Review Reports - Resiliency and Recovery of Aquatic Vegetation Following Scouring Floods in Two First-Magnitude Springs, Missouri, USA

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled “Resiliency and Recovery of Aquatic Vegetation Following Scouring Floods in Two First Magnitude Springs, Missouri, USA” documents flora/vegetation of two of the greatest springs of the area (Alley Spring, Shannon County and Big Spring, Carter County, Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Missouri).

These springs are differing especially in terms of e.g.:
- recharge area (km2) – almost 3 times;
- mean annual discharge m3/sec – more than 3 times;
- human population in recharge area – 3 times;
- forested area – almost 4 times, and other habitat and watershed variables.

On the other hand, these two spring areas are similar as regards, e.g.:
- overall channel slope (0.94-0.95%),
- current velocity (0.38-0.46 m/sec,
- the canopy cover (0.23-0.24%),
- water temperature (13.78-14.24oC),
- specific conductance (266.71-311.53 μS/cm),
- dissolved oxygen (9.32-9.41 mg/L),
- pH (7.24-7.27).

Some other parameters of the springs (especially substrate size, retention, proximity to the receiving stream, current velocity) are important for comparison diversity metrics for aquatic vegetation responses to flood.

The Author clearly show that the flora of the springs was influenced by the catastrophic flood in different ways, e.g. some species even demonstrated increased foliar coverage in subsequent years after the flood (algae) thanks to decreased in foliar coverage and biomass of the other (especially some hydrophytes).

This study in important way enrich knowledge about the valuable and vulnerable spring habitats. Generally, manuscript is clear, well written and methods used are adequate according to study aims. References are numerous (60 items) and the list is an adequate representation for the main problem which was posed in the paper. All the sources listed are cited properly.

This manuscript is worth of publication in Hydrobiology.

I have only some suggestions, questions and remarks.

The aim of the study

The aim of the study was to document the impact of a catastrophic flood (called “the historic, ‘100-year’, flood event”) on the aquatic vegetation in two great springs (Alley and Big springs, Missouri) and to assess post-flood recovery.
The aim was formulated as follows: “The paper quantifies the loss of vegetative cover in Alley and Big springs, Missouri following a catastrophic flood, documents subsequent recovery, and explains differential responses in their recovery”.
In my opinion, this is, first of all, a documentary aspect of the study, and the documentation on aquatic vegetation monitoring was included into other publication of the Author and his team. Thus, knowing so much on the aquatic vegetation in the two study springs, the aim of this paper should be better (more clearly) stated and the hypothesis should be put forward, e.g. on possible responses of the particular plant species for disturbances caused by the catastrophic flood.

Terminology

In the manuscript, various terms are used with regard to the plant organization in the study area, that is:
Species level: number of species, effective number of species (e.g. lines 12, 156-159),
plant species foliar cover (l. 129), individual species dynamics (l. 154 , 251, 252), individual species metrics (Table 3), etc.
Community level: vegetative community, plant community, community diversity metrics for aquatic vegetation, spring community, and others.
Vegetation level: aquatic vegetation, aquatic vegetation communities, vegetation in the springs, vegetation patterns, aquatic vegetation in springs, etc.

I have the impression that the Author used the above-mentioned terms as synonyms.

In our, Europaean meaning, plant community is a unit of plant organization created by life community of various plant species in terms of functional and phytosociological groups. In turn, flora is defined as the whole of plants (list of species), and vegetation means the sum of all the plant communities and flora on a given area, region.

Of course, we can find in the literature/dictionaries, etc. many various definitions of these levels of plant organization, i.e. plant community, vegetation, flora.

What is the meaning of plant community?
(i) A plant community is a group of recurring species that: share a characteristic habitat; collectively create a unique physiognomy;
(ii) Plant communities are assemblages of species characterized the organization, development, and repeatability;
(iii) The social group¬ings of plant species are called plant community of which plant is the fundamental basic unit; etc.

What is the meaning of vegetation?
(i) It simply means all the plants in a defined area;
(ii) Vegetation is a term used to describe the total plant cover in an area or on the surface of the earth as a whole;
(iii) Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species; etc.

What is the meaning of flora?
(i) the plants characteristic of a region, period, or special environment fossil flora;
(ii) plants considered as a group, especially the plants of a particular country, region, or time;
(iii) the plants of a particular region or period, listed by species and considered as a whole;
(iv) the plant life typical of a region, period, or special environment; etc.

The way I see it, the Author studied spring flora (sensitivity or resistance, as well as response of particular species to the flood; comp. keywords in this manuscripts: aquatic hydrophytes; plants) and vegetation (recognized as the total plant cover of these two compared spring areas) rather than communities of the aquatic vegetation. If the plant communities (recognized as assemblages of species characterized the organization, development, and repeatability) were taken into account, the Author should more clearly name them using e.g. the so-called ‘flag’ species of these assemblages (e.g. a Glyceria striata community or Nasturtium officinale community, etc.)

The Author has informed, among others, that “the aquatic vegetation communities in these springs are becoming increasingly better known” (l. 44-45). In my opinion, regardless of the statement, the Author should name the communities to avoid the need of searching for basic information in other papers.

The other example: “Bowles and Dodd [18] provided a summary of the plant community data collected from 2007 to 2012” (l. 138-139). Exactly, in the mentioned paper the Authors posted a list of species for the two springs (Alley Spring and Big Spring) but is not certain that the species list was repeated/was the same in the other years under present study, prior to the flood (2007-2016) and after the flood (2017-2019 Alley Spring; 2017-2020 Big Spring). And, consequently, the lists of species and their cover (abundance), quantitative relations, etc. not necessarily were the same in the two compared periods.

See e.g.:
Table 3. Veronica anagallis-aquatica – in Bowles and Dodd (2015) there is V. catenata; it is not a synonym of the first plant name.
l. 293 – the population of N. parmelioides – Nostoc sp. in the years 2007-2012 (Bowles and Dodd 2015).
The next term appears in the manuscript, too, that is, “population”, e.g. some species populations in the springs (l. 368), monitoring populations (l. 416). Using this term seems to be not justified because the Author did not carry out the studies on the population level, i.e. on population size/abundance, spatial organization, size structure, reproduction, and so on.

Other remarks
All Latin names in the text should be in italics.
l. 371 “…completion for space and sunlight with…” – or competition?

I am not the English-language person but I don't think the word “completion” applies here, according to the definition of completion: (i) the act or process of completing; (ii) the quality or state of being complete, etc.

l. 462 Czarneka, B.; Rydiak, A.; Chabudziński, L. – the proper names are: Czarnecka, Rysiak…

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for the constructive comments on my manuscript. They were very helpful as I prepared the revised manuscript. My responses and corrections are indicated in bold font and follow your comments.

These springs are differing especially in terms of e.g.:

- recharge area (km2) – almost 3 times;

- mean annual discharge m3/sec – more than 3 times;

- human population in recharge area – 3 times;

- forested area – almost 4 times, and other habitat and watershed variables.

On the other hand, these two spring areas are similar as regards, e.g.:

- overall channel slope (0.94-0.95%),

- current velocity (0.38-0.46 m/sec,

- the canopy cover (0.23-0.24%),

- water temperature (13.78-14.24oC),

- specific conductance (266.71-311.53 μS/cm),

- dissolved oxygen (9.32-9.41 mg/L),

- pH (7.24-7.27).

This manuscript is worth of publication in Hydrobiology.

I have only some suggestions, questions and remarks.

The aim of the study

The aim was formulated as follows: “The paper quantifies the loss of vegetative cover in Alley and Big springs, Missouri following a catastrophic flood, documents subsequent recovery, and explains differential responses in their recovery”.

In my opinion, this is, first of all, a documentary aspect of the study, and the documentation on aquatic vegetation monitoring was included into other publication of the Author and his team. Thus, knowing so much on the aquatic vegetation in the two study springs, the aim of this paper should be better (more clearly) stated and the hypothesis should be put forward, e.g. on possible responses of the particular plant species for disturbances caused by the catastrophic flood.

I added the following sentence after the previous referenced aim: “Based on the historical data, the hypothesis for this study was that vegetation in both springs would recover rapidly and at similar rates.” I believe this clarification makes clear the hypothesis of the study.

Terminology

In the manuscript, various terms are used with regard to the plant organization in the study area, that is:

Species level: number of species, effective number of species (e.g. lines 12, 156-159),

plant species foliar cover (l. 129), individual species dynamics (l. 154 , 251, 252), individual species metrics (Table 3), etc.

Community level: vegetative community, plant community, community diversity metrics for aquatic vegetation, spring community, and others.

Vegetation level: aquatic vegetation, aquatic vegetation communities, vegetation in the springs, vegetation patterns, aquatic vegetation in springs, etc.

I have the impression that the Author used the above-mentioned terms as synonyms.

Of course, we can find in the literature/dictionaries, etc. many various definitions of these levels of plant organization, i.e. plant community, vegetation, flora.

What is the meaning of plant community?

(i) A plant community is a group of recurring species that: share a characteristic habitat; collectively create a unique physiognomy;

(ii) Plant communities are assemblages of species characterized the organization, development, and repeatability;

(iii) The social group¬ings of plant species are called plant community of which plant is the fundamental basic unit; etc.

What is the meaning of vegetation?

(i) It simply means all the plants in a defined area;

(ii) Vegetation is a term used to describe the total plant cover in an area or on the surface of the earth as a whole;

(iii) Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species; etc.

What is the meaning of flora?

(i) the plants characteristic of a region, period, or special environment fossil flora;

(ii) plants considered as a group, especially the plants of a particular country, region, or time;

(iii) the plants of a particular region or period, listed by species and considered as a whole;

(iv) the plant life typical of a region, period, or special environment; etc.

Another reviewer had a similar response, particularly on the use of ‘communities’. Although I do not fully agree, I have resolved this issue by eliminating most such usage, substituting ‘aquatic vegetation’ and changing the wording as needed to accommodate that new usage. I did retain the use of ‘community diversity’ for section 3.1 because that is the specific terminology used for those metrics in the literature. In the collective sense, I feel that useage is correct. I do not feel it within the scope of this paper to describe those specific communities as the reviewer suggested. I believe these actions largely meet the reviewer’s intent.

Per the previous comment, I have made wording changes that resolves this request.

I appreciate the concern raised by the reviewer. The species in the Bowles and Dodd (2015) paper are the same as in this paper (as shown by name in the figures and Table 3). I did indicate in the Methods under vegetation assessment that “Bowles and Dodd [18] provided a summary of the plant community data collected from 2007 to 2012”. There were a couple of differences in rare singleton species, but they are not included in this paper. There were some minor taxonomic changes (as indicated below), but, in my opinion, it is beyond the scope of the present paper to explain those in detail—since this is not a floristics paper. The major difference in that earlier paper and the present paper is the addition of several more years of monitoring data. With that additional data, I did not attempt to repeat the same analyses as done in Bowles and Dodd (2015), but rather I aimed at interpreting the data relative to the flood.

Table 3. Veronica anagallis-aquatica – in Bowles and Dodd (2015) there is V. catenata; it is not a synonym of the first plant name.

That is correct. V. catenata and V. anagallis-aquatic are distinct species. However, at the time Bowles and Dodd (2015) was written they were considered by some authors as synonyms in addition to confusion of which species occurred in Missouri springs. Indeed, the nomenclatural history for these two species in the US is tortured and confusing. At the time of Bowles and Dodd (2015), some authors considered them to be all varieties of V. catenata and that is how we treated them. Subsequently, Yatskievych clarified the taxonomy of the two species in Missouri, which is reflected in this paper. We actually have both species in Missouri springs, but only V. anagallis-americana occurs in the two springs in this study.

293 – the population of N. parmelioides – Nostoc sp. in the years 2007-2012 (Bowles and Dodd 2015).

That is correct. Subsequent to the publication of Bowles and Dodd (2015), I was finally able to make a specific determination as to species. It was not an easy task, but I am now confident of this identification.

The next term appears in the manuscript, too, that is, “population”, e.g. some species populations in the springs (l. 368), monitoring populations (l. 416). Using this term seems to be not justified because the Author did not carry out the studies on the population level, i.e. on population size/abundance, spatial organization, size structure, reproduction, and so on.

Fair enough. I have removed those uses of ‘population’. The only exception was the use for N. parmelioides at Big Spring (pg. 13) where that would, in my opinion, be a correct use of population.

Other remarks

All Latin names in the text should be in italics.

Corrected

371 “…completion for space and sunlight with…” – or competition?

Typo. Corrected to Competition

Czarneka, B.; Rydiak, A.; Chabudziński, L. – the proper names are: Czarnecka, Rysiak…

Corrected. My apologies for the error.

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: Resiliency and Recovery of Aquatic Vegetation Following Scouring Floods in Two First Magnitude Springs, Missouri, USA

The author presents an interesting study of springs in quite a natural environment. Before the acceptance some corrections are necessary. I suggest minor changes.

Comments:

Ln 12: the abbreviations S, He, De need explanations. I also suggest use of more common abbreviations for Shannon - Wiener’s diversity index (H’ , SDI or SWI). He is often used for Helophytes.

Ln 45, 50 etc.: aquatic vegetation communities – Please correct this combination through the entire text and use either “aquatic vegetation” or “aquatic plant communities”.

Ln 54: I suggest integrating the hypothesis to the last paragraph in Introduction. There are results which could accept or reject some of the issues.

Ln 77: Figure 1 and its caption need additional info: where are cross bars mentioned in the caption?

I suggest to add the names and/or borders of neighboring states of Missouri or its position on the map of central part of USA.

Ln 209 and 212: abbreviations S, He, De in Table 2 and in caption need explanations. See the suggestions above.

Author Response

The author presents an interesting study of springs in quite a natural environment. Before the acceptance some corrections are necessary. I suggest minor changes.

Thank you for the constructive comments on my manuscript. They were very helpful as I prepared the revised manuscript. My responses are in bold font and follow each of your comments.

Comments:

Ln 12: the abbreviations S, He, De need explanations. I also suggest use of more common abbreviations for Shannon - Wiener’s diversity index (H’ , SDI or SWI). He is often used for Helophytes.

The abbreviations H’ SDI and SWI are indeed used for Shannon’s index. However, I did not report Shannon’s values sensu strictu. Instead, I used He which is specifically for effective number of species and its associated formula, which I referenced.

Understood on the abbreviation for He. But, that also is the standard abbreviation for effective number of species for Shannon’s index that is well established in the ecological literature. I think it would be confusing to the readers to change the terms. Therefore, I have retained its useage, but please note that it is thoroughly referenced, which, hopefully, the reader will use to interpret it.

Ln 45, 50 etc.: aquatic vegetation communities – Please correct this combination through the entire text and use either “aquatic vegetation” or “aquatic plant communities”.

I have opted for use of ‘aquatic vegetation’. I retained a few uses of ‘plants’ where that was used in a published reference.

Ln 54: I suggest integrating the hypothesis to the last paragraph in Introduction. There are results which could accept or reject some of the issues.

I have added the following statement concerning hypothesis at the end of the introduction: “Based on the historical data, the hypothesis for this study was that aquatic vegetation in both springs would recover rapidly and at similar rates in each spring.”

Ln 77: Figure 1 and its caption need additional info: where are cross bars mentioned in the caption

I changed the descriptor to perpendicular to avoid confusion. Those bars are the short bars crossing the line demarking the channel.

I suggest to add the names and/or borders of neighboring states of Missouri or its position on the map of central part of USA.

Thank you for this suggestion. I have modified the map to show Missouri’s location on the outline of the entire US. The scale of that map does not allow effective labelling of individual states. I do think this change makes for a much clearer map.

Ln 209 and 212: abbreviations S, He, De in Table 2 and in caption need explanations. See the suggestions above.

I added a sentence to the table caption describing those abbreviations.

Reviewer 3 Report

In my opinion, the manuscript is perfect to be published. My answer to the question about English language and style meant that they are fine.

The only amendment needed is that plant scientific names should be in italic in the text (page 10, 11), as in Table 3 and page 15. However, the authors of Cardamine bulbosa are unduly in italic.

Author Response

In my opinion, the manuscript is perfect to be published. My answer to the question about English language and style meant that they are fine.

Thank you for the constructive comments on my manuscript. They were very helpful as I prepared the revised manuscript. My responses to each of your comments are in bold font.

The only amendment needed is that plant scientific names should be in italic in the text (page 10, 11), as in Table 3 and page 15. However, the authors of Cardamine bulbosa are unduly in italic.

I fixed this. Thank you.

Reviewer 4 Report

Title: Resiliency and recovery of aquatic vegetation following scouring Floods in two first magnitude springs, Missouri, USA

Bowles, D.

The manuscript is a good contribution to the study of aquatic vegetation dynamics in small springs. The study deserves to be published. Nevertheless, it needs some improvements to be published in final form. I will point out the details below:

Abstract:

There are two phrases in the abstract that must be changed. In the first one, in line 15, the author suggests that the diversity metrics are not sensitive to measure the impact. The phrase suggests that the author had an expectation about the impact and any measure methods that do not show this primary perception is a failure of the method. I believe that he has to think better and use the found results. The second problem is in line 26. The author attributes the found results to the geomorphology of the spring channel but this was not mentioned in the methods of the abstract.

Introduction

The objective of the study does not describe what the author has done (line 52). The objective only talks about the loss of vegetative cover, but the author also evaluated the changes in vegetation diversity. I think is also important to put some expectations on the results (Hypothesis). To me appears that the author was expecting a very catastrophic effect on the vegetation but it was not like his expectation. So please rewrite the objectives and ad a hypothesis.

Material and methods

Line 78 – Please improve Figure 1. We can not see the springs in the figure, only the main rivers. I have made a big effort but I was not able to find the crossbars described in the subtitles. For someone that does not live in the USA is important to show the location in the country. Perhaps you join figures 1,2 and 3 as one.

Results

Lines 184 – 188. There is a “result” here that was not included in the objective of the study. If the author wants to maintain it please move it to the methods section in the description of the flooding.

Lines 194 – 198. The description of the results sometimes seems not to consider the statistical tests. Phrases like “decreased precipitously” are a little bit exaggerated for a non-significant result.

Lines 259 – 260. Please put italics on scientific names.

Lines 267 – 271. I always prefer when we look at the table of figure and understand everything without having to look at the text. Please provide the meaning of PFC, ISF and SIV in the caption of the Table. Please take out bold and put italics in Batrachospermum below Big Spring.

Lines 277, 280, 290, 291, 293, 311, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 319, 320 and 321 – Please put italics in the scientific names.

Lines 298 and 303 – The measured parameters in the figure captions are not really about diversity. Please change the subtitles of the figures describing properly the evaluated parameters.

Discussion

Lines 328 – 329 – The author attributes the found patterns to geomorphology, substrate size, and “other factors”. I think that other factors are anything that was not measured here. I suggest taking it out.

Lines 408 – 418 the impression here is that the author refuses to discuss the found results on diversity. It seems like the chosen parameters to evaluate diversity didn’t show the expected results and because of that, they should be ignored. I think if the author would put the expectations in the objective (Introduction) he has the opportunity here to discuss why he didn’t find the expected differences in richness and diversity. I think there is an opportunity to discuss the results here. I disagree that the chosen parameters are not able to capture the expected differences in diversity.

Author Response

Reviewer 4

Thank you for the thorough review and constructive comments on my manuscript. They were very helpful as I prepared the revised manuscript. My responses follow each of your comments and are in bold font.

Abstract:

Thank you for the comment, but I do not agree entirely with the first assertion. The statistical analysis itself showed that to be the case, and it certainly wasn’t an expectation—just the opposite, as I was quite surprised by that finding. This study offered an opportunity to test the metrics that were chosen years ago to assess community structure, and the test showed they do not work as great as anticipated—and I found that unexpected and disappointing. In the sense the metrics did not work as well as intended, it indeed might be considered a ‘failure of method’, but I think it important for others to see that information so they will make more informed decisions about their study designs. Negative data does have something to offer in that sense.

Fair enough on the second issue: The geomorphology reference was removed.

Introduction

To address this concern, I have added a more specific hypothesis to that section. All expectations were that the vegetation would recovery as quickly as it had following previous floods.

Material and methods

At the scales presented, it will not be possible to see the details of the spring sources, especially in Figure 1. This map was intended only to show the approximate locations of the springs on the river basin scale. My goal was to simply show the general location of the springs relative to the receiving rivers.

The same for Figures 2 and 3. The scales do not permit close-up views. That is why I used the yellow lines to show the general route of the spring channel in relation to the river.

I have modified Figure 1 to show the general location of the springs (by adding the outline of the state of Missouri) within the United States. This was a good point that I had not considered, and it makes for a better map.

I changed the descriptor from ‘cross’ to perpendicular to avoid confusion. Those bars are the short bars crossing the line demarking the channel.

Because figures 2 and 3 are different media and scales compared to figure 1, I do not think it practical to combine them.

Results

I think it is important that the reader know specifically why data for the other large springs was not presented. So, I have retained this information, but moved it to the methods since it is not a result per se.

The post flood values did decrease, but I have removed descriptors such as precipitously and sharply to accommodate this comment. That they were not statistically significant was clearly indicated.

Lines 259 – 260. Please put italics on scientific names.

Corrected.

I have added that information to the caption and fixed the bold/italics issue for Batrachospermum

Lines 277, 280, 290, 291, 293, 311, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 319, 320 and 321 – Please put italics in the scientific names.

All Corrected

Lines 298 and 303 – The measured parameters in the figure captions are not really about diversity. Please change the subtitles of the figures describing properly the evaluated parameters.

I have corrected this issue.

Discussion

So removed.

Thanks for this comment. I certainly did not set out or intend to refuse comment on these data or ignore them. It is true that I was surprised by the outcome and slow recovery of the vegetation relative to what I had observed following lesser floods. However, the diversity data are presented and discussed in 4 paragraphs of text and 4 figures. In my view, and in light of the largely insignificant statistical analysis, I contend there simply is not much more to be said about them. I indicated the overall response trends, pre and post flood conditions (with statistical analysis), and I did note that the statistical analysis did not obviate biological importance. I have reworked the result section to reference the hypothesis stated in the introduction and deviations from it.

Reviewer 5 Report

Dear author,

you wrote an interesting and relevant study. Here are some comments:

Please, do not use the word "I" and wordgroups like "I also feel".
Did you really find Poa annua in water? I only know it as a terrestrical grass.
At the end of the article, please add a short chapter with conclusions for practise and further research!

Best regards

Your reviewer

Author Response

Thank you for the constructive comments on my manuscript. They were very helpful as I prepared the revised manuscript.

Please, do not use the word "I" and wordgroups like "I also feel".

To address this comment, I have changed the sentence structure in those instances to 3^rd person. Interesting, that some journals request first person structure while others do not.

Did you really find Poa annua in water? I only know it as a terrestrical grass.

Yes, Poa annua is an ecologically plastic, non-native species that commonly inhabits springs in addition to the more common terrestrial habitats. It was first documented in these habitats in the 1920s by Steyermark. It grows only vegetatively in the springs.

At the end of the article, please add a short chapter with conclusions for practise and further research!

I have added a brief Conclusions section as requested.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Good amendments and complementing.

Author Response

Thank you. I appreciate your constructive comments. No actionable items.

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript has improved greatly.

I have only two points that I'd like to address:

The first one is only a mistake in figure 1. The figure has improved since the last version but still has the crossbars in the caption that are not shown in the figure. I think there is a mistake by the author. He changed the captions of the subsequent figures where we can see these crossbars but forgot to take out this phrase here in figure 1. Please take ou the phrase about crossbars in figure 1.

The second is more structural in the manuscript but not so difficult to solve. There are two and a half pages of results describing the results of diversity and almost nothing about these results in the discussion session. There is only one comment in the abstract that these metrics were not sensitive to the changes observed in the researched system.

I particularly disagree with this assumption but I am not going to try to explain that because I did not visit the researched areas. I think diversity must appear in the discussion. The author must explain the results. Why diversity didn't change as expected in this study and if the author thinks that these metrics are not sensitive to detect what he was intended to measure he also must explain why in the discussion session.

Author Response

My responses and corrective actions are in bold font.

Thank you for your constructive comments and diligent reviews of this manuscript. I do appreciate your comments because they have made the paper stronger. On your second comment here, I believe I understand the context of your criticism—that is, to address in more detail in the Discussion the reasons why diversity did not change as expected relative to the metrics used. I have added text as below that I feel should resolve this concern.

The manuscript has improved greatly.

I have only two points that I'd like to address:

This sentence was removed. Yes, this was a mistake that escaped correction on the first revision.

For the abstract, there is a word limit. In order for me to approximate that limit I had to reduce the amount of information presented. Since the results for the diversity metrics were largely not significant, I chose not to expound upon them in the abstract. However, to remedy this matter I have modified that section as follows: “Post-flood community diversity metrics (S, He, De) for the springs largely were not significant for most measures (Epps-Singleton test P > 0.05). This suggests those metrics may not be sufficiently sensitive for detecting change in springs when sample size is small.”

And I strongly suspect that is the issue with the sensitivity. A larger sample size, in years, likely would have produced a significant result.

I offer the following as a means to address this point:

“This study showed that individual species metrics (ISF, PFC, SIV) were the strongest indicators of disturbance and recovery evaluated based on the number of significant results. Bare substrate and evenness also showed distinct responses, which are useful for assessing recovery. In contrast, diversity metrics (S, He, De) for both springs generally did not provide statistically significant responses, especially for Alley Spring. However, those results do not obviate biological significance because diversity in each spring did markedly decrease following the flood. This unexpected response may be due to the relatively small sample size in this study (i.e., ≤14 years), which may not be sufficient for detection of significant change. Larger sample sizes may show those diversity metrics to be more robust indica-tors of disturbance. Regardless, diversity metrics were a strong visual tool for showing when impacts occurred in the springs in this study. Collectively, all of the previous met-rics should be considered when evaluating impacts to these springs.”

It was difficult to determine the best location in the discussion to place this content, but I feel the place selected is most appropriate.