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I am satisfied with the changes that have been made to the manuscript and recommend that this submission be accepted for publication.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by James Reimer, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
I have received comments back from two reviewers. One of them has suggested making some minor changes. Once these are taken care of, your manuscript will be ready for acceptance.
L28: Advise to remove the word “Interestingly”, since this result is expected
L44: Valiente et al. 2015 not included in reference list, please add.
L121: “the” repeated
L251: Consider replacing “similar density behavior” with “a similar density”
L298: Suggestion to use the past tense, “...prevalence of the new outbreak was still relatively low...”
Figure 2: Correct unit/measurement in y-axis label to “(Individuals m-2)”. This indicates that urchins per meter squared were measured. Or use the same y-axis label in Fig. 3.
Figure 6: indicate the time (year) and survey site(s) in the caption. This is data reported from all sites, correct?
No additional comments
No additional comments
Thank you for this resubmission and for sufficiently addressing each comment/suggestion. Overall I find this manuscript much improved and ready for publication with very minor additional revisions needed.
no comment
no comment
no comment
no comment
Two expert reviewers have evaluated your manuscript - revised and resubmitted following a previous rejection - and their comments can be seen below as well as in an attached PDF. Please ensure that you address all of their comments and suggestions in a revised version of the manuscript.
**PeerJ Staff Note:** Please ensure that all review, editorial, and staff 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.
In my view, while improvements have been made to this manuscript there are still major deficits/revisions that need to be addressed prior to being accepted for publication. Please find my specific comments in the pdf attached. As a general comment, there are still (now minor) grammatical errors throughout that require additional proof-reading. I have also indicated areas that could be strengthened by adding relevant references.
While additional sampling (more recent surveys) would have greatly improved this manuscript, I appreciate the difficulty in doing so. That being said, the existing methods (specifically the description of statistical methods used) require additional improvement. Please refer to the attached pdf.
Major flaws, in my view, concern the accurate reporting of data and validity of the statistical analysis. Some of the results reported in text and figures do not match the raw data provided. I urge the authors to carefully review the methods and results section and make appropriate corrections.
Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript and I look forward to additional revisions.
see comments in the attached document
see comments in the attached document
see comments in the attached document
see comments in the attached document
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