Effect of Urbanization on Vegetation in Riparian Area: Plant Communities in Artificial and Semi-Natural Habitats

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Effect of urbanization on vegetation in riparian area: Plant communities in artificial and semi-natural habitats by Yang Cao and Yosihiro Natuhara

 

General: This paper is interesting to read; the outline is well formulated in terms of questions and hypotheses to be tested; and the results present two case studies from Japan. The paper may be published after revisions.

 

Some points:

 

Introduction: May be a broader view on vegetation – urbanization and, possibly, on climate change may be mentioned – not that this should necessarily be subject of the paper. There are  more like …

Cai et al 2019: Urbanization and climate change: Insights from eco-hydrological diagnostics. (STOTEN) 647

Cai et al. 2019: Causality of Biodiversity Loss: Climate, Vegetation, and Urbanization in China and America, Sensors 19

 

 

Section 2

Species richness – abundance – plant diversity ….

A reader not too familiar with the methods requires definitions at the very beginning, I guess.

 

L160: Species diversity index were determined using species richness (SR)?

…. And what is the species diversity index

 

2.4 Statistical analyses: can that subsection be presented in various paragraphs in logical sequence and use the occasional equation. A one-paragraph section introduction more than one set of tools is not well digested…

 

L399: What is a ‘considerable’ relationship?

 

 

Some typos – not all etc:

 

L13: ‘We compared species richness, types of vegetation, and composition patterns of the

plants were compared in our study.’

L62: ‘So far, How..’

L160: ‘Species diversity index were determined using species richness(SR)’

L178: ‘The statistical analyses in our study were include three aspects’

L246: ‘surfaces; Considering’

L247: ‘the proportion of forest area was shown as the best predictors.’

L260: ‘impervious surfaces; Ruderal species’

L399: ‘Nevertheless, despites the considerable…’

In general, a careful check of language plus a consistent writing of citations/references could help impress a referee.   

 

 

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and suggestions.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript of Cao et al. “Effect of urbanization on vegetation in riparian area: Plant communities in…” is an interesting study that analyzes impact of human development in species composition and habitat composition along riparian areas.  The manuscript is well organized and the introduction and objectives are easy to follow, the English is polished and tables are well organized. Also the subject is highly related with the journal. I found some problems with the organization of the manuscript (the letter font becomes smaller along the manuscript and the lines interspace shorter). Also the aims of the study should be condensed, the author’s claims to have 4 objectives, but actually there is only one: i.e. Changes in species richness and composition along a disturbance gradient and distance grandient in riparian areas. This part should be improved. Although the manuscript is very local, the methodology is well stablished and can be useful for an international readership.

Some more specific comments:

Lines 88-101: Clarify your main hypothesis to test. 1 or 2 hypotheses are welcome. Line 141: A figure of the design of the sampling will help to understand all your plots and subplots included in the sampling. Maybe you can remove figure 2 as it is not very informative. Table 2: Clearly define which plots are and which subplots are: You cannot say you are using 8 plots and later 48 plots… the names of the releves are confusing (I can see plots of 1x1 m, 10x20 m, 10x10… please, specify and indicated which information is taken in each one and use a different name for each). Line 200: clearly indicated the environmental variables used in the environmental CCA matrix. All the information of figure 5 can be removed, it is unclear, and also the significant levels are not very useful with such amount of explained and unexplained variability. The main information of the figures can be easily extracted from the de CCA diagrams. In general for the study, authors have a great number of analyses, in these cases are necessary to apply a correction; I will recommend a multiple test comparison (Bonferroni or Holm). Figure 7 and 8 should be combined in only large one figure (a and b). This will provide a whole picture of the study, the main variables involve in the determination of species composition as well and you can remark with different font which are native, ruderal or exotic species. I guess this diagram will provide the main frame of your study. Also, there is much of the information of the CCA missing in the manuscript: eigenvalues, explained proportion of variability, explained constrained proportion of variability…) Discussion is too long… the length of the discussion should be reduce in 50-60%. And conclusions, at least required by the editor, remove also.

I will suggest the authors to reduce the objectives of the manuscript, reduce the different analyses done (especially correlation analyses), and reduce also the length of the discussion. Also statistical results of multivariate analysis should be deeper analyzed and explained.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the suggestions and comments.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has clarified many the obscure aspects of the previous version, although still needs some minor revisions:

Line 53-81: Condense in a single paragraph of 3-4 sentences, you cannot review the literature in a study and should be more specific. Line 91: As in my previous review, the objective should be stablished as hypotheses to test and also express the hypotheses as a fluid paragraph, not as independent points. Figure 2: very nice indeed. Line 154: Just say species richness (SR) was account… remove lines 155-157. Line 196: Remove the bracket Line 197: change to “in each plot as species data and a environmental matrix we used urbanization…” Figure 6: Graphs need a title Line 312: Use only the Monte Carlo test of axis 1, for axis 2 you have to include coordinates of plots as covariable matrix and I assumed you did not applied that process. I assumed that the CCA analysis is poor; you can extract more information from these analyses. Again, discussion is abnormally long… please reduced in a 50-60% centering the discussion in your main results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf