The Impact of Nature Reserves on the Ecological Network of Urban Agglomerations—A Case Study of the Urban Agglomeration in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The abstract needs to highlight the problems in urban agglomerations and its relationship with the ecological network
2. There is a contradiction exists between Line 32 (“21st century”) and Line 77 (“past 40 years”).
3. In the introduction section, authors emphasized the practical problems caused by the ecological network. It is recommended to enhance the explanation of the innovation of this study and clearly define what problems this study solves (gaps)
4. The manuscript requires thorough proofreading for formatting consistency. Notable issues include:（1）Punctuation errors (e.g., inconsistent comma usage).（2）Ambiguous units in figures (e.g., undefined scales).（3）Incomplete map boundaries and missing labels in figures.（4）Non-standard figure captions (e.g., lacking key details).（5）Inconsistent citation styles (e.g., mixing numbered and author-year formats)..
5. In Section 2.1, the level, total area, type and other information of the nature reserve should be explained. The author only said that 21 of them are national-level reserves, but other levels are not expressed. The basic information of the reserve can be placed in the supplementary materials. The basic natural conditions of the study area should be explained.
6. In Figure 1, it is recommended that the data source be uniformly explained in Section 2.2. It is recommended to mark the provincial administrative regions. What is the relationship between the green part and the red part in the study area? The study area should be clarified.
7. It is recommended that the "source areas-resistance surfaces-corridors-nodes" model in Fig.2 be highlighted and displayed consistently to make the research framework easier to understand. At the same time, it is recommended that the methods used be expressed together in the figure, such as "Quality-Morphology-Connectivity" and "Comprehensive Evaluation Method". Too many double quotes increase the difficulty of understanding the content.
8. In Chapter 3.1.2, words such as "edge", "perforation", and "bridge" need to be explained in the method or other appropriate parts.
9. More protected areas will inevitably form more patches and corridors. This is a fact that can be known without research. What should be paid more attention to is the differences in patches and corridors caused by differences in different schemes, not just the quantity, but should be analyzed through more dimensions. Otherwise, it is just a planning scheme comparison, not a scientific study. The authors need to give this part some serious consideration.
10. The discussion section focuses on the analysis of the results and needs further improvement.
11. Urban heat island (UHI) effects do not seem to appear in the results, and the authors only discuss habitat-based ecological networks, which over-extends the research results.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We have carefully revised our manuscript in accordance with your comments. The revised version now clearly emphasizes the regional significance of our findings, provides justified methodological choices supported by references and sensitivity tests, and enhances clarity through improved figures and language  (Please see the attachment). 

We believe these revisions address all reviewer concerns and strengthen the overall contribution of our work. Thank you for your valuable guidance and the opportunity to improve our manuscript.

Sincerely,
Weidi Li, Xiaoxu Liang, Anqiang Jia, John Martin

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attached report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We have carefully revised our manuscript in accordance with your comments. The revised version now clearly emphasizes the regional significance of our findings, provides justified methodological choices supported by references and sensitivity tests, and enhances clarity through improved figures and language  (Please see the attachment). 

We believe these revisions address all reviewer concerns and strengthen the overall contribution of our work. Thank you for your valuable guidance and the opportunity to improve our manuscript.

Sincerely,
Weidi Li, Xiaoxu Liang, Anqiang Jia, John Martin

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors responded well to the comments and I agree to accept.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors addressed all of my commnets