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I am making a decision on this manuscript as the Ecology Section Editor.
Thanks for your work on this, and for the work done by the reviewers and the Academic Editor up to this point. The manuscript has gone through an adequate review and revision process and the reviewers recommend it as acceptable. I agree with this assessment. Congratulation on your new publication.
no comment
no comment
no comment
I thank the authors for their hard work on this paper. Congratulations and best wishes.
Minor editorial modifications are required. Please see the annotated PDF from Reviewer 3.
Clear and good.
Clear and good.
Good.
Revisions have been made according to previous review report, and I think it could be accepted.
See below
See below
See below
I thank the authors for their detailed revision. They have addressed all my concerns and I find the manuscript acceptable now.
Minor editorial modifications aimed at improving the readability of the paper have been made for authors' consideration.
no comment
no comment
The modified manuscript is attached for authors' consideration
It has been reviewed by experts in the field and we request that you make major revisions before it is processed further.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review comments are addressed in a response letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. It is a common mistake to address reviewer questions in the response letter but not in the revised manuscript. If a reviewer raised a question then your readers will probably have the same question so you should ensure that the manuscript can stand alone without the response letter. Directions on how to prepare a response letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/ #]
no comment
The meaning and significance of this study should be further stressed and clarified.
no comment
1. Why do you choose to study these two species in this area? Needs more clarification.
2. The meaning and significance of this study should be further stressed and clarified in the Introduction and Discussion part.
3. Conclusions should be more concise, and detailed information may be moved to results and discussion part.
4. In the abstract, context and background should be stated before stating "We studied the populations of two small mammals (Apodemus agrarius, A. sylvaticus) in 19 wood remnants along a gradient of agricultural landscape intensification in Friuli Venezia Giulia (north-eastern Italy)"
See comments below. Generally very good.
Very good.
Very good. See minor comments below.
General comments
Globally there are concerns about anthropogenic land-use change effects on biodiversity. In this study, the authors investigated how landscape and microhabitat features determine small mammal abundance (two Apodemus spp.) in forest patches in agricultural landscapes. The work makes an important contribution to our understanding of small mammal species persistence in anthropogenic landscapes.
I suggest replacing ‘due to’ with ‘because of’ throughout.
Specific comments
Title: Fine.
Abstract:
L24 Insert a general sentence.
L25 Maybe say how many woodlots and over what time.
Introduction:
A good synthesis of the relevant literature.
Avoid one-sentence paragraphs, so combine 2nd para with 3rd.
L65 ‘responded’.
L72 Correct author’s name ‘Bricker’.
L82 Replace ‘proved to’ with ‘shown’.
L97 Both references are not in the list.
L108 What were your predictions?
Methods:
Good explanation of methods used.
L116 Insert Latin names.
L214 Put GIS in full at 1st mention.
L214 Is it not QGis?
L218 Correct ‘polygon’.
L234 Change to ‘analyses’.
Results:
Were both species caught in all your sampling sessions?
L291, 294 Avoid one-sentence paragraphs so combine.
L299, 318 Insert space ’Table 2’.
L301 Check Journal format for the presentation of statistics.
L315 ‘3.2’.
Discussion:
Perhaps a bit long.
L518 ‘Conclusions’.
L523, 557 ‘showed’.
References:
I have not checked if the Journal format was followed. Most in-text references are listed.
Please check and follow the Journal format. Some Journal titles are abbreviated, and others not. Some Journal titles do not have each word starting with a capital.
The article is very comprehensive in terms of content and contains all relevant sections. However, I have the following concerns:
1. Some sections (e.g., Materials and methods) contain many grammatical and typographical errors. I have highlighted some of them for the authors' consideration and revision.
2. There are many long sentences (e.g. Lines 551-556) which makes it hard to read.
3. The introduction should be improved to ensure a proper logical flow. For example, there is a sudden change in grammatical tense on Lines 65 and 66. There are also redundant phrases that need to be removed. For example, "on their mosaics" on Line 106.
4. The references are very relevant, but I did not find any recent ones. I noticed that the latest reference is nearly 4 (i.e. 2017) years old. The authors will agree with me that there have been several advances (i.e., important studies) during this period that need to be referenced to improve the quality of the introduction, discussion, and conclusions.
5. I also noted with concern the variable weird names such as "N_spec_arbr", "Dmt_med_fst". The authors should endeavor improve this.
6. There are other editorial revisions that will improve the quality of the paper. For example, a better rendering of the equation on Line 191 with an equation number. I have highlighted most of these editorial errors for authors' review and revision.
7. Table and figure labels are too long in my view. Authors may want to shorten them.
The methodology is sound. no comment
No comment
Please see the attached annotated PDF for details.
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