Environmental Factors Determine Tuna Fishing Vessels’ Behavior in Tonga
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
This is a well written paper that provides important information on the relationship between tuna fishing effort and marine environmental factors. The data presented are valuable to fisheries managers and can provide insight to conservation of both the stock and this valuable fishery.
I had very few comments or edits, but they are attached here.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The authors present analysis of the factors that influence the location of fishing effort for tuna fisheries in Tonga, producing a model to predict where fishing activity is likely to be based on these environmental factors.
Overall the paper is well written and provides additional information on tuna fishery dynamics from the Tongan fishery, which is of interest and worthy of publication.
The paper does require some modifcations before it is suitable for publication.
The introduction is generally well written and provides suitable background. Some more clarification/detail is required regarding how data on the tuna fishery can aid management, this is currently missing and it is not clear how such information would be used. In addition the introduction would benefit from clear aims of the study.
By stating clear aims this could feed in to better structuring the discussion. Currently the discussion lacks structure and a clear narrative. The results are described in the discussion but there is no further consideration as to the implications of these results. What has been learnt about the fishery in this area? Does it differ from other regions and are there any reasons for this? What do the results mean in terms of management implications? How might these results, and the use of predictive models, as used in the analysis, be used and implemented? Currently the discussion is just a description of the results without giving any further insight into what the results mean in a wider context.
A number of more specific comments have also been made in the attached manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The study "Environmental factors determine Tuna Fisheries behavior in Tonga" performed in Tonga highlights the important behaviors of tuna longliners operating in the area. The time series of reported data is consistent to provide reliable information, as are the SDMs used.
I find the study interesting and think it's a suitable paper to be published in "Fishes".
However, a couple of minor corrections need the attention of the authors:
Overall, authors should recheck the grammar used in the MS. Especially check when to use present and past tense in reporting their results and discussions.
Results section:
Line 272: Rephrase this sentence.
Line 280: rephrase to "longitude was also amongst the first four important...."
281: What do you mean by " it is more concentrated in..."? what is concentrated where?
For all figures: Update and enrich your figure captions.
Discussion Section:
Line 300: do you mean ...fisheries logbook?
Line 208: "...remains on the water..." delete water.
Line 335: add a reference to support this point.
Lines 331-361: The authors focused more on explaining the BRT model with little emphasis on the GAM model, whereas both models were used in the analysis. Is there any specific reason for focusing more on BRT than both models used in this section, leaving out the fact that BRT prediction was more suitable? The GAM model could also be elaborated upon.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Overall, authors should recheck the grammar used in the MS. Especially check when to use present and past tense in reporting their results and discussions.
Author Response
Attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
