The Environmental Niche of the Light Purse Seine Fleet in the Northwest Pacific Ocean Based on Automatic Identification System Data
, Lijun Wan 1,3,4,†, Linlin Yu 1,3,5, Jiashu Shi 1,3,4, Weifeng Zhou 1,3, Shengmao Zhang 1,2,3, Fei Wang 1,3, Zuli Wu 1,3, Yang Dai 1,3, Keji Jiang 1,3 and Wei Fan 1,3,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease, find reviewer comments in the attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
A thorough revision of English will benefit the quality of the paper. Pay atention to the citation style as well.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsUsually, fisheries have been evaluated as a “closed” system. Reduction in abundance was qualified as increment in fishery effort. The study of environmental variables influencing abundance of species subject to catch. The study deals with the hypothesis of environmental variables over fisheries resources abundances. The novel in the study is the use of BRT model. The study es well planned and developed. Variables used are the most important previously demonstrated to be influenced in fisheries studies. Conclusions are very well sustained in the results and discussion.
Minor corrections
There are some numbers in the text that sound “weird”. I was supposing that are quotations, but they do not match with references numbering. For example, in line 57 was written: environmental variables656,8,32. Studies indicate….. those numbers make no sense.
Lines 30-31 the word fisherie is wrong spelling
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are some numbers in the text that sound “weird”. I was supposing that are quotations, but they do not match with references numbering. For example, in line 57 was written: environmental variables656,8,32. Studies indicate….. those numbers make no sense.
Lines 30-31 the word fisherie is wrong spelling
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper uses boosted regression trees analysis to predict fishing by Chinese vessels catching Pacific chub mackerel off Japan. This method is rather widely used in fisheries research, where a wide range of variables, mostly hard to measure, affect fisheries. It allows narrowing down the impact of variables by use of successively refined trees. It is combined here with various other data manipulations, sometimes not very clearly explained. ("Velocity" is mentioned without any indication of why.) The distribution of mackerel, and thus fishing effort, is shown to depend on salinity, water temperature, and interestingly of chlorophyll-a, which indicates productivity of the seas; the relationship is parabolic, suggesting that too much chlorophyll implies less than ideal conditions (presumably because of eutrophication or something similar).
The ms is interesting and well laid out, but one gets easily lost in the mathematical manipulations, which could be more clearly explained. I am not clear on why so much is done on a fairly simple problem. Basically, the Chinese fishing fleet goes where the mackerel are, and this paper predicts that fairly well, but why so much data manipulation for a fairly simple conclusion? The correlation with chlorophyll does shake out as an interesting and potentially important finding, which might have been discussed more.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageGood but the explanations are not always clear. Note that in line 385 the citation should be Dickson et al. (Kathryn Dickson is the lead author--"Kathryn" is not another author).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAuthors have fulfilled reviewer requests.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsEverything fixed to my satisfaction; the explanation in response to my review is very good. Worth accepting in present form.
