Unraveling Mammalian Biodiversity in a Non-Protected Area in Tibet: Community Diversity, Species Interactions and Conservation Imperatives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript addresses an interesting topic and is based on an extensive camera-trap dataset, which has good potential to enhance our understanding of mammal diversity and activity patterns. The objectives are clearly defined. However, several issues relating to methodological clarity, data transparency and writing quality must be resolved before the manuscript can be evaluated properly. Notably, the unit of measurement (detections vs. individuals) is inconsistent, and key information on sampling effort (e.g. the total number of photographs and how duplicate records were handled) is insufficiently described.

Addressing these points will substantially improve the clarity, rigour and overall quality of the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely thank you for your careful reading, professional comments, and detailed suggestions on our manuscript. Your feedback is highly constructive and has greatly helped us improve the clarity, rigor, and readability of the paper. We have carefully revised the manuscript according to all your comments and corrected the corresponding content one by one.

 

Below is our point‑by‑point response:

General Comments

• We have clarified the unit of measurement (detections vs. individuals) throughout the manuscript and explicitly reported the number of detections/individuals recorded.
• We have supplemented key information on sampling effort, including total photographs obtained and the procedure for handling duplicate records, to improve data transparency and reproducibility.

Abstract

• We have clarified the unit of measurement and clearly reported the number of detections/individuals.
• Lines 39–44: We have rephrased the sentence and replaced the informal word “like” with formal academic expressions.

Materials and Methods

2.1 Study area

• Line 138, Line 814, 859, 876, 915: All scientific names have been italicized to comply with standard taxonomic conventions.
• Line 147: As the section of result has also mentioned these species for their common name and scientific name, we have kept this information in here to make readability.

2.2.1 Camera trap stations

• Line 174: The incomplete sentence has been completed and revised for clarity.
• Lines 177–180: We have adopted your recommended phrasing to improve accuracy and fluency.
• Lines 180–183: A detailed description of duplicate record identification and removal has been added in Section 2.2.2 to enhance methodological transparency.

Results

• The total number of photographs captured by camera traps has been clearly reported.
• Line 285: We have checked species in the text to make sure scientific names are consistently provided when common names are used to avoid ambiguity.
• Line 305 (Figure 2A–D): Figures have been improved in quality and resolution to ensure clear readability.

3.2.3 Predators

• Lines 342–343: Redundant content has been removed to streamline the text.

Discussion

• Line 427–428: The sentence has been rephrased.
• Line 431: The redundant word “the” has been deleted.
• Lines 431–435: The long and ambiguous sentence has been revised for clarity, conciseness, and readability.
• Lines 454–457: The description of seasonal activity patterns has been strengthened with clearer ecological explanations for interspecific differences.
• Line 458: This sentence has been moved to line 467 for better logical flow.
• Line 481: The repeated phrase “These findings align with previous research” has been revised and diversified to eliminate redundancy.
• Line 505: The repetitive introductory phrase has been removed.
• Lines 484, 534, 555, 559, 652, 653: All extra spaces have been deleted.
• Line 551: A space has been added between “studies” and “(Zaman…”.
• Line 595: The word “the” has been added between “that” and “activity”.
• Line 606: The punctuation error between “2023” and “Which” has been corrected.

Conclusions

• Line 698: We have adopted your recommended sentence to improve accuracy and expression.

 

We greatly appreciate your valuable and detailed comments, which have significantly improved the quality of this manuscript. All revisions have been carefully implemented in the revised version. We hope the manuscript is now suitable for further evaluation.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After reading the manuscript, I have serious doubts about accepting this article for publication in Biology. I find numerous problems in the text, which I will discuss later. Despite the numerous shortcomings I have identified in the article, I believe the authors should make a significant effort to improve the content. The introduction should focus directly on the topic at hand and avoid such general and widely documented comments. Furthermore, the commentary and explanations of the results should be more concise. You present valuable and novel information, but it needs to be better presented, aiming to make this study a starting point for new research with clearer objectives and a sound methodological approach. I encourage the authors to significantly revise the article.I observe a very evident lack of structure in the content in some sections. The introduction contains numerous general comments that are widely known (lines 64-82 and 83-101) and should be significantly summarized, focusing on the subject of this study and eliminating repeated comments. The introduction should increase the content related to mammal biodiversity on the Tibetan Plateau (as indicated between lines 102 and 112), the scarcity of studies, and conservation problems. It sets overly ambitious objectives that are not achievable with the proposed methodologies. The "study area" section is excessively long. The content in the "Data collection" section should be modified, given that it is cumbersome to read. A couple of tables including the list of species and associated information (status, level of knowledge, threats) added as supplementary material would contribute to improving this section. In the Camera Trap Stations section, I suggest including a table (added as supplementary material) presenting the environmental characteristics (which can be grouped) of the locations where the cameras were installed. Perhaps the issue of determining mammal activity patterns (lines 222-224) should be presented more carefully, given the inherent difficulty of clearly determining this parameter using this method, which should be based on a robust experimental design.The writing style in the Results and Discussion sections, especially the beginnings of the paragraphs, is consistently repetitive (the phrases "our study," "our results," "our analysis," and "our findings" are repeated frequently). The quality of the figures needs improvement. The presentation of the results is, in my opinion, quite convoluted, tedious to read, and lengthy. Furthermore, there are comments in this section that should be explained in greater depth in the discussion, in a structured manner (and some are repeated). Reading and following the results presented between lines 376-391 and 393-406 is particularly complex; they could be presented in a table, with the most relevant ones highlighted in the text. The discussion is extremely unstructured, lacking a clear reading flow. There are also some sentences whose content has already been discussed (lines 424-427) and others that, as written, should be included in the results section (lines 427-428). Improvement is needed. The style needs improvement, and clearer explanations should be incorporated for some aspects addressed in this section (lines 444-457). The number of bibliographic citations needs to be increased. Some paragraphs should be summarized, while others maintain a repetitive content pattern. Speculative comments are made throughout the Discussion section to explain unclear results. In general, comments regarding correlations in behavioral patterns (primarily activity) are overly bold, considering the methodological processes employed. Therefore, these assertions, some of which could be considered presumptuous, should be toned down. A clear structure should be established for the presentation of comments included in the Discussion section. Comments regarding the results obtained are common to numerous studies conducted in other areas (lines 541-551, among others), while others are irrelevant (lines 548-551).In short, I suggest a thorough revision of the article's content, as the baseline data presented are interesting, novel, and can serve as starting point for future studies applied to the conservation and establishment of protected areas.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English could be improved to more clearly express the research.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time and effort to provide such detailed, constructive feedback on our manuscript. We fully acknowledge the concerns you raised regarding the article’s structure, clarity, focus, and presentation, and we are grateful for your professional suggestions to improve the quality of this work.

We have carefully addressed all comments in the revised manuscript. Below is our point-by-point response to your feedback:

1. Overall Structure, Focus, and Presentation

• We have completely restructured the entire article to improve logical flow and readability, eliminating the previously evident disorganization in some sections.
• The introduction now directly focuses on the core topic and removes overly general, widely documented background content.
• Result explanations and discussions have been substantially condensed to enhance conciseness.
• We have refined the expression to better highlight the study’s novelty and value, clarifying research objectives and strengthening the scientific rigor of the methodological description.

2. Introduction Section

• The overly general and well-known content (Lines 64–82, 83–101) has been heavily summarized and repetitive remarks deleted.
• We have added substantial content on Tibetan Plateau mammal biodiversity, research gaps, and conservation challenges (Lines 102–112).
• The research objectives have been adjusted to be realistic and achievable based on the adopted methodologies.

3. Study Area, Data Collection, and Camera Trap Stations

• The “Study area” section has been shortened to an appropriate length.
• The “Data collection” section has been rewritten for smoother reading.
• We have added two supplementary tables listing mammal species and their associated information (conservation status, knowledge level, threats).
• In fact, the environmental characteristics of the locations where the cameras were installed has been included in supplementary material in data. We separated as an independent file.

4. Mammal Activity Patterns

• The description of mammal activity pattern analysis (Lines 222–224) has been carefully revised to acknowledge the methodological limitations. We now emphasize the need for a robust experimental design and avoid overstatement.

5. Results Section

• Repetitive phrasing (e.g., “our study,” “our results,” “our analysis,” “our findings”) at the start of paragraphs has been eliminated.
• All figures have been improved for higher quality and clarity.
• The presentation of results has been simplified and streamlined to avoid convolution and excessive length.
• Content that belongs in the Discussion has been moved accordingly, and repetitions removed.
• Complex result descriptions (Lines 376–391, 393–406) have been reorganized into tables, with key results highlighted in the main text for easier reading.

6. Discussion Section

• The Discussion has been completely restructured to ensure a clear, logical flow.
• Repeated sentences (e.g., Lines 424–427) have been deleted, and content belonging to Results (e.g., Lines 427–428) has been moved.
• Explanations in relevant paragraphs (Lines 444–457) have been clarified and strengthened.
• Speculative interpretations of unclear results have been removed or qualified.
• Overly assertive claims about activity pattern correlations have been toned down to match the methodological limitations.
• General or irrelevant statements (e.g., Lines 541–551, 548–551) have been deleted.
• Repetitive structures throughout the section have been revised.

7. References and Language

• The number of bibliographic citations has been increased to support key arguments.
• The overall writing style and language have been improved throughout the manuscript.

 

Once again, we thank you for your rigorous and valuable comments. We believe the manuscript has been significantly improved and now presents the valuable, novel data from this study in a clearer, more structured, and more scientific manner. We hope it is now suitable for consideration for publication in Biology.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The quality of the manuscript has improved. Just two remarks:

1) Line 147: Since you kept the list, please write the scientific names for all the common names, e.g. Himalayan marmot, snow leopard, blue sheep and Tibetan fox.

Lines 180–183: The current description of camera-trap data processing lacks sufficient detail regarding duplicate filtering procedures. Since independent detection criteria strongly influence species detection rates, the authors should provide a clearer operational definition of duplicate records and explain the filtering workflow in more detail.

 

Author Response

1. Line 147 – Scientific names for common species:

We agree with your suggestion to include scientific names for all common species listed. We have now added the full scientific names for Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana), snow leopard (Panthera uncia), blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), and Tibetan fox (Vulpes ferrilata) at Line 147, as well as for all other common species mentioned in the list. Line 138, 144.

2. Lines 180–183 – Camera-trap data processing and duplicate filtering:

We acknowledge that the previous description lacked sufficient detail on duplicate filtering procedures. We have now expanded this section to include: A clear operational definition of duplicate records (e.g., consecutive photographs of the same species at the same location within a specified time interval, which we now define as 30 minutes). A step-by-step explanation of our filtering workflow, including how we identified and removed duplicates, how we defined independent detection events, and how these criteria influenced our species detection rates. Line 168-176.

This additional detail is now included in Line 188–198 of the revised manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx