Biodiversity and Economy but Not Social Factors Predict Human Population Dynamics in South Africa
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I am glad to see an interesting study about the factors to predict human population dynamics.However there are still few questions:
1. Too many keywords, and could not express your standpoint very well. Especially the "sustainability", too general for your work.
2. You had better turn to a professional team to assist you in the English language editing of your article. For example, the word "imputation" in 2.3.1 , I do not think is a proper word in your research.
3. The article structure could be more simple and accurate to well explain your opinion. Especially the introduction should rapidly catch readers' attention.
4. You have done a great research in biodiversity and economy but not social factors predict human population dynamics. But actually the human population influenced by the house price, education cost, level of educion and so on. SO you should better express why you choose South Africa to do this work, maybe in a paragragh or do some classification in the beginning to exposit the human population in South Africa obviously related to biodiversity indicators.
Author Response
Reviewer I am glad to see an interesting study about the factors to predict human population dynamics.
Response We thank the reviewer for this positive feedback
Reviewer: However there are still few questions:
1. Too many keywords, and could not express your standpoint very well. Especially the "sustainability", too general for your work.
Response: We have deleted 'sustainability'
Reviewer: 2. You had better turn to a professional team to assist you in the English language editing of your article. For example, the word "imputation" in 2.3.1 , I do not think is a proper word in your research.
Response: We totally disagree with the reviewer. In statistics, imputation is the process of finding appropriate values for missing data. There are several methods of statistical imputations. We have explained in our study the one that we used.
Reviewer:3. The article structure could be more simple and accurate to well explain your opinion. Especially the introduction should rapidly catch readers' attention.
Response: That's exactly what we did. The Introduction started with 'The population debate....' suggesting that the population is all about population. Every other paragraph in the paper talked about population. We believe the paper quickly tells the reader what it is about, that's population.
Reviewer: 4. You have done a great research in biodiversity and economy but not social factors predict human population dynamics. But actually the human population influenced by the house price, education cost, level of educion and so on. SO you should better express why you choose South Africa to do this work, maybe in a paragragh or do some classification in the beginning to exposit the human population in South Africa obviously related to biodiversity indicators.
Response: We did justify why we selected SOuth AFrica.
First we justified why we are interested in developing countries. And this was presented as follow: ''As such, the emerging socio-economic and environmental calamities necessitate the re-evaluation of the Malthusian theory particularly in the developing world, a world experiencing a slow-to-no technological development [21,22]. Since technological development is acknowledged as the major factor preventing the Malthusian crisis [1,16], the focus on the developing world to test the theory becomes justified''.
And then we highlight why we selected South Africa when we wrote "Like most developing regions, South Africa has historically experienced and continues to experience a surge of political unrest, corruption, and social instability [35,36], and these social stressors are expected to affect population growth".
We thank very much the reviewer for his/her comments and efforts to improve our paper. We hope to have satisfied him/her through our responses and revision.
Reviewer 2 Report
Very interesting and useful paper that opens the possibility of a more in-depth debate on the factors governing the relations between the environment the economy the society.
Author Response
Reviewer 2: Very interesting and useful paper that opens the possibility of a more in-depth debate on the factors governing the relations between the environment the economy the society.
Authors: We thank the reviewer for this positive feedback. We appreciate it and appreciate your time spent to comment on our paper.
Reviewer 3 Report
I have reviewed the manuscript "Biodiversity and economy but not social factors predict human population dynamics in South Africa", the study is interesting, the authors have made a great effort to propose a correct design and structure in the manuscript. But, prior to further processing I request the authors to comply with the following comments, this will serve to improve their paper:
1. The abstract is not clear the objectives with the results. Initially the objective landscape regeneration, while the results address an urban development and improvement of infrastructure and living environment, I think this has nothing to do with the research objective. Please rewrite the abstract.
2. The last paragraph of the introduction should be rewritten, clearly fit the objective of your study and consider that this should match your methodology, results, discussion and conclusions.
3. The map of the study area should be improved, it is not understood that way, the scale is missing.....
4. In the study area you should describe characteristics of the biodiversity of South Africa.
5. Do the authors believe that with the results presented they have answered the question of the title and its objective?
6. There are no conclusions.
7. I believe that the design and structure of the manuscript should be improved.
Author Response
Reviewer 3: I have reviewed the manuscript "Biodiversity and economy but not social factors predict human population dynamics in South Africa", the study is interesting, the authors have made a great effort to propose a correct design and structure in the manuscript.
Response: We thank you for this positive comment.
Reviewer 3: But, prior to further processing I request the authors to comply with the following comments, this will serve to improve their paper:
Response: We have revised the manuscript as explained below:
Reviewer 3: 1. The abstract is not clear the objectives with the results. Initially the objective landscape regeneration, while the results address an urban development and improvement of infrastructure and living environment, I think this has nothing to do with the research objective. Please rewrite the abstract.
Response: We don't think this reviewer's comment is for our paper. He/she might make a mistake while pasting the comments. There is nothing in this comment which is related to our paper.
Reviewer 3: 2. The last paragraph of the introduction should be rewritten, clearly fit the objective of your study and consider that this should match your methodology, results, discussion and conclusions.
Response: We have revised the last paragraph as follow to re-highlight that we focus on social and environmental factors potentially driving population growth:
"Do these socio-environmental factors also drive population dynamics as predicted for economic factors in the Malthusian theory? The present study, as opposed to most studies which rather tested the Malthusian theory through the economic or food lens, aims to investigate this question in the context of developing regions focusing primarily on social and environmental factors. Specifically, we determined whether the social and environmental factors alongside various economic metrics drive population changes in South Africa".
Reviewer: 3. The map of the study area should be improved, it is not understood that way, the scale is missing.....
Response We agreed with the reviewer. We have decided to remove Figure 1 from the paper because it doesn't affect the content of the paper.
Reviewer: 4. In the study area you should describe characteristics of the biodiversity of South Africa.
Response: We have now added information on South Africa's biodiversity. It reads as follows:
"Biodiversity in South Africa is unusually rich with its flora comprising ~ 24 000 species. South Africa is one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world with nine biomes and a vast network of protected areas. South Africa also hosts three major biodiversity hotspots is the only country hosting an entire floral Kingdom. In the Cape Floral Kingdom, over 9,000 plant species are recorded, 70% of which are endemic to the kingdom. A recent study reported that 1400-1500 plant species might still be missing in South Africa’s biodiversity assessment, suggesting that the country’s flora might be close to 26, 000 species. South Africa is also rich in wetlands, which are natural fabrics providing a range of ecosystem services. Unfortunately, 35% to 60% of South Africa’s wetlands is lost or severely degraded".
Reviewer: 5. Do the authors believe that with the results presented they have answered the question of the title and its objective?
Response: Yes. We tested the Malthusian theory, and provided evidence for support of the theory showing that biodiversity and economy correlate with population dynamics.
Reviewer 6. There are no conclusions.
Response: The last paragraph of the paper is the conclusion. We simply did not write the title "Conclusion" since it is not a recommendation of the journal.
Reviewer 7. I believe that the design and structure of the manuscript should be improved.
Response: Unfortunately the reviewer did not indicate how it should be improved. We actually did not believe that there is anything wrong with the design.
We thank the reviewer very much for his/her time and efforts to improve our paper.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Author's response have satisfied me through all the revision.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have complied with the requested recommendations. It is better now, thank you.
