Odonata from Iberá Wetland System (Corrientes, Argentina) Are Regional Biogeographic Schemes Useful to Assess Odonata Biodiversity and Its Conservation?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript represents an interesting contribution, that deserves to be published. I find, however, one main problem. The authors used an outdated biogeographic regionalization, and the most recent one (Morrone et al., 2022; see attached PDF) explicitly includes an Esteros del Iberá biogeographic province. Analysis of this regionalization may provide alternative interpretations, so I suggest the authors to use it.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Regarding the consideration of the scheme proposed by Morrone et al. 2022; it was not included in the analyzes because, although it uses the name Iberá, it uses it in a much broader sense than the one proposed in this study (it includes all the hydrological basins of the Iberá Depression and other areas from Paraguay, Uruguay and the Rio de La Plata Basin). Therefore, this scheme cannot be used to test if Iberá (in the strict sense) can be considered as a functional unit or not. We have incorporated this point in the manuscript.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

I found this to be an interesting, but also confusing, paper. The basic idea of the paper — determining whether the biogeographical schemes that have been proposed help explain the distribution of Odonata in the Iberá Depression — seems sound. But I am not convinced that the results fully support the conclusions reached. 

 

In several places in the manuscript, further explanation would be needed to make the meaning clear.  I will explain the sources of confusion in the order in which they come up in the manuscript.  I have listed problems minor problems with the writing (i.e., those that did not cause confusion) separately.

 

Lines 81-82: I am not sure what the authors meant to convey by the second half of this sentence ("due to its extension, environmental singularity and probably because of their ecotonal nature").  Part of what makes this phrase confusing is that the subject's pronoun changes from "its" to "their".  I also don't know what "environmental singularity" means in this context. The way this term has been used elsewhere in the literature seems nearly opposite to the usual meaning of "ecotonal".

 

Line 117: What is the connection between the size of the floodplain and whether the biographic schemes "explain" the distribution of Odonata? And what exactly does "explain" mean in this sentence?

 

Line 124: preliminary inventory of what?  Odonata, I assume, but this should be stated. 

 

Figure 1 caption: Which part of E is the Iberá Depression? I gather from other figures that it is the area in blue. If so, that should be stated in the caption.  

 

All of the figure captions could be improved.  I had to refer to the text and compare the figures multiple times to understand how they differed and what they showed. If the captions were more descriptive, the reader could be spared from having to do so much work just to understand the figures. 

 

Lines 190-195, figures 4 and 5, and the Discussion: I appreciate that two different clustering algorithms are available and that each has strengths and weaknesses. In situations like this, it often makes sense to use both methods and compare the results.  If the algorithms agreed on the important questions, that would be reassuring.  If the algorithms produced different results with respect to the important questions, then this should be discussed. With this in mind, why is a Sorensen-Dice dendrogram shown in figure 4, along with the color-coded map of the basins, while a Jaccard dendrogram is shown in figure 5 along with the map of the streams, rivers and wetlands?  In the Results and Discussion, no mention is made of the differences between the two dendrograms and only the dendrogram in figure 4b is discussed in relation to the streams, rivers and wetlands map in 5b.  Perhaps there's a good reason for doing that, but I don't think readers should be left to puzzle it out for themselves (I can't think of a good reason). I think it would be helpful to have the maps in 4a and 5b in the same figure so that the basins could be more easily matched up to the streams, rivers and wetlands.  Or better yet, a map that has both the outlines of the basins and the water bodies. 

 

Lines 213-214.  Here and elsewhere in the manuscript, it would help if there was an explanation of what was expected and why. I thought I understood what the authors expected until I reached the Discussion and then started to have doubts. If the authors explained what they were expecting in writing they might realize that some of it is based on questionable assumptions (more on this below).

 

Line 236-237:  I think this sentence needs to be expanded to clarify what the "previous works" postulated and the assumptions those hypotheses were based on (also, the previous work should be cited).  I don't know what the authors mean by "ecotonal character" or what a low degree of endemism has to do with biogeographic units.  This sentence begins with  "As stated before," so I thought I had missed something in the Introduction, but I re-read the Introduction and still do not fully understand this sentence.

 

Line 239-243: What was the rationale for thinking the three Iberá basins would be more similar to each other than they are to neighboring basins?  Also, this statement in the Discussion doesn't really seem to match the results. In figure 4, Iberá basin 2 is equally close in the dendrogram to basins 1 and 9, which matches the geographic situation (i.e.,  basins 1 and 9 are on opposite sides of basin 2). Iberá basin 3 is equally close to Iberá basins 2 and 1 in the dendrogram and the only basin that is closer to basin 3 is the geographically closest basin (8).  It would seem that geographic proximity can explain most of what is shown in the dendrogram.

 

Line 274-276: This seems like an important point but I don't understand it because I don't know what "amphinotic" means. Even after looking it up, I am not sure what the authors mean by it. I found references to amphinotic distribution patterns but not to amphinotic cycles. Perhaps the authors meant to use a different term, but if this is indeed the term they meant to use, a definition would be helpful.  

 

Lines 277-282: These concluding remarks make sense to me biologically, but they do not seem to follow very closely from the results presented. I wondered why the authors did not test the ecological hypothesis in the same way that they tested the biogeographic ones. Also, as mentioned above, the geographic proximity of basins seems to help explain much of what is shown in the dendrograms.  A model that took both proximity and ecology into account might be the most biologically realistic for Odonata, and perhaps would explain the species distribution patterns better than any of the schemes considered in the manuscript.

 

 

Grammatical, spelling and other minor problems:

 

Line 19: "recover" should be "recovered" and "subasins" should be "sub-basins"

 

Line 35: comma should be before "and then"

 

Line 92: missing word the word "burned" (or a similar word) after "hectares"

 

Lines 112-115: the word "encounter" is used incorrectly; I think the intended meaning is "are found", although the sentence would be awkwardly worded if "encounter" was replaced with "are found".  The authors might want to rephrase using "there are", as in: "there are three provinces".

 

Figure 2 caption: the symbols and numbers are not used consistently across panels (e.g., 5 is a black rectangle in A and C but an orange circle in B).

 

 

Data availability statement: 

 

The data are not actually "contained within the article"; some data are contained in the supplement but some data are missing, such as the coordinates of the sampling sites (these could be provided in tabular form in the supplement).

 

Author Response

The manuscript represents an interesting contribution, that deserves to be published. I find, however, one main problem. The authors used an outdated biogeographic regionalization, and the most recent one (Morrone et al., 2022; see attached PDF) explicitly includes an Esteros del Iberá biogeographic province. Analysis of this regionalization may provide alternative interpretations, so I suggest the authors to use it.

A: The scheme proposed by Morrone et al. 2022 (specifically the province Esteros del Iberá) was not included in the analyses because it is a large area that includes all of the Hydrological basins of the Iberá Depression. Therefore, it cannot be tested with this scheme if Ibera can be considered a functional unit or not. We could have used Morrone et al. 2022 proposal instead of the Hydrological Basins. However, there are two things that prevented us from working with this scheme, on the one hand, Morrone et al.’s regionalization works at a larger scale, and we would have to crop the  area of interested arbitrarily, in this sense, the  Hydrological Basins scheme of the province of Corrientes is more accurate. Besides, Morrone does not propose an internal subdivision of this region. 

 

 

Lines 81-82: I am not sure what the authors meant to convey by the second half of this sentence ("due to its extension, environmental singularity and probably because of their ecotonal nature").  Part of what makes this phrase confusing is that the subject's pronoun changes from "its" to "their".  I also don't know what "environmental singularity" means in this context. The way this term has been used elsewhere in the literature seems nearly opposite to the usual meaning of "ecotonal".

A: The pronoun is now corrected, and the hole phrase is now rearranged and revised for a better understanding.

 

Line 117: What is the connection between the size of the floodplain and whether the biographic schemes "explain" the distribution of Odonata? And what exactly does "explain" mean in this sentence?

A: This part was re organized and rewritten for better understanding. Nonetheless to respond to that particular question: To our knowledge the floodplain, due to its inherent dynamics, homogenize the environments and erase the “barrier” effects between the basins.

 

Line 124: preliminary inventory of what?  Odonata, I assume, but this should be stated. 

A: This is now included

 

Figure 1 caption: Which part of E is the Iberá Depression? I gather from other figures that it is the area in blue. If so, that should be stated in the caption.  

A: Figure 1 is now modified according to this suggestion (the legend was also imporved).

 

All of the figure captions could be improved.  I had to refer to the text and compare the figures multiple times to understand how they differed and what they showed. If the captions were more descriptive, the reader could be spared from having to do so much work just to understand the figures. 

A: All the figures are now improved and a few more were also added to ease the reading of the MS.

 

Lines 190-195, figures 4 and 5, and the Discussion: I appreciate that two different clustering algorithms are available and that each has strengths and weaknesses. In situations like this, it often makes sense to use both methods and compare the results.  If the algorithms agreed on the important questions, that would be reassuring.  If the algorithms produced different results with respect to the important questions, then this should be discussed. With this in mind, why is a Sorensen-Dice dendrogram shown in figure 4, along with the color-coded map of the basins, while a Jaccard dendrogram is shown in figure 5 along with the map of the streams, rivers and wetlands?  In the Results and Discussion, no mention is made of the differences between the two dendrograms and only the dendrogram in figure 4b is discussed in relation to the streams, rivers and wetlands map in 5b.  Perhaps there's a good reason for doing that, but I don't think readers should be left to puzzle it out for themselves (I can't think of a good reason). I think it would be helpful to have the maps in 4a and 5b in the same figure so that the basins could be more easily matched up to the streams, rivers and wetlands.  Or better yet, a map that has both the outlines of the basins and the water bodies. 

A: The Fig. 5 is now modified to better comprehend the information provided. And the information of the dendrograms are properly explained both in the text and as a new figure (Fig. 2 and Fig. 9). Also a new map showing all permanent water systems is included (also Fig. 2 and Fig 9).

 

Lines 213-214.  Here and elsewhere in the manuscript, it would help if there was an explanation of what was expected and why. I thought I understood what the authors expected until I reached the Discussion and then started to have doubts. If the authors explained what they were expecting in writing they might realize that some of it is based on questionable assumptions (more on this below).

A: A better explanation of the schemes and their selection basis is included. We also expanded the introduction of our previous knowledge. 

 

Line 236-237:  I think this sentence needs to be expanded to clarify what the "previous works" postulated and the assumptions those hypotheses were based on (also, the previous work should be cited).  I don't know what the authors mean by "ecotonal character" or what a low degree of endemism has to do with biogeographic units.  This sentence begins with "As stated before," so I thought I had missed something in the Introduction, but I re-read the Introduction and still do not fully understand this sentence.

A: These assumptions were postulated from a previous author (cited as [14]. As stated before the introduction was improved to clarify these confusions.

 

Line 239-243: What was the rationale for thinking the three Iberá basins would be more similar to each other than they are to neighboring basins?  Also, this statement in the Discussion doesn't really seem to match the results. In figure 4, Iberá basin 2 is equally close in the dendrogram to basins 1 and 9, which matches the geographic situation (i.e.,  basins 1 and 9 are on opposite sides of basin 2). Iberá basin 3 is equally close to Iberá basins 2 and 1 in the dendrogram and the only basin that is closer to basin 3 is the geographically closest basin (8).  It would seem that geographic proximity can explain most of what is shown in the dendrogram.

A: Most basins (specially Iberá Depression) is characterized by a series of physical barriers that hinders the distribution of most species. Due to this, in most cases, the species within the basin are more related (as a taxocenosis) than with others basins.

The proximity of the basins may explain part of the found distribution (represented by the similarities indexes) but the internal working of Iberá shows that instead of the neighboring basins being more similar with each other, or even the sub-basins of the same basin system (Carambolas-Ibera with Naciente del Rio Corrientes for example), we found that not neighboring basins shows more similarities (Santa Lucía and Carambolas-Iberá).

 

Line 274-276: This seems like an important point but I don't understand it because I don't know what "amphinotic" means. Even after looking it up, I am not sure what the authors mean by it. I found references to amphinotic distribution patterns but not to amphinotic cycles. Perhaps the authors meant to use a different term, but if this is indeed the term they meant to use, a definition would be helpful.  

A: The terminology was corrected. The correct term was amphibiotic.

 

Lines 277-282: These concluding remarks make sense to me biologically, but they do not seem to follow very closely from the results presented. I wondered why the authors did not test the ecological hypothesis in the same way that they tested the biogeographic ones. Also, as mentioned above, the geographic proximity of basins seems to help explain much of what is shown in the dendrograms.  A model that took both proximity and ecology into account might be the most biologically realistic for Odonata, and perhaps would explain the species distribution patterns better than any of the schemes considered in the manuscript.

A: We agree that a new ecological approach with a model with those parameters would be very interesting; nonetheless it escapes the scope of this work. We will approach this issue in future works.

 

Grammatical, spelling and other minor problems:

 

All suggestion were accepted and included.

 

Data availability statement: 

 

The data are not actually "contained within the article"; some data are contained in the supplement but some data are missing, such as the coordinates of the sampling sites (these could be provided in tabular form in the supplement).

A: A new table is now provided with all the localities’ coordinates.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I find that the present manuscript represents an improved version of the previous one. In general, changes are fine and I would accept it as it is.

Please note that in the title the "¿" should be eliminated, as it is in English.

Author Response

1. Please note that in the title the "¿" should be eliminated, as it is in English

- has been deleted

Reviewer 2 Report

The figures and figure captions have been improved substantially, the text has been improved in places, and the missing data are now provided in a table.  There are still some problems with the English (e.g., the word "encounter" is still used incorrectly), but perhaps they could be fixed by a copy editor. 

The author's response letter helped me understand the rationale behind their analyses but I think this information should be added to the manuscript so that other readers will be able to understand it too. Perhaps it is obvious to the authors why they had the expectations that they had, but the results do not match those expectations, so apparently their expectations were wrong. Without a clear explanation of why those things were expected, I think the manuscript would be confusing to many readers. 

The Discussion is essentially unchanged. The problems that I noted previously are still problems that I think should be addressed before the manuscript is published. 

Author Response

1. The author's response letter helped me understand the rationale behind their analyses but I think this information should be added to the manuscript so that other readers will be able to understand it too. Perhaps it is obvious to the authors why they had the expectations that they had, but the results do not match those expectations, so apparently their expectations were wrong. Without a clear explanation of why those things were expected, I think the manuscript would be confusing to many readers. 

- We have tried to better clarify our hypothesis in the new version of the manuscript

2. The Discussion is essentially unchanged. The problems that I noted previously are still problems that I think should be addressed before the manuscript is published.

- A new section with an expanded discussion is now merged and improved.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The further clarifications made by the authors are helpful.  I think the manuscript will now be suitable for publication after copyediting (there are still some English grammar problems).  

 

Line 299: refers to figure 5b but there is no figure 5b.  I think this was meant to refer to figure 2b and/or figure 4b (referring to both of these figures would be helpful for the point being made here).

 

Figure 9 is only partially visible in the pdf but I can guess what the missing part shows.

Author Response

1. I think the manuscript will now be suitable for publication after copyediting (there are still some English grammar problems).

- A proper grammar revision was done to improve the quality of the ms.

2. Line 299: refers to figure 5b but there is no figure 5b.  I think this was meant to refer to figure 2b and/or figure 4b (referring to both of these figures would be helpful for the point being made here).

- Indeed the Fig was meant to be 2b. It has now been amended.