Composition of the Anuran Community in a Forest Management Area in Southeastern Amazonia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors examined effects of land use types related with different forest management scenarios on the diversity and composition of the anuran community. The topic of the manuscript falls into the scope of the journal. However, the manuscript is not well structured. Moreover, the expression is very difficult to understand.

 

I took the abstract part for example:

The authors should give a description of why they did this study, that is, the importance of this study, e.g., the diversity of forests have sharply decreased; Human activities significantly impact the structure and the functioning of forest ecosystems.

Line 18: the term “environments” should be specific, like precipitation, temperature, soil properties, land use types, fire disturbance…

Lines 24-30: The results should be showed in a more detailed way. Currently the authors did not learn much from the results. “We found significant differences across different ecosystem types”. The statement is too general. “The observed pattern may benefit the assembly of anurans in the short term”. Which pattern? What does the term “assembly” mean? It makes readers rather confusing.

 

The authors have large amounts of data. However, the results were showed in a too simple way. The authors are encouraged to give some figures. The figures are intuitive for readers to capture the main ideas of the manuscript.

Must be improved throughout the manuscript

Author Response

Reply to Referee 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors examined effects of land use types related with different forest management scenarios on the diversity and composition of the anuran community. The topic of the manuscript falls into the scope of the journal. However, the manuscript is not well structured. Moreover, the expression is very difficult to understand.

 

I took the abstract part for example:

The authors should give a description of why they did this study, that is, the importance of this study, e.g., the diversity of forests have sharply decreased; Human activities significantly impact the structure and the functioning of forest ecosystems.

Line 18: the term “environments” should be specific, like precipitation, temperature, soil properties, land use types, fire disturbance…

Authors: We used types of environments for the managed forest areas highlighted this better in the review. Regarding the independent environmental variables well detailed in the text, such as litter and luminosity, we add that they were collected for statistical analysis. We believe that this is enough to clarify the point raised. At the request of evaluators, we will provide photos of each type of environment (Figure 3).

 

Lines 24-30: The results should be showed in a more detailed way. Currently the authors did not learn much from the results. “We found significant differences across different ecosystem types”. The statement is too general. “The observed pattern may benefit the assembly of anurans in the short term”. Which pattern? What does the term “assembly” mean? It makes readers rather confusing.

Authors: We performed nMDS analysis to check trends for differences in species composition among the four sampled environments. The glm analyzes had already been significant for the statistical parameters richness and abundance among the four different environments studied, but not for the time of management (APU's from 2 to 17 years). We agree that if the statistical analyzes did not show differences for the time parameter between the APUs, we cannot infer that the anurofauna benefited in a short period of time. However, we can discuss this possibility of the discussion item based on the scientific literature.

 

The authors have large amounts of data. However, the results were showed in a too simple way. The authors are encouraged to give some figures. The figures are intuitive for readers to capture the main ideas of the manuscript.

Authors: Done.

 

Thanks to the referee for comments and requests for adjustments. Please also see manuscript and attached figures.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presented by Fabrício Otávio do Nascimento Pereira and collaborators entitled “Composition of the anuran community in a forest management area in the southeastern Amazonia” contains very useful information that improves our knowledge about the impact of forest extraction. It evaluates the impact of forest management exploration on the anuran amphibian community using standardized collection methodologies and data analysis. Studies of this nature are scarce and extremely necessary as a support to develop forest management methodologies that minimize the impact that this type of activity causes to the Amazon forest.

The work is very good, I just suggest that the author add tables of the results obtained in the samplings to the supplementary material. It would also be very interesting to add images of the anuran species analyzed and help the reader with photographic images to better understand the characterization of the different study areas.

Author Response

Reply to Referee 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript presented by Fabrício Otávio do Nascimento Pereira and collaborators entitled “Composition of the anuran community in a forest management area in the southeastern Amazonia” contains very useful information that improves our knowledge about the impact of forest extraction. It evaluates the impact of forest management exploration on the anuran amphibian community using standardized collection methodologies and data analysis. Studies of this nature are scarce and extremely necessary as a support to develop forest management methodologies that minimize the impact that this type of activity causes to the Amazon forest.

The work is very good, I just suggest that the author add tables of the results obtained in the samplings to the supplementary material. It would also be very interesting to add images of the anuran species analyzed and help the reader with photographic images to better understand the characterization of the different study areas.

Authors: Done. Thanks to the referee for comments and requests for adjustments. Please also see manuscript and attached figures.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reply to Referee 3

 

Authors: We believe that the methods were well detailed in the manuscript, requiring only minor adjustments to be made to the material and methods. The insertion of environments figures was requested by evaluators and editor and will contribute to make the methods more clear.

 

Authors: We respectfully understand that this table would make the manuscript more confusing, and it would be interesting to make raw data available (as observed in articles on this topic).

 

Thanks to the referee for comments and requests for adjustments. Please also see manuscript and attached figures.

Reviewer 4 Report

I have carefully read the manuscript and find it worth publishing and of high interest. Language is good and I understand fairly well their results.

I do not personally know the litterature on Anurans but what is reffered to seems relevant.

It is as far as I understand based on a master thesis - and excellent that they will publish the results.

There are some main comments that I think can be easily improved:

Make it more clair what is meant by Forest management and so on - the concept is used here is a litle different form what we generally mean by the concept here in the north. Comments in the text on this several places

I do have trouble to see how the reserach is done - The method descriptions is to simplified to me. So please make this clearer and easily understood. See the comments in the text. It must be described so this research can be repeated as best as possible to compare other similar research and so on. I think this is easy to make.

 

So to the different sampling sits/plots - would have been very useful for the more complete understanding to see photos of the different transects types.

How does a secondary road looks alike - a slid trail - an a yard - and a virgin forest ?

I would very much like to see photos from the research area following the text in methods and results.  (Maybe the editors do not want this - if so I think that is a pitty).

I do not find the Figur 3 - see line 110.

AND the concept UPA must have been forgotten to explain for the readers. USED a lot of times - but I cannot find  where it is explained properly.

 I do not go into the statistsics as that is not my strong side - So another reviewer must do so - but I would like to see some aggregated data presented here. The added main tabel (appendix) does have the numbers filled in but a shorter and simpler version could have been presented in the results. I think it can be done.

 

All togehter - congratulation with a serious work done and important and interesting data collected.

There are many small and larger comments put into the text part. Concider them - and be free to make your own judgements based on my comments. I might have misunderstood some part - and even make suggestions that are not correct. But - in general - when soemthing is commented it is often so that a sentence can be improved - new  added and so on -

I wish you Good Luck with some of the improvements that can be done - You will for sure make this !

 

In genral - OK - can alwas be improved - and then best by an american/english native speaker and writer.

Some senteces are quite long. Maybe split some in two or three separate sentences.

Author Response

Reply to Referee 4

 

Thanks to the referee for comments and requests for adjustments. Please also see manuscript and attached figures.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the main problems like the presentation of results, language expression,  were not solved in the revised version. 

Author Response

Thank you for your constructive suggestion. Please see the attachment for the cover letter. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Accepted

Author Response

Thank your for your constructive suggestion for our paper.