Ecological Niche Modeling of Invasive Macrophyte (Urochloa subquadripara) and Co-Occurrence with South American Natives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I consider this paper a meaningful study that models the distribution characteristics of invasive species and native species. However, please revise it by referring to some review comments below.

1. In the title: I propose that in order to use 'Invasive and natives' within the title, it is necessary to specify the country. For example, 'Ecological niche modeling of invasive ~~ co-occurrence with natives in South America.' 

2. In abstract: plase add 'in South America' to the sentence(line 22). For example. '~~ the natives Eichhornia crassipes and Salvinia minima in South America'

3. Please correct scentific names in italics: Pistia stratiotees on page 2, line 57, and Hymenachne pernambucensis on page 16, lines 441-442

4. They have the same title(2.3.2.1 and 2.3.2.2)(Stress prameters). Please change the title. 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

 

Comment: I consider this paper a meaningful study that models the distribution characteristics of invasive species and native species. However, please revise it by referring to some review comments below.

Response: Thanks for the comment. Thank you for reviewing and for your interest in our article. All suggestions will be corrected by the authors. The manuscript relies on an intense literature review to identify distribution points and growth parameters of the species. Therefore, we identified that the references presented are relevant to the content of the manuscript. The essay in English was revised by a professor in the area. If necessary, we are willing to make further revisions. All changes are highlighted in red in the manuscript.

 

Comment 1: In the title: I propose that in order to use 'Invasive and natives' within the title, it is necessary to specify the country. For example, 'Ecological niche modeling of invasive co-occurrence with natives in South America.' 

Response 1: We insert in the title the region where the macrophytes are native. The new title is: “Ecological niche modeling of invasive macrophyte (Urochloa subquadripara) and co-occurrence with South American natives”

 

Comment 2: In abstract: plase add 'in South America' to the sentence(line 22). For example. '~~ the natives Eichhornia crassipes and Salvinia minima in South America'

Response 2: Done! “ in South America” was inserted on line 22.

 

Comment 3:  Please correct scentific names in italics: Pistia stratiotees on page 2, line 57, and Hymenachne pernambucensis on page 16, lines 441-442

Response 3: Done! Scientific names are in italics.

 

Comment 4: They have the same title(2.3.2.1 and 2.3.2.2)(Stress prameters). Please change the title. 

Response 4: Done! The title 2.3.2. 1 was changed to “Growth indices”.

 

Regards,

Tayna Sousa Duque

Department of Agronomy

Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri - UFVJM

39100-000 Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brasil.

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: +55 38 99924-2408

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript ID: sustainability-2537715

 

Duque et al.: Ecological niche modeling of invasive macrophyte (Urochloa subquadripara) and co-occurrence with natives

 

Dear Authors,

 

I liked reading your coherent, technically well-written, and detailed manuscript. The main issue is lots of minor errors in English, which can be easily solved by some external help, such as the MDPI’s language service. I’ll mention only some of them in my report.

 

Lines 20-21: “Native species can correlate with invasives positively or negatively”: native species cannot CORRELATE, while their abundance or number can. Please, invest some time to improve the style of your text.

 

Line 24: “This work aimed to make an SDM for”. What if you write, “This study aimed to apply an SDM to study correlations of U. subquadripara with” instead?

 

Line 32: What do you mean by “According to climate change?” “According to the existing models of climate change” or similar?

 

Line 42: “Macrophytes are the primary producers of freshwater ecosystems”: producers OF freshwater ecosystems? Or IN freshwater ecosystems? I'm afraid I have to disagree that macrophytes can create or produce the entire ecosystem.

 

Lines 45, 47, 54, 64, 69, 78, 79, 80 and throughout the text: In-vasive; in-vasions, trans-ported, com-munity, cor-related, in-crease, precipi-tation, in-terfere.

 

Line 109: Eichhornia crassipes e Salvinia minima; What is “e”?

 

Line 113: Please, be specific: “in the literature in databases”.

 

Line 140: You can write U. subquadripara instead of Urochloa subquadripara.

 

Line 147, and throughout the text: Remove spaces between 20 and –, between 21 and between 21 and °C. Please insert spaces between numbers and °C in many other places too!

 

Line 147: Why is there a line underneath the Celsius symbol here and in many other places in the text, but not everywhere?

 

I have already explained my point of view above. 

Author Response

Prezado Avaliador 2,

 

Comentário: Gostei de ler seu manuscrito coerente, tecnicamente bem escrito e detalhado. O principal problema são muitos pequenos erros em inglês, que podem ser facilmente resolvidos por alguma ajuda externa, como o serviço de idiomas do MDPI. Vou mencionar apenas alguns deles em meu relatório.

Response: Thanks for the comment. Thank you for reviewing and for your interest in our article. All suggestions will be corrected by the authors. The manuscript relies on an intense literature review to identify distribution points and growth parameters of the species. Therefore, we identified that the references presented are relevant to the content of the manuscript. The essay in English was revised by a professor in the area. If necessary, we are willing to make further revisions. All changes are highlighted in red in the manuscript.

 

Comment 1: Lines 20-21: “Native species can correlate with invasives positively or negatively”: native species cannot CORRELATE, while their abundance or number can. Please, invest some time to improve the style of your text.

Response 1: Done! The new phrase is "The abundance of native species can be positively or negatively correlated with the occurrence of invasives".

 

Comment 2: Line 24: “This work aimed to make an SDM for”. What if you write, “This study aimed to apply an SDM to study correlations of U. subquadripara with” instead?

Response 2: Done!

 

Comment 3:  Line 32: What do you mean by “According to climate change?” “According to the existing models of climate change” or similar?

Response 3: In this case, we wanted to highlight that considering climate change forecasts, such as temperature and CO₂ increase, emerging macrophytes such as U. subquadripara can expand their distribution to the northern hemisphere. We made a change to the sentence to make the objective clearer.

 

Comment 4: Line 42: “Macrophytes are the primary producers of freshwater ecosystems”: producers OF freshwater ecosystems? Or IN freshwater ecosystems? I'm afraid I have to disagree that macrophytes can create or produce the entire ecosystem.

Response 4: Thanks for your placement! We change the "of" to "in".

 

Comment 5: Lines 45, 47, 54, 64, 69, 78, 79, 80 and throughout the text: In-vasive; in-vasions, trans-ported, com-munity, cor-related, in-crease, precipi-tation, in-terfere.

Response 5: Done! We identified and corrected all terms that were not in accordance with the text.

 

Comment 6: Line 109: Eichhornia crassipes e Salvinia minima; What is “e”?

Response 6: Done! We remove the term "e" and insert "and".

 

Comment 7: Line 113: Please, be specific: “in the literature in databases”.

Response 7: In this case, we are referring to the Web of Science and Google Scholar databases. We changed the sentence in the manuscript to make it clearer to the reader.

 

Comment 8: Line 140: You can write U. subquadripara instead of Urochloa subquadripara.

Response 8: We chose to keep the term Urochloa subquadripara in the section titles, sentence beginnings, figures, tables and legends. On other occasions, we use U. subquadripara.

 

Comment 9: Line 147, and throughout the text: Remove spaces between 20 and –, between 21 and between 21 and °C. Please insert spaces between numbers and °C in many other places too!

Response 9: Done!

 

Comment 10: Line 147: Why is there a line underneath the Celsius symbol here and in many other places in the text, but not everywhere?

Response 10: We revised the manuscript.

 

Cumprimentos,

Tayna Sousa Duque

Departamento de Agronomia

Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri - UFVJM

39100-000 Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brasil.

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: +55 38 99924-2408

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This work aimed to make species distribution models for U. subquadripara correlating with the potential distribution of native species E. crassipes and S. minima. The manuscript is well-written and easy to read.

Line 93 till 96 will be better to divide on two sentences

Thus, the potential distribution of an invasive species can be determined by paying attention only to the climate, but the integrated understanding of the factor that influences the invasive potential, such as the co-occurrence of species, allows the filtering of suitable places [35].

Thus, the potential distribution of an invasive species can be determined by paying attention only to the climate. Still, the integrated understanding of the factor that influences the invasive potential, such as the co-occurrence of species, allows the filtering of suitable places [35].

 

References

Some of them can be replaced with sources from the last 5 years

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

 

Thanks for the comment. Thank you for reviewing and for your interest in our article. We are happy with your comment and that you enjoyed our manuscript. All suggestions will be corrected by the authors. The manuscript relies on an intense literature review to identify distribution points and growth parameters of the species. Therefore, we identified that the references presented are relevant to the content of the manuscript. The essay in English was revised by a professor in the area. If necessary, we are willing to make further revisions. All changes are highlighted in red in the manuscript.

 

Comment 1: Line 93 till 96 will be better to divide on two sentences

Response 1: Done! We split the two sentences in the text.

 

Regards,

Tayna Sousa Duque

Department of Agronomy

Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri - UFVJM

39100-000 Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brasil.

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: +55 38 99924-2408

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper Ecological niche modeling of invasive macrophyte (Urochloa 2 subquadripara) and co-occurrence with natives is elaborated on the basis of a quite complex and well-documented study. The economic importance of this study is very well emphasized by the authors. The economic importance of this study is very well emphasized by the authors since the water intake obstruction due to the macrophytes in the reservoirs may reduce efficiency in hydropower plants, consequently causing important economic losses.

Introduction is well structured and documented, the aim of the study is pointed out. The importance of modeling in evaluating the spread of invasive species of macroalgae in co-occurrence with native species is highlighted. Also, the importance of the study for the adoption of preventive measures is argued in the context of the current control strategies that are very expensive.

Research methodology is developed accordingly; it is structured in well-defined subchapters. The study tools used in this research, models and software are presented in-depth, the authors using data collected from multiple, relevant studies. The results are analyzed and discussed with professionalism, being accompanied by numerous eloquent images, of proper graphic quality. The need to adopt legislative measures for preventing the commercialization and implicitly the spread of the invasive species Urochloa subquadripara is highlighted as well.

Conclusions are to the point, although in my opinion they should be elaborated in a bit more detail. The authors studied a rich, relevant, up-to-date bibliography.

Overall, the manuscript is very interesting and useful, especially for decision-makers to adopt preventive measures in due time. The scientific quality of this study is indisputably high.

There are some minor spelling errors that need to be corrected: In the Introduction, many words are incorrectly separated by hyphens (see the lines 45, 47, 50, 54, 57, 65, 69, etc.), please correct them. I also recommend detailing the Conclusions section a bit more, with concrete results from the work.

The quality of expression in English is very good.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 4,

 

Thanks for the comment. Thank you for reviewing and for your interest in our article. We are happy with your comment and that you enjoyed our manuscript. All suggestions will be corrected by the authors. The manuscript relies on an intense literature review to identify distribution points and growth parameters of the species. Therefore, we identified that the references presented are relevant to the content of the manuscript. The essay in English was revised by a professor in the area. If necessary, we are willing to make further revisions. All changes are highlighted in red in the manuscript.

 

Comment 1: There are some minor spelling errors that need to be corrected: In the Introduction, many words are incorrectly separated by hyphens (see the lines 45, 47, 50, 54, 57, 65, 69, etc.), please correct them.

Response 1: Done! We revised the entire text of the manuscript. Words incorrectly separated by hyphens were corrected.

 

Comment 2: I also recommend detailing the Conclusions section a bit more, with concrete results from the work.

Response 2: Done! We revised the conclusion section, inserting more details of the results of the work.

 

Regards,

Tayna Sousa Duque

Department of Agronomy

Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri - UFVJM

39100-000 Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brasil.

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: +55 38 99924-2408

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

  Accept in present form