Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: DISCOVERY OF TWO SKIN-DERIVED DERMASEPTINS AND DESIGN OF A TAT-FUSION ANALOGUE WITH BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND LOW CYTOTOXICITY ON HEALTHY CELLS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors worked on the paper according to comments of the reviewer. The quality of the paper highly improved. The paper is now ready for publication.
Experimental design: The authors worked on the paper according to comments of the reviewer. The quality of the paper highly improved. The paper is now ready for publication.
Validity of the findings: The authors worked on the paper according to comments of the reviewer. The quality of the paper highly improved. The paper is now ready for publication.
Additional comments: The authors worked on the paper according to comments of the reviewer. The quality of the paper highly improved. The paper is now ready for publication.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: DISCOVERY OF TWO SKIN-DERIVED DERMASEPTINS AND DESIGN OF A TAT-FUSION ANALOGUE WITH BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND LOW CYTOTOXICITY ON HEALTHY CELLS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The quality of the revised manuscript is now better. The authors have responded to my queries. However, the text is still difficult to read at places, especially where new text/paragraphs is/are added. It is recommended that the English is checked in those places.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: 1. The authors had modified the text to address some of the comments from the reviewers. However, now the sentence in the abstract is confusing: "Furthermore, studies on two structure-based designed analogues, DP-1 and DP-2, showed that DP-1 had low antimicrobial activity, no hemolytic and cytotoxicity to tumor cells." Please correct the English.
2. In abstract: "These findings indicate that the N-terminal of the dermaseptins… ". It should be either N-terminus, or N-terminal part.
3. Line 50-51 - "Besides, the truncated analogue K4-S4(1-13)a and K4-S4(1-15)a demonstrated much better improvement on reducing cell lysis of erythrocytes [14, 15]." This sentence is not clear.
When referring to the dermaseptins in the Introduction, it would be useful to mention the frog species that these peptides were isolated, e.g. dermaseptin S3 (l. 48), dermaseptins B2 and B3 (l. 53), and dermaseptin PH, PD1 and PD2 (l. 57).
4. Throughout the text, the in-text references are given in a different way, e.g. [7-8] and [14,15]. This should be consistent in the whole paper. Please modify.
5. In 2.5: Secondary Structure and Physicochemical Properties Prediction of the Peptides – Please write in full first the abbreviation TFE (l. 114).
6. In 2.6: Antimicrobial assay – insert comma between Escherichia coli (NCTC 10418) Pseudomonas aeruginosa (l. 119).
l.123 – provide the source for MHB.
It is important to include a positive control for inhibition of the growth of the Gram-positive and the Gram-negative bacteria, and the yeast. Reference or a brief description for the MBC assay should be provided.
7. In 2.7: l. 133-134 "The serum and erythrocytes were separated by centrifugation and the precipitation was washed with PBS."  What do you mean by precipitation? It is not the right word used here. Please correct.
8. In 2.8 l. 150: "The human mammary epithelial cell, HMEC-1" – you should add the word “line” after cell.
9. In 2.9: Assessment of Antiproliferative Activity with the MTT Assay – nothing is mentioned about positive and negative controls. In addition, more explanation of the calculation of IC50 is needed, not just “then the half maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) were calculated.”
10. Results:
l. 176 -  “LC-MS analysis confirmed the presence of both peptides in their skin secretions” – it is not clear which skin secretions? Please modify the English.
l. 187 “the accession code, MF955846 and MF955847.” Should it be codes?
l.211 -  “except which against E. faecalis.” Perhaps the word which is to be removed.
l. 214 and 215 – “Additionally, the antimicrobial potency on E. faecalis was higher than the natural peptides.” Does it apply for both designed peptide analogues?
l.223 and 224 – “In addition, the cytotoxicity against normal human cell line (HMEC-1) of DRS-DU-1 was eliminated.” It will be useful to add a value in the text as well.
11. Discussion:
l. 237 and 238 – “In this study, two species of the Phyllomedusidae family, P. camba and C. duellmani, were subjected to discover novel bioactive peptides.” This sentence is not clear – please modify.
l. 250 – “Both natural peptides exhibited strong…” – it will be useful to include the name of the natural peptides here – for clarity.
l. 266 – 268 – “Therefore, we carried out the synthesis of a 13-mer N terminal truncated analogue, DP-1, expecting the remaining of antimicrobial effect but less cytotoxicity on erythrocytes.” This sentence is not clear. I suggest that the authors modify it.
l. 282 – 304 – The whole newly added text needs attention. The English language is very heavy to read, e.g. “On the other hand, that the cytotoxicity of antimicrobial peptides on normal cells mainly depends on the hydrophobicity and helicity.”
12. References:
In [7] – the name of the frog Phyllomedusa sauvagei should be italic.
In [19] - Pithecopus (Phyllomedusa) hypochondrialis – should be italic.
In [20] - Pachymedusa dacnicolor – should be italic.
In [37] - Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa – the names of the bacteria should be italic.
13. Text of Table 2: I suggest that the text to Table 2 is modified to better reflect the content of the Table, e. g. "MICs, MBCs, and TI of DRS-CA-1, DRS-DU-1, DP-1, and DP-2 against tested microorganisms." to become: Antimicrobial (MIC and MBC) and hemolytic (HC50) activity, and relative safety (TI) of DRS-CA-1, DRS-DU-1, DP-1, and DP-2. In the same text, “average performance.” – this is not a scientific expression. Please modify.
14. Text to Table 3 -  "were showed" - should be were shown.
15. Text to Fig. 1 - Phyllomedusa duellmeni - there is a typo - please correct it - Phyllomedusa duellmani.
16. Text to Fig. 5 - "(B)Helical wheel projections .." - insert space between (B) and helical. In the same text -  negatively-charged (Red) - red should be with small letter for consistency.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: DISCOVERY OF TWO SKIN-DERIVED DERMASEPTINS AND DESIGN OF A TAT-FUSION ANALOGUE WITH BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND LOW CYTOTOXICITY ON HEALTHY CELLS
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The quality of the revised manuscript is now improved. The authors have addressed most of my comments and corrected the text accordingly. However, my main concern remains with the fact that there are no positive controls (antibiotics with known antimicrobial activity for the strains used) included in the antimicrobial assay, as well as no positive and negative controls included in the cytotoxicity studies. Despite my comments, the authors didn’t provide any clarification about those important controls.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: Major concern:
1.	It is important to include a positive control for inhibition of the growth of the Gram-positive and the Gram-negative bacteria, and the yeast.
2.	In 2.9: Assessment of Antiproliferative Activity with the MTT Assay – nothing is mentioned about positive and negative controls. In addition, more explanation of the calculation of IC50 is needed, not just “then the half maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) were calculated.”

Minor comments – the paper could be published without those being modified.
3.	In 3.4.: In the newly added sentence at the end of the paragraph – “The IC50 values DP-1 and DP-2 against HMEC-1 are both greater than 100μM.” add “of” after values.
4.	In Discussion l. 273-275: “Therefore, we assumed that the 13-mer N-terminal truncated analogue, DP-1, might possess the similar degree antimicrobial effect to the parent peptides, but produce less cytotoxicity on erythrocytes.” I suggest the sentence to be modified as follows: “Therefore, we assumed that the 13-mer N-terminal truncated analogue, DP-1, will retain the antimicrobial potency of the parent peptides, but will become less hemolytic.”
5.	Text of Table 2: hemolytic (HC50) – use subscript.
6.	Text to Fig. 2: “The retention time of DRS-CA-1 and DRS-DU-1 are indicated by an arrow in the HPLC chromatogram.” Should read: ““The retention times of DRS-CA-1 and DRS-DU-1 are indicated by arrows in the respective HPLC chromatograms.”
7.	Text to Fig. 5 - insert a comma after (red).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: DISCOVERY OF TWO SKIN-DERIVED DERMASEPTINS AND DESIGN OF A TAT-FUSION ANALOGUE WITH BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY AND LOW CYTOTOXICITY ON HEALTHY CELLS
Review round: 4
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comments at this point
Experimental design: It is not clear why PBS is now stated to be used as a negative control in the case of antimicrobial assays. Are the peptide dilutions made in PBS? I would have assumed that the dilutions are prepared in MHB; hence MHB should have been used as a negative control.
Once again, PBS is stated as a control for the “Assessment of Antiproliferative Activity with the MTT Assay”. Once again my question is – Why? I would have assumed that peptide dilutions are made in culture media.
Validity of the findings: no comments at this point
Additional comments: The point of using a positive control, e.g. the respective antibiotics, for inhibition of the microorganisms used in this study is NOT to compare directly the activity of the peptides to the available drugs but to demonstrate the expected behavior of the microbial strains used to respond or be resistant to the action of the antibiotics. This is rather a control that the test was set up and worked as expected, and that the microorganisms are the correct ones, e.g. sensitive or resistant.

I recommend that the manuscript is ACCEPTED for publication, after the authors respond to my questions about the PBS used as a control in two of the experiments (see queries in the section Experimental design).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL REFERENCE GENES FOR QUANTITATIVE RT-PCR ANALYSIS IN SPOTTED SEA BASS (LATEOLABRAX MACULATUS) UNDER NORMAL AND SALINITY STRESS CONDITIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: •	This study by Wang et.al. on evaluation of suitable reference genes for qPCR analysis of gene expression in different tissues and under salinity stress is sufficiently comprehensive and important as far as qPCR studies on L. maculatus are concerned, which is an important commercial fish species from the coast of China. However, I would like to suggest few changes listed below in order to make the manuscript suitable for publication in PeerJ.

•	The two major issues with this manuscript are with the title itself. Firstly, the scientific name for spotted sea bass is Dicentrarchus punctatus. However, authors mentioned spotted sea bass as Lateolabrax maculatus. Why? If it is Lateolabrax maculatus indeed, then it should be mentioned as Asian sea bass or Asian spotted sea bass, and not spotted sea bass (?). Please clarify.

•	Secondly, Lateolabrax maculatus is an unaccepted species name according to World Register of marine species (WoRMS) database. The accepted name is suggested as Lateolabrax japonicus or Holocentrum maculatum. There have been some revisions of the exact species name after Kim et.al 2001 cited by authors (such as, Yokogawa 2013). As the study deals with single species, it is very important to have an accurate species name and identification. Please clarify how the species was identified as what it is claimed in the paper? Are both morphological and molecular criteria for species identification were verified and were congruent?

•	In the abstract a sentence about why L. maculatus is missing. To give readers an idea upfront that it isn’t any random animal but a commercially important fish.

•	Reporting stability values for NormFinder analysis is OK, however, for complete visualization of data, graphical representation of intra and intergroup difference is required so as to understand which pair of genes will balance the errors in expression estimates (for example see, G.G. Shimpi et al. / Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 483 (2016) 42–52). This is a major advantage and an important component of NormFinder analysis (at least include this in the supplementary information).

•	There are more relevant and recent examples of GAPDH being unstable. Citing tomato (plant) article in fish paper (marine animal) is quite odd.
Experimental design: Experimental design is robust and inclusion of several samples does provide biological significance. There are few issues that should be addressed, however.

Line 154 	final extension at 72°C for 2 min. I don’t think qRT-PCR needs final extension. Also 2 min extension time is too long for PCR fragments > 200 bp.

It is not mentioned whether melting curve analysis was performed at the end of each qRT-PCR run in the “Primer design and qRT-PCR” section in methods. This is required to verify primer specificity in each run.

Whether oligo(dT) or random hexamers were used for cDNA synthesis is a very basic information and must be mentioned, which is missing.

Information on exact number of biological replicates is unclear from description in section 1 of Materials and Methods. The exact n=? is missing in the methods sections.
Validity of the findings: The analyses are robust and so are the number of replicates used. Hence the findings appear valid.
Additional comments: There are few places where grammatical mistakes and typos can be found. I would suggest few changes listed below.

In the title of the manuscript the species name for the spotted sea bass is written as “maculatus” whereas everywhere in the text it is written as “maculates”. Please write the correct species name without any spelling mistake in the entire text.

Line 51	for reference genes → as reference genes
Line 63	common used tool → commonly used tool
Line 83 to 86 Please rephrase the sentence. There is a word missing.
Line 97 	endure challenges of salinity → endure changes in salinity
Line 104 	to select and evaluate the stability                   in different tissues (incomplete sentence)
Line 113 	tricaine methane sulfonate →
tricaine methanesulfonate
Line 121	3 fish per group → 3 fishes per group

Line 144	All reference genes were designed → All reference gene primers were designed
Line 151-152 First TaKaRa is mentioned as a supplier and later Tli RNAse Plus for the same SYBR Green, why? Please check.
Line 176 	indicate what is CV? It appeared for the first time in the text.
Line 274-275. This sentence doesn’t make sense. Kindly revise.
Line 311	conclusion → Conclusion
Figure 3 	What do the dotted lines indicate should be mentioned in the figure legend for reader’s understanding?

Kindly explain “Different salinities n=36” in Table 3. In the methods section it is mentioned that there are 4 groups with different salinities and 3 fishes per group were randomly selected, which means 4*3=12. So how this number “n=36” came about?


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL REFERENCE GENES FOR QUANTITATIVE RT-PCR ANALYSIS IN SPOTTED SEA BASS (LATEOLABRAX MACULATUS) UNDER NORMAL AND SALINITY STRESS CONDITIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The paper was logically and English-fluently written, and was presenting the first study to select reference genes of L. Maculates by qRT-PCR. The results are significant and well presented, and this work should provide valuable information for future researches of selecting appropriate reference gene in L. maculates and other teleost species.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL REFERENCE GENES FOR QUANTITATIVE RT-PCR ANALYSIS IN SPOTTED SEA BASS (LATEOLABRAX MACULATUS) UNDER NORMAL AND SALINITY STRESS CONDITIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Please find the attached review report.
Experimental design: Please find the attached review report.
Validity of the findings: Please find the attached review report.
Additional comments: Please find the attached review report.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL REFERENCE GENES FOR QUANTITATIVE RT-PCR ANALYSIS IN SPOTTED SEA BASS (LATEOLABRAX MACULATUS) UNDER NORMAL AND SALINITY STRESS CONDITIONS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript has definitely improved in the revised version with respect to basic reporting.
Experimental design: Experimental design is more clear now.
Validity of the findings: Validity of the findings is sound and robust in the revised version.
Additional comments: I am satisfied with the revision and I think the manuscript is ready for the publication.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EVALUATION OF POTENTIAL REFERENCE GENES FOR QUANTITATIVE RT-PCR ANALYSIS IN SPOTTED SEA BASS (LATEOLABRAX MACULATUS) UNDER NORMAL AND SALINITY STRESS CONDITIONS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscripts meets the requirement
Experimental design: The manuscripts meets the requirement
Validity of the findings: The manuscripts meets the requirement
Additional comments: Authors have addressed all the comments made by the reviewer.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EUROPEAN POPULATION TRENDS AND CURRENT CONSERVATION STATUS OF AN ENDANGERED STEPPE-BIRD SPECIES: THE DUPONT’S LARK CHERSOPHILUS DUPONTI
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The writing style is professional and the grammar is correct with the exception of the incorrect and overuse of the word “besides” to start sentences.

The figures and tables are appropriate and clean, however I would suggest combining S3-S10 into a single table with an additional column for the Autonomous Region.
Experimental design: The authors have clearly established the need for an updated assessment of the Dupont’s lark at both the regional and national level.   While a large number of population assessments have been used, the author’s don’t seem to use all of them and it’s not clear why not.

The extinction event information is very interesting and it’s good to include.  That being said, there should be a sentence defining local extinction events in the methods and why you don’t simply assume it’s due to poor detection rather than true local extinction (i.e. it requires multiple years of no detection to be considered a local extinction).
Validity of the findings: The raw data is clean, but is clearly missing many years as noted by the authors.  Given the missing data and the variety of sites, TRIM appears to be a reasonable software to use to analyze the data.  That being said, I’m not sure I believe the results for Catalonia.  There is a single population underwent an extinction and recolonization event, but Nti is smaller than Nt0, and yet the results indicate a positive growth trend?  Despite being classified as an “uncertain” trend and the author’s note that overdispersion is a concern, this doesn’t make intuitive sense.  Why isn’t there at least one change point in the middle to represent recolonization? Unfortunately, because I doubt one of these models, I now doubt the remainder.

The discussion covers much of the necessary topics but could be expanded some.  For instance, demographic stochasticity is mentioned, but I don’t think is given the appropriate weight.  Habitat loss may reduce population size through the reduction of resources, but in the absence of total patch removal, demographic stochasticity is likely the driver of local extinction of these small populations.  Additionally, the authors discuss interannual variability but don’t have any mention of inter-site variability.  Why do some Autonomous Regions see more decline than others?  Is it solely due to rates of habitat loss?  This is an important topic to discuss  in light of the results and differential listings for the Dupont’s lark.
Additional comments: •	The authors have clearly stated the need for an updated assessment of the Dupont’s lark and appear to have done the most comprehensive analysis to date.  That being said, it is not clear why despite mentioning the number of population counts performed, they couldn’t use more data.  This can be easily clarified with a single sentence in the methods.

•	The larger concern is the use of a “black box software” for estimating population declines.  While TRIM appears to be a valid and appropriate analytical software given the variety of sites and missing data, I’m not convinced the outputs make intuitive sense given the raw data. This is the problem with these types of software, one can simply input all of their data and a result is spit out and no one can be entirely sure where this number came from.  My recommendation would be a secondary set of analyses using basic population viability analyses to compare to the TRIM results.

•	Lastly, the Discussion could be expanded some more. In particular, expounding on potential site differences and what’s driving differences in vulnerability and population declines.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EUROPEAN POPULATION TRENDS AND CURRENT CONSERVATION STATUS OF AN ENDANGERED STEPPE-BIRD SPECIES: THE DUPONT’S LARK CHERSOPHILUS DUPONTI
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: see attached pdf
Experimental design: see attached pdf
Validity of the findings: see attached pdf
Additional comments: see attached pdf


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: FORAGING DYNAMICS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH SOCIAL STATUS AND CONTEXT IN MOUSE SOCIAL HIERARCHIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment. Article meets all standards described.
Experimental design: The research question is relevant and meaningful, and the methods well defined, and the study was performed to a high standard.

The methods are clearly described, and the results are similarly detailed. Appropriate statistics were undertaken, and all necessary information is present in either the manuscript or raw data. The discussion/conclusions resist making too many assumptions or large claims, though I do appreciate the authors interpreting their data in a thoughtful and clever way.
Validity of the findings: The data are robust, sound, and well controlled. The conclusions were reasonable based upon the data presented. Any speculation was clearly indicated as such.
Additional comments: Lee et al. provide an interesting manuscript that describes how social status affects foraging behaviors in novel complex social housing environment, which the Curley lab has established and validated. Briefly, they demonstrate that alpha males (those at the top of the hierarchy) are the mice that eat and drink most frequently, and also showed reduced quiescence of foraging (during the light phase), even prior to the formation of stable hierarchies. One explanation the authors make for this is the increased metabolic costs of maintaining their high status in the hierarchy. Related, they demonstrate that agonistic behavior corrected for gregariousness (using HWIG) demonstrated that animals change their foraging behavior such that they will avoid conspecifics that they have engaged with in aggressive situations.
I have only very minor suggestions/comments.

In figures 1 and 3, I assume that the authors assigned status in “day 1” (i.e. BEFORE the hierarchy was established) by what the animal’s behavior was AFTER the establishment of the hierarch. That is, the alpha male was decided after the hierarchy was stable, and this mouse was then indicated as “alpha” on the “day 1” graphs. If this is the case, perhaps making it clearer would be beneficial to readers.

Related, I found the figure captions a bit too short – I’m wondering if adding more information to those captions may not also benefit readers. I was left flipping back to the results to interpret the findings.

I found one typological error (though I did not do a complete proofing) on line 403 – “more frequency” likely should be “more frequently”.

Overall, this was a very intriguing study to read, with results that are important for other researchers to understand when examining social dynamics.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: FORAGING DYNAMICS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH SOCIAL STATUS AND CONTEXT IN MOUSE SOCIAL HIERARCHIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors introduced a new interesting model to investigate social interactions and formation of a social hierarchy.
However, for better understanding of the article some corrections should be done.
At first, figures should be more appropriately described and labeled. The authors should explain what is indicated on the axises. For example, what does "Eating frequency" mean? The number of events? What is represented on box-plots - mean, median...?  This applies to all figures.
I’m not a native English speaker so I cannot check language aspects; I can only give some advice.  In Method section, line 159, the authors used the word “coders” but it is better to say “observers”.
Line 59 – check the misspelling
Experimental design: The experimental design raises several questions:
- Why only 5 cohorts were analyzed on Day1 (and 11 cohorts tested later)? The authors attempted to analyze the influence of stable and unstable hierarchies on behavioral parameters but they limited one of their groups by 5 observations.
- The groups with a stable hierarchy have different time since group formation - it introduces an additional factor in the statistical model. The reason for this is not explained. And I didn't find the information in the article about how the authors define a stable hierarchy. In 2 cohorts alpha males changed their status at the end of group housing, can we regard this hierarchy as stable? Maybe you need to exclude these cohorts from experiment?
Validity of the findings: The authors should explain the choice of the methods of statistical analysis with using a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: FORAGING DYNAMICS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH SOCIAL STATUS AND CONTEXT IN MOUSE SOCIAL HIERARCHIES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors have addressed all of my comments/concerns.
Experimental design: The authors have addressed all of my comments/concerns.
Validity of the findings: The authors have addressed all of my comments/concerns.
Additional comments: The authors have thoughtfully addressed all of my comments/concerns.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: FORAGING DYNAMICS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH SOCIAL STATUS AND CONTEXT IN MOUSE SOCIAL HIERARCHIES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Revised article became more understandable to the readers.
Experimental design: Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate.
Validity of the findings: Data is robust, statistically sound, & controlled.
Additional comments: All questions arose in the previous review  were explained. Revised article became more understandable to the readers.
The article meets the PeerJ criteria and should be accepted.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IDENTIFICATION OF MOS9 AS AN INTERACTION PARTNER FOR CHALCONE SYNTHASE IN THE NUCLEUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: There is no direct evidence that the interaction between MOS9 and CHS is related to the ETI response. The manuscript need to contain results relevant to the ETI response. Ideally, OX-MOS9 transgenic lines with tt4-11 background are inoculated with an incompatible pathogen and their disease symptoms are evaluated to test whether the interaction between MOS9 and CHI influences the ETI response.
Experimental design: Lines 292-294.
The comparison of the YFP fluorescence between MOS9 in WT and CHS-deficient roots needs a standard to evaluate difference in the fluorescence between them. For example, overexpression of another fluorescent protein such as CFP and RFP can be used as the standard. This is because differences in fluorescence between transgenic plant lines expressing the same fluorescent protein driven by the same promoter are commonly observed even when images are taken under identical conditions.
Validity of the findings: It is difficult to see that de35S::MOS9::YFP lines share substantial changes of the metabolites including phenylpropanoid and flavonoid compounds with mos9-2 and tt4-11 from Table 2 (lines 437-442). This is because de35S::MOS9::YFP lines and mos-9 have different signs (plus or minus) of ratio of change for syringaresinol hexoside, monomer and biflavonoid of quercetin rhamnoside, UNK glycerolipids in Table 2.
Additional comments: Coexpression of MOS9 and CHS was observed in the root tissues. If the hypothesis that the interaction is involved in the ETI response is correct, the interaction does not influence ETI response in the leaf, does not it? More explanations are needed.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IDENTIFICATION OF MOS9 AS AN INTERACTION PARTNER FOR CHALCONE SYNTHASE IN THE NUCLEUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Watkinson et al described the identification of a novel interaction partner of CHS, the nuclear localized protein MOS9 that potentially involved in regulation of effector-triggered immunity. The authors further observed that upregulation of MOS9 gene expression suppressed CHS gene expression and affect the accumulation of a set of phenylalanine-derived metabolites. Overall the manuscript is well written and nicely organized.
Experimental design: This is an explorative work, in which the authors intended to identify additional proteins interacting with CHS via yeast two hybrid screening, followed with SPR and FLIM-FRET analyses to validate the recognized interactions. Such experiments were designed properly and sound. The methods are clearly described.
Validity of the findings: While the discovery and confirmation of CHS-MOS interaction is convincing, the biological relevance of such protein-protein interaction seems less solidly elucidated. The authors observed the effects of overexpression of MOS9 on CHS transcript and the synthesis of a set of metabolites. But there is no any directly data support the observed protein-protein interaction of MOS9 and CHS has any link with transcriptional suppression of CHS. With such concern, I feel it is not so valid to conclude that “these findings …point to a role for this newly identified partner in suppressing CHS gene expression through interaction with CHS protein in the nucleus (Discussion Lines 405-406)”

Also the authors deduced that “the interaction of MOS9 diverts CHS from its cytosolic catalytic function”. To make this notion confirmatory, probably it needs more experimental data to support, e.g. the data on whether CHS’s subcellular localization could be quantitatively altered under co-expression of MOS9.

Regarding FLIM-FRET in mesophyll protoplast, it is not clear whether the FRET efficiency was calculated from the fluorescence within entire protoplast or in nucleus. It would be better that the authors could present the related fluorescent imaging data showing the co-localization of CHS and MOS9  (theoretically in nucleus).
Additional comments: Overall the manuscript describes a nice discovery, which could help to further understand the CHS- mediated protein complex and its potential interplay with other biological process


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: IDENTIFICATION OF MOS9 AS AN INTERACTION PARTNER FOR CHALCONE SYNTHASE IN THE NUCLEUS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: I believe that the style of this paper fulfills the Basic reporting criteria of the Journal.
Experimental design: Overall, the experimental designs described in this paper appear to fulfill the criteria of the Journal.
Validity of the findings: This paper reports on the finding concerning the interaction of CHS with a nuclear-localized protein (MOS9) that is linked to epigenetic control of genes mediating ETI. Although CHS has been known to be localized not only in cytoplasm but also in nucleus, physiological significance of its nuclear localization has been elusive. Therefore, the findings reported in this paper may provide useful information for insights into the possible role(s) of nuclear-localized CHS.

1. Line 352: .... overall reduced flavonol accumulation ...:
Table 2 shows ratios of changes without contents. Because triflavonoid showed 5.0-fold increase in de35S::MOS9::YFP, it cannot be concluded, without showing the contents, that total flavonols were reduced in de35S::MOS9::YFP, even though other flavonol species showed diminished changes. Please clarify.

2. Discussion section
The interaction of CHS and MOS9 has been unambiguously identified, but unfortunately the CHS transcription and metabolomics results obtained were only poorly discussed in terms of the observed CHS/MOS9 interaction. The reduced CHS transcript levels and the reduced flavonol levels observed upon MOS overexpression might be explained without considering the interaction of MOS9 with CHS but physiological significance of the interaction could be discussed.

2-1. The results reported show that CHS transcript levels were reduced upon the overexression of MOS9. This reviewer wonders whether this observation could be discussed in conjunction with the formation of the CHS/MOS9 complex. MOS9 appears to be constitutively expressed in plant (as mentioned on line 444) and was relatively unresponsive across a range of perturbations (line 302). Then what is the role of the CHS/MOS9 complex formation? Would it be possible to discuss such a scenario that excess CHS molecules in cytoplasm get into the nucleus and bind to the constitutive MOS9 to produce a small amount of the CHS/MOS9 complex, which in turn reduces the CHS transcript levels in a negative feedback manner?

2-2. If total flavonol glycosides indeed diminish upon the overexression of MOS9, this reviewer wonders whether it would be possible to elaborate/discuss this observation in terms of the formation of the CHS/MOS9 complex. For example, overproduction of MOS9 protein might result in the removal of CHS protein from cytoplasm (or ER-localized flavonoid metabolon) by incorporating it into nucleus.

2-3. Small amounts of flavonoids could be produced via reactions catalyzed by nuclear-localized flavonoid enzymes (including CHS) in the nucleus and exert some regulatory role(s) during gene expression events. Would it be possible that MOS9 plays a role to inhibit nuclear production of flavonoids by its binding to CHS? In this case, it would be interesting to examine whether CHS activity is inhibited by MOS9 binding. Do authors have any in vitro data concerning this?
Additional comments: Minor comment:

Table 2.
It would be better to express fold changes of reduction, for example, as 0.244 and 0.083 rather than –4.1 and –12.1, respectively. Please consider.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: TRANSKINGDOM NETWORK REVEALS BACTERIAL PLAYERS ASSOCIATED WITH CERVICAL CANCER GENE EXPRESSION PROGRAM
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Good, especially with a good supporting online material collection.
Experimental design: Good, especially with the in vitro studies supporting the bioinformatics work.
Validity of the findings: This reviewer does not have the expertise to verify all of the bioinformatics work.  This reviewer can only attest that apparent standards and practices for due diligence have been applied in this study.
Additional comments: The strengths of this report are basic approach of combining the bioinformatics work with the HeLa cell work, along with the results of same; and the very strong supporting online material collection.

The weakness of this report is that the topic is weell covered in the literature and it is not clear what significant, new unpublished findings are reported here.

As a minor point, “Shannon diversity index” is apparently, usually spelled with two n’s in “Shannon”, not the case for the Y-axis label of supplemental figure 1.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: TRANSKINGDOM NETWORK REVEALS BACTERIAL PLAYERS ASSOCIATED WITH CERVICAL CANCER GENE EXPRESSION PROGRAM
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Authors work on transkingdom network reveals bacterial players associated with cervical cancer gene expression program is very well written and they have used professional language with only minor typos/spacing issues

The manuscript literature work is up to date and the background information on cervical cancer, HPV, and general information on bacteria is very well written.

The structure and flow of the manuscript is admirable and logical. Figures, tables and legends were well done with clear labelling and markings.

Authors need to use peerj literature citation standards. Please see the attachment for more comments.
Experimental design: Experimental design to investigate microbiota in cervical cancer is appropriate and also logical to back up their hypothesis.

Authors work on bio-informatics is excellent and they have used all the possible methods that help in screening the key bacteria that might involve in carcinogenesis.

No comments on experimental design other wise.
Validity of the findings: The results obtained by 16 sRNA sequencing is very informative and results are clear. Their  work on narrowing down to particular bacterial species and further work on co-culture and identification of key genes is excellent.

These findings are novel and very impactful in future research. Specifically, work on P.bivia which might play an important role in cancer.

Data is robust and the statistical significance is important in these kind of work and authors have done an careful interpretation of results and also pointed out the pit falls of using screening methods.

Authors are encouraged to speculate more on how to use this work on subjects (patients) that are already in treatment and identifying the changes in microbial species in patient samples who are undergoing treatment.
Additional comments: Transkingdom network reveals bacterial players associated with cervical cancer gene expression program

Basic Reporting:

Authors have investigated microbiome involved in cervical cancer by analyzing various bacterial species using bio-informatic and biological approches.

Authors manuscript is clear and written in professional language making it understandable yet scientific. Authors usage of sentence is very constructive and flow of the manuscript is smooth.
However, there are few grammatical mistakes in the manuscript which I have mentioned in the my comments section below. Cervical Cancer is major threat and authors have done an excellent work on elucidating the role of bacteria in cancer carcinogenesis. This kind of work is of huge importance and it helps to identify the bottle neck problems caused by cervical cancer.

Introduction and background:

Here are some major and minor comments:

Major comments:

Authors have done an excellent job in giving the proper introduction regarding cervical cancer, its prevalence and its causes. Authors information on High-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) and its key genes that play an crucial role in infection is very impressive and shows that authors are well versed in this particular field.

Background information on the cervical cancer, viral infection, key genes, and problems related to diagnosis and cure were accurately addressed. The flow of introduction is well written where in the authors mentioned about cancer and how they wanted to address some key aspects by microbial linkage is impressive. The role of microbiota is crucial and it is important to learn and study about the particular microbes that play a telling role in cancer diseases.

Literature work:

Authors have done an excellent job in citing the appropriate literature work. However, there need to be a substantial correction in the way the citation needed to be written as per the standards of this journal. Please follow the guidelines from the link below.

https://peerj.com/about/author-instructions/#standard-sections

Authors need to remove parenthesis from the citation and required to give the year of the publication. This has to be changed in the entire manuscript to match the journal style of citations.

Minor comments:
Authors are encouraged to rephrase the sentence starting from line 82-87. The representation of cited work for each case/health related areas next to each other. It is understandable that they wanted to cite work according to the area however this inclusion at each step is creating a confusion when trying to read the whole sentence. It will logical to mention about the microbiota role in several diseases/areas of health and provide all the citations at the end in order from 1st to last. This way readers can understand the sentence faster and if need references can look for them at the end.

Authors are encouraged to remove the word “like” in line 91 and change it to following sentence.

Reviewer suggestion:

“Studies of vaginal (Champer et al.) and cervical (Vyshenska et al.) microbiota
have found association between changes in microbial community, overall diversity, abundances of particular taxa, and cancer development.”
Authors are encouraged to replace the word “power” from line 100 to “significance”. The word significance will also boost the authors innovative approach to tackle the fatal cancer and yes indeed, this approach is of great significance in future research related to many other diseases.

Materials & Methods

Major comments:

Authors approach to analyze the microbiota in relation to cervical carcinogenesis is standard and appropriate. Authors have used several bio-informatic approaches to assign, correlate, diversify different species of bacteria. No of patients specimens (123) used for the analysis is adequate for this study. Authors methods such as 16s rRNA sequencing, gene expression, cell culture  techniques are relevant and appropriate for this particular study. Authors used proper controls for in-vitro studies to investigate cancer gene expression in relation to P.bivia.

Minor comments:

Please check for spacing in Line 148.

Results:

Major comments:

Overall results from bio-informatic data especially 16 sRNA sequencing results gave very good information on the variation of microbiota in cervical cancer samples compared to that of healthy cervix, vagina, stool, or skin sample. However, It is not an novel finding as many other groups have also found similar results.

Authors work on building transkingdom network by integrating microbial abundance and cancer gene expression is very logical and the results are very informative.. Alternative approaches to identify different species from genus provetella results are successful where authors have found high abundance of P.bivia.

Authors findings of key genes that are upregulated by P. bivia from whole tissue samples is a new finding and it is interesting to perform future experiments relating to protein level and biochemical characterization of these particular genes to understand their clear role in carcinogenesis.

Minor comments:

Authors mentioned in line 298 about limitation of 16sRNA Sequencing in assigning OTUs to specific species. It will be encouraging to give more details about this limitations. This is unclear as there is an high BiBC results of Bacillaceae and Halobacteriaceae is more than Prevotella.

Figures and tables:

Authors have provided excellent figure to confirm their findings. All figures are very well organized and legends are written with adequate descriptions. Tables and supplementary figures also support the important findings. All figures and tables were well organized and clearly labeled.

Discussion:

Major comments:

Discussion was well written with supporting evidences from the results and also mentioning the key points in microbial involvement in cervical carcinogenesis. Discussion part for future work on species identification can be elaborated specifically, how shot gun method can improve the studies in cervical cancer microbiota.

Minor comments:

I thank you for providing the critical information about microbial involvement in cancer. However, it is interesting to see the microbiota data from subjects that are already involved in treatment. Please see the new publication related to microbiota in patients involved in cervical cancer that are involved in treatment. I am hoping this will be helpful for future research and you can also cite this paper if you have any valuable information.

Zhang, Hongwei & Lu, Jiaqi & Lu, Yingying & Cai, Qingqing & Liu, Haiou & Xu, Congjian. (2018). Cervical microbiome is altered in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia after loop electrosurgical excision procedure in china. Scientific Reports. 8. 10.1038/s41598-018-23389-0.

Authors are encouraged to look into one of the latest studies on microbiota effects on cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) from Zhang et al (2018) group where they have shown microbes that might play an important role in carcinogenesis. Authors are also encouraged to discuss on prospects about characterization of specific proteins that involve in cancer carcinogenesis. Athours have already narrowed down 3 key genes from P.bivia that are upregulated and might play important role in cancer. Can authors suggest any follow up experiments to investigate how exactly LAMP3 functions?

Overall authors have done an excellent work on identifying specific bacteria that may have an effect on cancer and they have conducted their studies with logical and scientific way in taking advantage of bio-informatic tools.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A PHYLOGENETIC TAXONOMY OF THE CYRTODACTYLUS PEGUENSIS GROUP (REPTILIA: SQUAMATA: GEKKONIDAE) WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO NEW SPECIES FROM MYANMAR
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Grismer et al. described two new species of Cyrtodactylus, re-described one species (C. peguensis) and recategorized at species level C. zebriacus. All these findings are based on mtDNA and morphological analyses.  The article is well written, and the evidence presented by the authors support the existence of these new taxa.

The evolutionary characteristic used by the authors to distinguish the new species as well as the diagnostic features and comparisons with other species are well done.

Major changes are necessary in introduction, results reporting and discussion however these changes not will compromise the validity of the findings. For example, in introduction I detected the absent of an introductory paragraph for species delimitation and the tools using (molecular, morphology). I also suggest dividing the results into two topics: 1) Phylogenetic analyses and 2) morphology and morphometric analyses. This will clarify the results and facilitate the presentation of results the the readers. In the discussion, the authors need to discuss the limitations of the study as your species delimitation is based only on mtDNA, the absence of adults in the description of C. meersi sp. nov., the main morphological characters that differentiate the species, the new categorization of C. zebraicus, and in addition, the future of the taxonomy, systematics and conservation of this species group. In addition, the authors should consider creating a plate with figures that contain the main morphological characters that differentiate the species.
Experimental design: The authors use morphological and phylogenetic characters to access the phylogenetic taxonomy of the Cyrtodactylus peguensis group.

The experimental design is complete and the evolutionary tools that were used are efficient and informative (although with limitations). As major issue here is that the species delimitation at molecular level is not clear – see my comments below.
Validity of the findings: I consider this work important to reveal the hidden species diversity within the genus.
Additional comments: Line 42= …terms of the annual rate of newly described species (reference?)
Line 72= I don’t know if “construct” is the right word
Line 73= I suggest replace “true” by Cyrtidactylus peguensis sensu stricto
Line 78 to 95= It seems that the authors need to summarize this paragraph, all the information of this paragraph are also in methodology. I suggest a paragraph where the authors explore the importance of species delimitation using multiple characters (as the authors did), and the limitations and benefits of each character (mtDNA and morphology) for taxonomic decisions.
Line 145= Could the authors specified if the p-distance were calculated between localities? Lineages? I also note that the authors do not specify the use of p-distance value to support divergence between lineages. This is not necessary but works as additional evidence of genetic lineages differentiation.
Line 151= please add the total number of specimens that you measure for analysis
Line 169= I miss a reference for morphometric measurements, who the authors followed to make these measurements?
Line 203= …each species group = which species group? Cyrtidactylus peguensis species group? Please be more specific
Line 205=… species boundaries delimited by the molecular phylogenetic= until now in methodology, the authors do no specified how they delimited species by molecular phylogenetic analyses.
Line 209= it is necessary to clarify in previous paragraph if males and females were used or only one sex for analyses. In addition, the authors need to clarify is they used only adults (that is expected).
Line 237= Results= I suggest to divide the results into two topics: 1) Phylogenetic analyses and 2) morphology and morphometric analyses. This will clarify the results and facilitate the presentation of results for the readers.
Line 269= The DAPC analysis also provide the numbers of specimens correctly assigned to each species group. see my comments on the MS.
Line 291 to 302= all these need to go to species account. see my comments on the MS.
Line 309= Again, how the species boundaries within the lineages of C. peguensis were identified (how was species delimitation carried out)? could the authors be more specifics
Line 315= please add the geographic distance of type locality.
Line 322= start with morphology, them phylogeny and geographic distribution of the group
Line 441= please add the numbers of examined specimens for morphological analyses for all the measurements and species comparison. This will allow readers to know the variation of the samples in futures studies. Or in other case leave clear the number of specimens examined for each species in methods or in a table.  In addition, add “mm” after all the measurements values.
Line 440= were any statistical tests carried out? if yes, report p-values. If not, carry out statistical analyses. (1 mm of difference is not "significantly higher" by itself). the same goes for other cases
Line 481=The author need to create a fig. to illustrate this character.
Line 550= Is there no fig. showing the differentiation between this species and others in this and others morphological characters? I suggest to create one or two new fig. comparing the principal morphological characters between the species. This will clarify the species comparison.
Line 662= Major changes here. The discussion need to be improve. The authors need to discuss the limitations of study as your species delimitation using only mtDNA, the absent of adult samples in the description of C. meersi sp. nov.  the main morphological characters that differentiate the species, the new categorization of C. zebriacus, and in addition, the future of the taxonomy, systematics and conservation of this species group.
Figure 2= In this fig, the authors need to select with a bar or a new color the C. peguensis specimen from type locality.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A PHYLOGENETIC TAXONOMY OF THE CYRTODACTYLUS PEGUENSIS GROUP (REPTILIA: SQUAMATA: GEKKONIDAE) WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO NEW SPECIES FROM MYANMAR
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript is excellent and in very good state. It is well written in clear English, references are equated. I only found some minor (trivial) comments which I made directly on the PDF.
Figures are excellent and the new species are well described.
I know some member of this research group and they are very exhaustive in their studies.
Experimental design: The methodology section is very clear, and provide all the details that warrant reliability. This research was very rigorous.
Validity of the findings: I think revealing new species in this poorly explored region of Myanmar is remarkable. Myanmar is suffering from lots of social problems and I can only image the conditions the authors have to work there. However, they manage to circunvent this social problems, at least it looks like the country is very safe, and this paper might help improving the image of this region.
Additional comments: I found some minor typos in the pdf attached


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A PHYLOGENETIC TAXONOMY OF THE CYRTODACTYLUS PEGUENSIS GROUP (REPTILIA: SQUAMATA: GEKKONIDAE) WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO NEW SPECIES FROM MYANMAR
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comments
Experimental design: No comments
Validity of the findings: No comments
Additional comments: Responses seem to be fine.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO LOGGERS PROVIDE NEW INSIGHTS INTO BEHAVIOUR, PHYSIOLOGY, AND THE OCEANIC HABITAT OF A MARINE PREDATOR, THE YELLOW-EYED PENGUIN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This article was written in clear and unambiguous, professional English. Throughout a whole manuscript, the sentences were easy to read and understand. One issue in terminology is ‘foraging ground’ in line 123. To my knowledge, foraging ground means a spatial area for foraging of a species having high fidelity on the site (Casale et al. 2012). In line 123, both of the use of term and meaning of the sentence is ambiguous. Did the penguin have another foraging ground on land? I would recommend to change the term into more general terms such as land or breeding site, or authors can introduce the definition of ‘foraging ground.’ I found the reference for line 123 (Mattern et al. 2007), but could not find enough information to understand the sentence, line 123. Other minor issues of terminological ambiguity could be addressed after significant changes in content of this manuscript.
	One of major issues of this manuscript is reference. Many ideas and interpretations were not sufficiently supported by appropriate references. To show that the presented study has a significant difference in the angle of view, in line 111, the specification of the lens should be reported, and compared to the specifications of lens used by other studies. In the part of ‘Analysis of behaviours’, criteria for the behavior categories (prey pursuits, surface breathing, and flipper movements) were not supported by previous studies. I am sure that there are many previous studies to provide supporting evidences about the criteria. In ‘Analysis of benthic habitat’, the classification methods (sediment type, sediment structure, and composition of the epibenthic communities) should be justified by appropriate references. Especially, I would recommend to add enough number of references to explain the choice of species for habitat description. If authors can present data about the local marine biodiversity or species composition, the analysis of benthic habitat can be improved in the reliability. In discussion, line 372-373 needs supports from references.
	Through a supplementary data, raw data was shared, but the dataset does not include data from other loggers, GPS and accelerometer. In line 102-104, authors reported that the other loggers were also deployed on their study animal, but the data was not presented in the manuscript and raw data. For further discussion, those data need to be presented.
	Figure 2 presented important information for the discussion part of this manuscript. I agree with the design of the figure is good for showing the general pattern, but would recommend to use symbols instead of colorations for better visibility to various types of readers (i.e. color blind). Statistical values should be presented in Figure 3 & 4. Additionally, the line and axis titles of figure 3 & 4 would be better to see in black rather than gray color.
	If I understand well, the main goal of this manuscript is to present potential usefulness of animal-borne video camera. I agree that the authors made the best use of the video data ranging from prey pursuit to flipper movements. However, without a specific goal or prediction, it is hard to tell that the observations addressed a significant progress in the field of bio-logging. Already, many researchers has investigated behaviors of various marine animals including penguins using animal-borne video camera. Moreover, the results about flipper movements and respiration and the interpretations are ambiguous and doubtful because of the limitation in sample size, recording coverage, and supporting evidences. Also, the discussion about benthic environment could be elaborated by having GPS data from presented study and references about the local marine environment and/or species diversity. Thus, I would say that this manuscript is not ‘self-contained’ enough for publication.
Experimental design: To my understanding, the major goals of this manuscript were (1) introducing technological advances in animal-borne camera, and (2) to present the best use of the improved technique. Unfortunately, this manuscript could not address neither of the goals very well. The first goal has not been well presented in this manuscript because of the lack of enough references to compare with. For instance, authors may be able to compare the resolution, angle of view, or signal-to-noise ration of their video data with previous studies using shared supplementary data such as Choi et al. (2017).
	A major hindrance for the second goal is a limited sample size and recorded time period. In spite of the limitation, it may have a significance to present the result as a potential measurements of behavioral analysis using animal-borne camera such as flipper movements. However, the new approaches in this manuscript did not have sufficient supports from previous studies, and failed to provide a new insight into the behavior of marine predators.
	For further submission, I would recommend to change the focus of this manuscript into a comparison among various animal-borne camera techniques from current two-aim structure. To achieve the goal, it will be required to have data about specification of various animal-borne camera system including angle of view, resolution, signal-to-noise, and potential products from the various techniques. If authors want to keep the second goal of the presented manuscript, GPS and TDR data will be critical for providing reliable results.
Validity of the findings: I would say that more rigorous comparison with previous techniques will be necessary to show the novelty of the presented study. With current version, it is hard to tell any significance and novelty of the findings. Also, I would highly recommend to include data from GPS and TDR for the robustness of the results. Some of the results are overstated in discussion section. Especially, the part of breathing and exhalation have only weak supports from the results. For instance, only with the video, it is really hard to tell if the penguin actually breath at the time. Also, the air bubble during foraging can be generated by the fast speed of a focal individual, and the size of bubble could be increased during ascending periods due to the reduced water pressure. The limited data from one individual could not rule alternative explanations out effectively.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO LOGGERS PROVIDE NEW INSIGHTS INTO BEHAVIOUR, PHYSIOLOGY, AND THE OCEANIC HABITAT OF A MARINE PREDATOR, THE YELLOW-EYED PENGUIN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: In the ms entitled “High definition video loggers provide new insights into behavior, physiology ,and the oceanographic habitat of marine top predators” the authors present how the employment of a camera logger that records full HD and has wide angle lens can shed light on the foraging behavior of the Yellow-eyed penguin. The manuscript is clear and well written however some of the presented results can also be obtained by means of other electronic devices (e.g. diving behavior, flipper movements, breathing events). By reading the objective and the last sentence of the abstract I expected authors to concentrate on presenting the new information that this video logger allows to get and not giving so much detail about data that can be obtained by means of other devices. The paper is well organized however too long, the advantages of using this new device can be express in a shorter and concise way. All along the introduction and discussion authors should state more clearly the advantages of this new logger, the possibilities it offers to improve our understanding of not only the Yellow-eyed penguin behavior but also other animals (which is the main objective of the work). For example, wide angle lens could improve our understanding of how penguins select and follow fish within a shoal and how they interact with other penguins or other species. Another drawback the work has is that the presented results were obtained from only one animal. This limits the strength of general conclusions. Figures as well as the raw data supplied are clear.
Experimental design: The objective of the manuscript is within the scope of the journal. In objective presented in the abstract (which is slightly different to the one presented in the introduction) is too general. In the abstract authors state that the main objective was the analysis of the foraging behavior. Foraging behavior includes many aspects and authors only concentrate in one; the prey pursuit behavior. I suggest modifying the objective and present it in the way it is at the end of the introduction.
Validity of the findings: As I stated before, findings are interesting but many of them can be obtained by means of other electronics devices. For example, diving parameters (depth, time spent in the different diving phases, velocities) can be obtained by means of deploying TDRs alone. Flipper frequency data can be obtained by means of using accelerometers and breath frequency can be obtained by means of inter-mandibular sensors. Authors should make more emphasis on the advantages this new logger has in comparison to other ones and on the advantages of having depth, video at high definition and wide-angle lens all together. They should also make more clear that this information was obtained from only one animal and present the limitations this has.
Additional comments: Introduction

Line 56: More references can be incorporated here together with Takahashi et al. 2008. For example Pongalis et al. 2000. JEB 203
Line 57: Thiebot et al. 2017 not "in review"
Lines 68-70: Please be more specific with these statements. Which aspects of behaviour? Which are the new opportunities for visual analysis does this new device with high definition and wide angle lens offer?
Line 73: Here yellow eyed penguin is not capitalized while in other places of the ms it is. Please keep the same format all along the text.
Line 90: Potential of both, full HD and wide angle optics not only full HD.

Materials and methods

Please mention the permits under which this work was performed.
Line 103: AXY depth devices from technosmart also record acceleration data and this is not mentioned in the methods. Please include this.
Line 109: How much time did the instrumentation procedure last? How was the animal captured?
Line 161: Authors say "future deplyments with a functional GPS". In line 104 they stated that the high definition logger had a GPS. Was it not functional? Please clarify this.
Line 171: Which diving characteristics were used to clasify benthic and pelagic dives?

Discussion

Line 270: Authors say that the device did not appear to substancially affect the penguin´s mobility. How do you know this? It would be interesting to compare this penguin mobility with the mobility of another individual with a smaller device.
Line 279-280: How do authors know that the number of successful prey captures where not affected by the logger? Do you have and estimation of how many successfull captpures these penguins perform per foraging trip in order to make a comparison?


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO LOGGERS PROVIDE NEW INSIGHTS INTO BEHAVIOUR, PHYSIOLOGY, AND THE OCEANIC HABITAT OF A MARINE PREDATOR, THE YELLOW-EYED PENGUIN
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comments
Experimental design: No comments
Validity of the findings: No comments
Additional comments: The authors have substantially reworked their manuscript and the revised version make the goals clear than the previous version. By the addition of the video comparing the quality of videos from current and previous animal-borne cameras, I feel that my previous concerns about the significance of the study have been addressed adequately.

In the previous review, I suggested to use GPS data for further habitat assessment, and the authors discussed the unavailability of GPS data by a technical issue. I understand that the technical deficiency is inevitable at the very first step to address a new technique. I hope to see the further investigation with proper GPS information and land coverage data of the habitat in near future.

After the substantial revision, this manuscript is well written, and adequately showing the potentiality of using the HD and wide-angle video logger to investigate the underwater behavior of marine animals. In general, I agree that this manuscript is prepared to publish, but I have few minor comments before the acceptance.

Minor comments
Line 222-223: The video for comparing video quality between current study and Watanabe and Takahashi (2013) may be better to include the information about water depth or other factors affecting light intensity. In addition, DVL-100 is not the most recent version of Little-Leonardo video camera logger, the authors may want to compare the Mobius action-cam logger with the most recent models from other makes.
Line 243: The URL for the video does not work. If it is the part of video 4, writing the time point will be enough.
Line 245, 251, 265, 295, 304, 417 & 430: Same problem with Line 243
Line 361-362: It was hard to find the fish using the bivalves as shelter in the video. It would be helpful for audiences to make arrows pointing the fish in the video.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO LOGGERS PROVIDE NEW INSIGHTS INTO BEHAVIOUR, PHYSIOLOGY, AND THE OCEANIC HABITAT OF A MARINE PREDATOR, THE YELLOW-EYED PENGUIN
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This new version of the ms # 23829 entitled “High definition video loggers provide new insights into behavior, physiology and the oceanographic habitat of a marine predator, the Yellow-eyed penguin” improved substantially. The authors made an important effort to incorporate all the suggestions made on the previous version.
Experimental design: Authors explained in detail those issues that were not clear on the previous version. I only have a few minor comments:
1)	Analysis of behaviours & habitat, line 166. It would be nice to have a definition of what a dive cycle means. It is the dive plus the pre-dive surface interval? Plus the post-dive surface interval?
2)	Surface breathing and underwater exhalation, line 218. “Described” instead of descried
3)	Dive data analysis, line 231. Which R version did you use? Please include this piece of information.
4)	Methods, line 158. It would be interesting to incorporate a sentence saying that the instrumented bird continued breeding normally after the deployment (now this information is in the discussion, line 380-381).
Validity of the findings: The ms has the drawback that the information comes from the instrumentation of only one animal; however authors have now included a section that mentions this limitation at the beginning of the discussion.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: NEURAL PROCESSING OF WORKING MEMORY IN ADULTS WITH ADHD IN A VISUOSPATIAL CHANGE DETECTION TASK WITH DISTRACTORS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This study investigates behavioral (K) and EEG (CDA) correlates of visual working memory in adults with ADHD and a matched control sample. The study is original and employs a well-validated experimental task. The manuscript is generally well-written in good, professional English. The knowledge gap based on existing research on visual working memory in ADHD, research question, and relevance of the study is outlined clearly. The introduction presents the study background briefly, the relevant literature on the topic is introduced and discussed within the present study’s scope. The structure of the manuscript is comprehensible and conforms to the discipline’s standards. Methods are sufficiently detailed and largely sound (see comments below) The figures and the table are relevant, correctly labeled and described, and of good quality. The supplement contains valuable additional information about the broader study context. I could not find any raw data supplied!
Experimental design: Regarding the integration between the behavioral and neural data, I was wondering whether there would be a way to quantify filtering efficiency also in the K measure, for example, differences between K in the presence and absence of distracters? This might be difficult, however, because 2 items will be way under all or most participants’ maximum storage capacity. Perhaps, the relatively low load was also a reason for the lack of group differences in behavior due to ceiling effects?

Generally, the work shows good practice of EEG/ERP methods. However, I suspect the high-pass filter of 0.05 affected the slow waves and reduced the CDA amplitude. This would explain why the CDA amplitude is considerably smaller than in other studies using a similar paradigm (e.g. Vogel & Machizawa, 2004; McColllough et al., 2007). I do not suspect this to change differences between conditions or groups, but effects might be less pronounced. I suggest to repeat the analyses after using a high-pass filter of 0.01 Hz in the pre-processing.

Perhaps related to the issue mentioned above, the CDA waveforms, especially in the ADHD group, seem to not differ significantly from zero in the chosen time window of interest. If the CDA is absent, any effect on the component is difficult to interpret. The method of defining the time window chosen by the authors is also clearly biased by the within-group difference in the control group, that is absent in the ADHD patients and may thus not be optimal to detect any group differences. The maximum negative deflection of the CDA in fact appears to be earlier than the selected time window, around 400. Notably, Wiegand et al., 2016 showed that only the earliest time window of the CDA dissociated between patients and controls and correlated with patients’ symptom ratings.
Validity of the findings: see above, the methodological aspects are also relevant to the validity of the presented results.
Additional comments: In the introduction, a distinction between visual WM and more general WM processes is missing (Eriksson, Vogel, Lansner, Bergström, & Nyberg, 2015). It is also missing a clear explanation (including hypotheses) why the digit span was assessed too, which taps mainly into verbal WM

In the discussion, I believe it is relevant to state that the present study results add evidence to the fact that the CDA is a less reliable index of individual visual working memory capacity in individual’s with impaired attention and visual working memory functions, such as adult ADHD patients (Wiegand et al, 2016), but also other groups, such as healthy older adults (Jost et al., 2011; Sander et al., 2011, Wiegand et al., 2018)

Minor:
Personally, I would include the topography of the CDA in the main manuscript, as the electrode labels described in the methods are not based on the 10-20 system’s nomenclature, which gives the reader information about the location of the selected electrodes.

Note that Wiegand et al. compared individuals with high vs. low VWM capacity, not high vs. low load conditions, as it is stated incorrectly in the introduction

The authors assessed a well-controlled sample that is, as the authors mention, presumably a high-performing subgroup of ADHD patients, who are able to compensate for their deficits to some degree. They are likely to still show symptoms, however, moderately. Do norms/cut-offs of the questionnaires really justify that they were “severely impaired”?

How many participants were excluded based on the stated criteria?

Were subtypes of ADHD classified and considered?

Were the subscales of the CFQ considered?


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: NEURAL PROCESSING OF WORKING MEMORY IN ADULTS WITH ADHD IN A VISUOSPATIAL CHANGE DETECTION TASK WITH DISTRACTORS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The work is adequately introduced and and referenced (see general comments for more details).
Experimental design: The work properly designed (see general comments for more details).
Validity of the findings: The validity of the findings needs to be more extensively discussed (see general comments).
Additional comments: In the study “Neural processing of working memory in adults with ADHD in a visuospatial change detection task with distractors” by Gu et al. the authors investigated the neural correlates of working memory deficit in adults ADHD individuals by  mean of an even related potential approach (ERP). The authors were interested the correlating the performance in a computerized behavioral task, aimed at measuring both, the efficiency of working memory and attentional filtering, and the corresponding neural activity. The authors also asked if the outcome of a set of neuropsychological related to the pattern of neuronal activation during the working memory task. The authors observed a significant difference between the ADHD individuals and their control group in some of the neuropsychological assessments but a comparable performance in the working memory task. On the contrary, the neuronal pattern of brain activity disguised well the task condition in the comparison group but not in the ADHD group. The authors discuss the difference in neural activity as a dysfunction in visual working memory in ADHD, even though their performance in the task was comparable to that of comparison group.
I found the work well written, adequately introduced and properly designed. In my opinion, the work is suitable for publication.
I have only some comments on the results presentation, interpretation and discussion, especially in light of negative behavioral result.

Results:
Did the authors try to analyze the reaction time in the two groups? Could differences in reaction time among the three conditions be reflected in neural activity, as for instance, a higher value during the retention period predicts a faster response in COMP but not in ADHD?
Also, did the authors test the memory load effect subject by subject? The authors should have enough trial to compare for each participant the performance and the neural activity among the task conditions. If a consistent number of ADHD does not show significant differences between task conditions while the control group does, it should support the author’s hypothesis. Even a smaller difference among the task conditions in ADHD respect to the control group would be consistent with their hypothesis.
I fell confused by the description of the neural results.
The authors describe a between group comparison in the measure of the neural storage capacity. Why did the authors use the term “storage capacity”? They are only comparing different signals. Why should these signals represent a memory capacity if there are no correlations with the behavioral measures?
Which are the signals compared between the one-way ANOVA? If the authors are describing post-hoc comparisons which are the variables compared?
Where in methods this measure is described? Is it the measure A = (H – D)/(H – L) ? If not, where in the paper this measure is used?

Discussion:
The authors should discuss more the fact that the neural activity that they observed is not capturing the processing of memory load, especially in light of a lack of correlation with the behavioral measures in the control group.  Looking at the comparable performance between ADHD and the control group in the visual working memory task it seems hard to conclude that they are capturing the ability to process the memory load. It should be rater stressed more the alternative explanations that the neural activity is capturing other characteristics of the task, supporting its execution but not influencing the performance in the task.
There are no mention to the brain areas they are recording from, which role they play in visual-working memory and why they should be dysfunctional in ADHD.
Minor points
Figure2:
P values higher than 0.05 and lower than .1: there is no reason to signal the time point at which these p-values are reached if not discussed in the text. Furthermore, this happens after 800 ms, a time period not considered in other analyses.
Green bars: it is not clear to what statistic each bar is referred to. Does each bar indicate the comparisons Low Load VS High Load, Low Load Vs Distract Load and High Load Vs Distract Load? If so, please use different colors or symbols, otherwise it is not possible to identify at which time each signal is different from another. If, as stated in the legend, the bars indicate the difference between High and Low load I do not see reasons to have three bars.
Red bar indicates the between group statistical difference in which measure?  The average signal across the three conditions?

Arrows of x-axis are different in the two panels.
Please indicate in the figure legend or in the figure that the zero of the x-axis is the time of presentation of the array (if I have correctly understood the analysis). Furthermore, it is worth pointing out also when the array disappears (200 ms after the presentation), to indicate to the reader the time point that separates the visual response and the retention time.
Figure legend 2:
Replace: “CDA waveforms for the low load (blue), high load (red), and distractor condition (yellow) for the ADHD (top panel) and Comparison group (bottom panel)” with “CDA waveforms for the low load (blue), high load (red), and distractor condition (yellow) for the ADHD (bottom panel) and Comparison group (top panel)”


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: NEURAL PROCESSING OF WORKING MEMORY IN ADULTS WITH ADHD IN A VISUOSPATIAL CHANGE DETECTION TASK WITH DISTRACTORS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: see below
Experimental design: see below
Validity of the findings: see below
Additional comments: The authors addressed all of my previous comments adequately. The manuscript improved further and I believe it is ready for publication. Well done! I only suggest to correct these minor issues in the final version:

l. 14 (abstract) delete “difference in” or “deficits in”

ll. 35-39  it is still not clearly stated that visual working memory is one sub-component  of WM, or executive functions more generally. It is also not clear which of the references belong to the one or the other. I’m also not sure any of those show evidence that VWM is “especially” impaired, relative to other processes subsumed under executive functions (e.g. task switching)
l. 332: iconic memory is sensory memory, not working memory (provides WM with the sensory representation to be maintained)


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: NEURAL PROCESSING OF WORKING MEMORY IN ADULTS WITH ADHD IN A VISUOSPATIAL CHANGE DETECTION TASK WITH DISTRACTORS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper is well written and adequately referenced.
Experimental design: The experimental hypothesis is well introduced.
Validity of the findings: No commenrt
Additional comments: The authors have addressed all raised points. I found the paper improved in the current version and suitable for publication.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LOCAL-SCALE DETERMINANTS OF ARBOREAL SPIDER BETA DIVERSITY IN A TEMPERATE FOREST: ROLES OF TREE ARCHITECTURE, SPATIAL DISTANCE, AND DISPERSAL CAPACITY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript by Zhang et al. presents a large dataset on arboreal spider species in Germany. Overall, it is well organized and well written. However, there are some potential problems in the data analysis approaches and the explanations on the results (see my comments below).
Experimental design: (1) The data were collected in different forest types in Germany, including old-growth beech, mature beech, and young beech. But I cannot find the comparisons among these three types, which should be more interesting for the readers. To mix all the data together for the current analysis, it leads to the results are really hard to be explained.
(2) Physical environment: Does the survey collect any physical environmental variables? I didn’t find any analysis on that. The authors mixed biotic and abiotic environment together in this MS. I think that it is important to detangle them.
Validity of the findings: (1) Spatial variables: The authors use the spatial variables to link with dispersal limitation and neutral theory. I find that it could be really weak when you didn’t consider any physical environment.
(2) Fine scale vs. broad scale: Don’t understand how the authors classify fine and broad scale. How large could be defined at the broad scale? I would like to see the clear definition on them.
Additional comments: (1)	Abstract Line 21: “We surveyed”? Did the authors really do the field survey? As I read from the text, the data were collected by other people. I suggest that the authors rewrite the similar descriptions to make it clear.
(2)	Lines 246-247 “some shortcomings associated with fogging”: please list the shortcomings.
(3)	Lines 268-269: “biotic homogenization processes”: For my understanding, biotic homogenization is a pattern. How could it be the “processes”? What is the underlying mechanism(s) to drive the homogenization? This question is something you need to discuss here.
(4)	In the figures, you use both “stand structure” and “environmental variables”. What is the difference between them?


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LOCAL-SCALE DETERMINANTS OF ARBOREAL SPIDER BETA DIVERSITY IN A TEMPERATE FOREST: ROLES OF TREE ARCHITECTURE, SPATIAL DISTANCE, AND DISPERSAL CAPACITY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Major Concerns:

1. Although all of the information is in the text, the structure of the results and methods do not correspond and neither are directly connected to the three main questions presented in the last paragraph of the introduction.  This makes it difficult to compare these sections and determine how the observation in this project relate to the central questions of the manuscript.  The manuscript would greatly benefit from explanations of how each analysis conducted specifically addresses one of the major question from the introduction.

2. The introduction as currently structured is hard to follow and does not intuitively lead the reader to the three questions underpinning the manuscript.  The authors should reorganize the introduction to focus on how this project fits within a larger ecological and biological framework and specifically focus on how the three questions are important to understanding beta diversity patterns.  Spiders are a useful model for beta diversity studies but should be secondary to this wider framework.  Rodriguez-Artigas et al. 2016 provides a good model for reframing this paper.

3. The sixth paragraph of the introduction (Lines 78 – 86) does well explaining the contrast in environmental versus spatial factors but does not fully explain what “spatially-structured environmental variables” represent.  These different terms are central to the overall story of the paper.  Presenting direct examples of each would provide more clarity.

4. The discussion could be reduced by about 25%.  This could mostly be accomplished by removing the reiterated results in the discussion section and by focusing on the implications of these results on the larger understanding of patterns of spider beta diversity.  Several of the smaller paragraphs could be collapsed into more concise single paragraphs.

Minor Issues:

1. The studies cited establishing that structural variability in vegetation influences spider communities are from coastal and grassland environments (Line 62).  Further support is needed to justify how the variables of tree architecture that were measured in the current study (Lines 136-143) influence spider communities.  Specifically, authors should provide citations for how and why “architecture of individual trees serves as the immediate habitat template for spider assemblages (Lines 65-66).”  There is ample evidence of the role crown architecture plays in shaping spider assemblages (Halaj et al 2000) and other arthropod communities that is overlooked in the currently in the introduction.

2. Citations are needed for the information presented in the first paragraph in the methods (Lines 107 – 112).

3. Citations are needed for methodology and claims presented concerning null models (Lines 162-171).

4. Figure 3 and Figure 5 refer to “environmental (tree architecture)” as a variable in the caption and throughout the text. However, this is called “Stand structure” in the figures themselves. Consistent terminology should be used.

5. Figure 4 shows that spatial components were slightly greater at fine scales compared to broad scales; however, the text in the manuscript (Line 229-230) indicates the opposite pattern. It is unclear from the discussion which is correct.

6. Figure captions are cut off in the document provided to the reviewers. This presented some issues with understanding the figures but is likely just an uploading error. This should be addressed before final submission.
Experimental design: Major Issue:

1. It seems highly unlikely that trees in each of these three forest stands would all be regularly distributed at approximately 5m distances (Lines 116-117).  It is not clear from the current methods how the trees were selected to achieve this distribution.  Additionally, it is not clear from the description if the three tree stands were contiguous or if there is spatial separation among these stands.  This is important because it could impact the PCNM analyses and all of the final results presented.  Additionally, the introduction of the three forest stands used to provide a wider variety of tree architecture also introduces a confounding variable of stand age that should be considered at the very least in the discussion if not via statistical means.
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The manuscript describes the variability in beta diversity of spiders collected from beech trees in the Würzburg University Forest specifically focusing on the roles of tree architecture, tree spatial distributions, and spider dispersal capacity.  Spider compositional dissimilarity between trees was higher than expected by random chance and spatially-structured environmental factors contributed most to variation at broad scales compared to fine scales.  However, >78% of variation in beta diversity was not explained by the measured variables.  In contrast with previous work, spatial factors did not dramatically effect beta diversity in low vagility spider species.  The manuscript is methodologically sound, technically well written and provides results that should be of interest to a wide ecological audience.  However, as currently structured it is difficult to connect the three main questions of the paper to the methods and results presented.  Additionally, there are aspects of the field methodology that need further clarification. The specific concerns are outlined in the specific sections.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LOCAL-SCALE DETERMINANTS OF ARBOREAL SPIDER BETA DIVERSITY IN A TEMPERATE FOREST: ROLES OF TREE ARCHITECTURE, SPATIAL DISTANCE, AND DISPERSAL CAPACITY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The revised version of the manuscript has been greatly improved.
Experimental design: I don’t think that the authors address my suggestions well. I put my comments in the original manuscript here and add my new comments after those.
(1) The data were collected in different forest types in Germany, including old-growth beech, mature beech, and young beech. But I cannot find the comparisons among these three types, which should be more interesting for the readers. To mix all the data together for the current analysis, it leads to the results are really hard to be explained.
New comment: The authors responded that “this pooled analysis served for the same end as the comparisons among forest types”. I am fine with the pooled analysis, but I think that it is important to go back to the raw idea on the comparison of these three different forest types. You need to describe whether or not and why there are some different species composition, and what the results mean for species conservation or forest management.

(2) Physical environment: Does the survey collect any physical environmental variables? I didn’t find any analysis on that. The authors mixed biotic and abiotic environment together in this MS. I think that it is important to detangle them.
New comment: I don’t like the term “biotic environmental variables”. It is a strange usage. Do you see any one used this term in the literature? There might some existed, but I am sure that it is really rare. Why not use “tree architecture” directly? I will suggest you to use this term through the whole manuscript.
In addition, you mention that “to disentangle the roles of tree architecture, spatial distance, and dispersal capacity on spider turnover” in the abstract. I am wondering which variable is directly related to dispersal capacity.
Validity of the findings: (2) Fine scale vs. broad scale: Don’t understand how the authors classify fine and broad scale. How large could be defined at the broad scale? I would like to see the clear definition on them.
New comment: The question is still not clear for me. Usually, ecologists use “broad scale” for regional or national scale analysis. The current study is on a local scale. Since it is not a main focus of this paper. I will suggest to remove all the comparisons between fine and “broad” scales.
Additional comments: (1)	In the figures, you use both “stand structure” and “environmental variables”. What is the difference between them?
New comment: Does “stand structure” equal to “tree architecture”? If so, why not use the same term through the whole manuscript?