). Since authors decided to use also citizen help (e.g. iNaturalist) this choice is correct, but should be explained, otherwise it seems that the three taxa are the only important pollinators.
• 1B. Now, using the number of papers / year the “decline” in bees research seem to be clearer. However, I suggest elaborating the histogram because from a graphic point of view it is not nice. For example, one solution may be to have only one bar for year, divided in different categories (bees, hummingbirds, bats).
• Section 3.5 This is a very important section which tries to answer the second objective of the paper (Lines 84-85 “to analyze the relevant public policies related to biodiversity and conservation of pollinators in Mexico”). I suggest improving this section. For example, authors stated “Bees, hummingbirds, and pollinator bats have been studied in these protected areas” (Lines 285-286), but there is any national project for the study of pollinators in these protected areas? There are any research projects with the objective to increase the knowledge of pollinators or only local projects not coordinated between them? Bees, hummingbirds and pollinators bats are a subset of other taxa or the only taxa studied in these protected areas?
• Line 63-67: The use of common names in this point is confusing. 1800 species of butterflies and moths included all Lepidoptera? If yes, why not use the taxonomic name (Lepidoptera)? If not, which families are not included?

Author Response

We have followed your advices and reflected in the text.

General remarks

• Line 32-34. The rule of no-bee insects such as flies, wasps and moths as pollinators is mentioned.

• Line 72-75. We explained the choice to use citizen science contribution.

• Line 117. The figure 1B was changed to observe one bar for year, divided in different categories.

• Line 253. The section 3.5 was improved, we mentioned that there is not a national project related to pollinators in Mexico and we referenced other species studied in these protected areas.

• The “stage of knowledge” was changed by “stage of the art”. The manuscript will undergo extensive English revision by professional editing services.

In this manuscript we are focusing on getting to know the diversity and stage of the art of bees, hummingbirds, and pollinator bats in Mexico in the last 20 years as well as discuss the relevant public policies related to biodiversity and conservation of pollinators in Mexico.

The reviewers require adding and analyze more information, for example, spatial and temporal patterns of the species.

We consider the recommendations made by the reviewers are highly relevant with respect to spatial and temporal patterns of the species. However, due to the large number of species reported in this manuscript and the lack of information on many of these species, we decided to focus on an overview trying to show the importance of knowing the diversity present in Mexico.

In the case of hummingbirds and bats where the diversity is well known, which has allowed to generate spatial and temporal patterns of these species (reported in other studies and data bases; Arizmendi and Berlanga, 2014; Arizmendi et al., 2016; the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2020.2; www.ebird.org).

In the case of the bees, as we mention in the manuscript there is a lack of information of more than 1000 bee species and 47% of the occurrences recorded in databases were concentrated just in the stingless bee species and the genera Apis and Bombus (less than 3% of total bee diversity). Due to the great information related to the stingless bee species and genus Bombus, the spatial and temporal patterns have been studied yet (Yáñez-Ordóñez et al., 2008; Ayala et al., 2013; Yurrita et al., 2017; Vandame, 2019).

Therefore, we consider focusing on an overview of the biodiversity and stage of the art of bees, hummingbirds, and pollinator bats in Mexico in the last 20 years.

Reviewer 3 Report

The revised manuscript unfortunately does not reflect the main suggestions for improvements made in relation to the first version:

- present all data on records of pollinators including those derived from databases on maps

- analyze the spatial patterns in relation to biogeographical (topographical and climatic gradients, vegetation zonation etc.) and social (who observes pollinators, who can identify them, who publishes information in scientific journals or databases etc.) variables

- discuss what influences the patterns: ecological variables and/or social variables?

- provide conclusions based on evidence such as that outlined above as to what measures should be taken in order to obtain a more complete overview of the pollinator fauna in Mexico and its 'contributions to people' (in the sense of the definition used by IPBES)

The changes made to the title have removed the focus on IPBES, which is appropriate, but the English is awkward: 'stage of knowledge' is not a suitable expression. I recommend you consult a professional copy editor to help straighten out the English in the title, the abstract and the main body text once you have carried out the major revisions.

Author Response

General remarks

• Line 32-34. The rule of no-bee insects such as flies, wasps and moths as pollinators is mentioned.

• Line 72-75. We explained the choice to use citizen science contribution.

• Line 117. The figure 1B was changed to observe one bar for year, divided in different categories.

• Line 253. The section 3.5 was improved, we mentioned that there is not a national project related to pollinators in Mexico and we referenced other species studied in these protected areas.

• The “stage of knowledge” was changed by “stage of the art”. The manuscript will undergo extensive English revision by professional editing services.

In this manuscript we are focusing on getting to know the diversity and stage of the art of bees, hummingbirds, and pollinator bats in Mexico in the last 20 years as well as discuss the relevant public policies related to biodiversity and conservation of pollinators in Mexico.

The reviewers require adding and analyze more information, for example, spatial and temporal patterns of the species.

We consider the recommendations made by the reviewers are highly relevant with respect to spatial and temporal patterns of the species. However, due to the large number of species reported in this manuscript and the lack of information on many of these species, we decided to focus on an overview trying to show the importance of knowing the diversity present in Mexico.

In the case of hummingbirds and bats where the diversity is well known, which has allowed to generate spatial and temporal patterns of these species (reported in other studies and data bases; Arizmendi and Berlanga, 2014; Arizmendi et al., 2016; the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2020.2; www.ebird.org).

In the case of the bees, as we mention in the manuscript there is a lack of information of more than 1000 bee species and 47% of the occurrences recorded in databases were concentrated just in the stingless bee species and the genera Apis and Bombus (less than 3% of total bee diversity). Due to the great information related to the stingless bee species and genus Bombus, the spatial and temporal patterns have been studied yet (Yáñez-Ordóñez et al., 2008; Ayala et al., 2013; Yurrita et al., 2017; Vandame, 2019).

Therefore, we consider focusing on an overview of the biodiversity and stage of the art of bees, hummingbirds, and pollinator bats in Mexico in the last 20 years with drastic changes.