Red Tide Outreach in Florida: Message Framing, Environmental Emotions, and Support for Mitigation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Section Introduction is too long. Sections Methods, Results and Discussion are too short to present the subject of this manuscript.

Coasts is a journal on coastal engineering, management, conservation, biology and ecology. The reviewing manuscript is more applicable for journals specialized in social researches.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Abstract:

Line 12: Red tide is a popular name for HAB, that was abandoned when researchers figured that they were not necessarily red. However, red tides are still popular among general public. So it has to be specified that red tides are a popular name for HAB. As it is the purists will complain.

Line 17: what is meant by control? It is not quite clear.

Introduction:

Line 26, same as abstract

The introduction gives a very extensive report of the occurrence of HABs in the coast of Florida and their impacts on the health of various organisms and humans. Although it is quite long (for a journal article), I wouldn’t suggest reduction, because it is very well written, and it is a nice account of the environmental issue. Besides HAB, it also discuss some sociological and psychological aspects of the perception of the environmental problems that are quite interesting. The modification I’d suggest would to move the aims of the article from line 39-47 to the end of the introduction. So the organization of the introduction would be: description of the problem, justification of the research and finally the aims of the work.

Materials and Methods

An ethical issue should be raised upon the fact that U$1,00 was attributed to response of the survey. If this issue is raised, I’d argument that the value is absolutely symbolic. I don’t think either that there would be a bias, due to this compensation.

On line 229 a factor (alpha) is attributed (and all items have their own factors). It should be explicated in what is its meaning and how was it defined.

Results

Line 313: In the legend of the figure, it is written: “This is a figure”. It probably comes from a template and should be erased.

I have no further comment on the results and discussions. The results were presented in a very summarized, but comprehensive way and the discussion approach all the important points presented in the work, including the last paragraph where the authors show this limitation of the survey that was applied in a period of low incidence of red tides. I could not figure this out.

Just a final remark that I figured from reading the conclusion: The texts that were used in the survey were not shown, and I think it would be interesting the reader have access to these articles, so the authors should include a link (not reproduce) in the article.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Brief summary:

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to review the manuscript “Red Tide Outreach: Message framing, environmental emotions, and support for mitigation”. After a careful reading, I found this manuscript can be accepted for publication in MDPI coasts journals pending suitable moderate revision. The topic is interesting however, I have found some grey points where improvements can be made. In general, the manuscript needs extensive correction of the English language and clarity. My specific comments are:

Abstract:

Please add the country or region name in the title as the first sentence of the abstract draws attention toward the same.

An online sample of Florida residents (n= 498)? This is contradictory as well as grammatically wrong.

There are no numerical findings reported in the abstract?

Introduction:

Line 27-31: too lengthy sentence. Correct this problem in the entire manuscript.

Not a single reference is given in the second paragraph of the introduction (lines 34-47)? The authors made several claims without appropriate and validated citations.

Line 39-47: this section belongs to the objectives of the study and must not appear here. Shift it to the end of the introduction.

Lines 48, 56, and many more: scientific name must be italicized. The same problem exists in the whole paper.

Line 50: what is K?

Overall, the manuscript lacks a clear and concise introduction that outlines the significance of red tide outbreaks in Florida and the need for effective outreach strategies. This omission makes it difficult for readers to grasp the context and importance of the study.

Methods:

Provide a map of the study area, sampling points are not mandatory.

Results and discussion:

The results section lacks clarity in presenting the key findings.

Needs improvement and comparison with recent studies.

The manuscript does not address the potential limitations of the study adequately. Factors such as response bias, social desirability bias, and the cross-sectional nature of the data should be discussed in more detail.

What about the temporal aspect of red tide outbreaks?

Conclusion:

Fine.

The manuscript needs extensive correction of the English language and clarity.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

1.      Line 205: Online survey is convenient for young generation who familiar with internet. However, it is also very important to collect elder residents’ opinion toward red tide. How to overcome this problem in your online survey?

2.      Line 215: Please describe the date of online survey. When did you conduct this online survey?

3.      Line 253: Demographic data. Is there the data of length of residence? How to make sure that whole participants understand the issue of red tide?

4.      Line 314: The relationship between “Support for policy” and “Political identity (liberal)” is significant positive in Table 1. What about other political identity participants? Why do participants with a political identity (liberal) like to support policies?

5.      Line 322: Respondents who read the “harm to charismatic species'' article reported elevated levels of sadness, anger, disgust, and anxiety. This is an interesting finding. Could you explain more detail about this situation?

6.  Line 396: Women are more likely to adopt pro-environmental behavior changes than men. However, the correlation between gender and the variable “Support for policy” is not significantly different; while the correlation between “Support for policy” and “Personal behavior” is significantly different. Why?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

This version is much improved.