Benford’s Law for Telemetry Data of Wildlife

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper aims to test whether data that track the movements of healthy animals in a natural habitat obey the Benford Law. While the idea is interesting, the authors fail to explain why providing this example may be of interest to the readers. 

The extant literature mentions indeed that the data that obey the Law is usually data generated by natural processes, and a lot of literature exists that explores different examples from different domains. While providing yet another instance is interesting, can the authors explain why the results are useful?

The literature review is scarce, and (most likely as a consequence) the authors seem to have missed two important aspects: first, the Law requires large samples in order for the tests to provide reliable results. It is not clear from the paper whether the authors worked with each animal sample, which means tests on very small sample sizes, or whether they applied only one test on a larger sample. Please, clarify.

Secondly, the tests based on the null hypothesis have been found unreliable by Nigrini himself in a paper published in 2017, which is why he recommends tests based on the MAD and Excess MAD values. The authors missed many relevant references so I recommend they conduct a more in-depth literature review. Here are two (out of many possible) recommendations: one of them is Nigrini's paper itself, and the second one is an illustration of extensive testing and how to organize the information and how to build a proper lit review in this field:

Nigrini, Mark J. (2017) Audit Sampling Using Benford's Law: A Review of the Literature With Some New Perspectives. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting In-Press.

Druică, E., Oancea, B., & Vâlsan, C. (2018). Benford's law and the limits of digit analysis. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 31, 75-82.

After considering the above recommendations and reworking the paper accordingly, the manuscript can go through a new round of evaluation. For now, my recommendation is "major revisions".

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. I recommend the inclusion in the paper of a Literature review section in which to express the opinions of other authors who have addressed in significant papers the field addressed by the authors of this article. Thus, this article will be placed in the general context of the field and it will be possible to evaluate its scientific value, compared to other reference works for the field approached.
2. Section 2 of the paper (Materials and Methods) must be extended in both subsections in such a way that:
   - in subsection 2.1 (Data) I consider it necessary to present the data set, which is intended to be as comprehensive as possible, that the users used in the paper. Thus, readers will have a useful benchmark in assessing the results of research undertaken by the author and will be able to appreciate its scientific value and usefulness.
   - in subsection 2.2 (Statistics) it is absolutely necessary to present, in extenso, the statistical methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data that support the results obtained and provide a basis for the conclusions section. I recommend, as mandatory, the use of specific software tools for statistical data analysis, such as SPSS, eViews, R language, etc.) that provide premises for an extensive, efficient, operational and as expository analysis as possible. Thus, readers will have before them a much more interesting, valuable and credible work, in terms of results and conclusions presented.
3. As section 3 (Results) is now presented, it is not a strong point of the paper, but rather reduces much of its scientific value. It is very difficult to understand the research effort made by users and therefore the interest of readers is not stimulated. In addition, in order for this section to be upgraded, it is absolutely necessary that section 2 be greatly extended.
4. With the rethinking, reformulation, extension and, implicitly, the improvement of sections 2 and 3 of the paper, the necessary context will be created to redo the section of conclusions in such a way as to present, in the most efficient way, easier to understand. and more interesting for readers, the research effort made by the authors. The conclusions must be clearly specified, presented in a language as simple as possible, to start from the objectives of the paper and to follow the research activity carried out by the authors and the results obtained.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is improved indeed, both in terms of structure and content. The literature review is more comprehensive and the tests employed in analyzing data compliance with the BL are now more suitable than in the first version of the manuscript.

I also appreciate a better positioning of the research in a practical context and I like how the authors state the implications of their findings.

My only minor recommendation regards the first line of the Abstract: the BL does not refer to the first digit only. Please make the correction. There is a lot in BL about the subsequent digits. If the authors analyzed only the first digit, maybe this can be mentioned as a limit of their research.

Otherwise, congratulations on an interesting paper, and good luck with the publication process. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. I return to the recommendation to include in the paper a Literature Review section in which to be presented the opinions of other authors, expressed in some significant (reference) papers for the approached field.
2. 2. I maintain the recommendation I made to the authors to present in the paper at least one set of data that they used in the statistical analysis performed. The brief presentation of the organization, synthesis and configuration of the data set would provide an overview of the characteristics / sizes followed and for which the data were collected, how they are taken, collected, aggregated and stored so that they can be further processed. Thus, readers could more easily understand the research carried out by the authors and, implicitly, the scientific value of the paper would increase.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx