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Congratulations, I am so happy to see you have addressed all the comments made by the reviewers.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Nigel Andrew, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Dear authors,
The major decision has been based on the number of observations made by the referees rather than on the implications of their comments on the contents and structure of your work.
It is up to you to consider the call description in a separate manuscript or to keep it in this work.
I look forward to hearing from your revised version
Emmanuel
This manuscript is written in clear and unambigous professional english througout. I very much enjoyed the historic background, especially some of the old records of Jiménez de la Espada etc. in the introduction. This is a complex story with a potential extinction and a rediscovery, masterfully narrated in the introduction.
Materials and methods are comprehensive and detailed. The description of the sites and habitats, The only part that seems a bit weak is the analysis where there is a general statement at the end 'All analyses were performed in R version 4.3.1.' but what packages where used? How did you analyse the data for each one of this multidisciplinary paper? Or is it all mostly descriptive?
Results: I'm aware there is not really a case here to create an SDM for the species in this context, but what about a heatmap in qGIS? IT would tell you more about the distribution of the points and perhaps aviod having to reveal the exact location of a toad that might be sought after in the pet trade (e.g. https://www.qgistutorials.com/en/docs/3/creating_heatmaps.html).
Climatic analysis: If you were trying to interpret this in the lense of the Pounds et al.2006 paper, why not do so explicitly? The hypothesis was more complext though than locally warm years. I am not a Bd sceptic, but where is the data to support this statement? "Thus, given these data, a most likely scenario explaining the Jambato declines is associated with the arrival and dispersal of Bd." Similarl ideas have been proposed for the east coast of Australia, but the data was simply not there. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0052502, and in other cases the links where there but the timing wasn't that clear https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.1290, that paper has all the r code to replicate what has been done and explore the ecuadorian data in a similar spatio-temporal context that could be easily replicated (I acknolwedge not for this paper). Perhaps what I'm asking her, don't oversimplify something without presenting clear evidence for this. With regards to conservation, would translocation be a useful tool to help it expand its range? Is it pointless in this case?
The paper has an original approach within aims and scope for the paper. It uses a multidisciplinary approach to describe the status, biology and distribution of this species, which was previously thought to be extinct. The research question are presented clearly, and the methods are describe with enough detail that it could be replicated.
The manuscript deals mostly with the natural history of a critically endangered and recently thought to be extinct of harlequin toad, which is an important contribution in an era where many species in this genus seem to be coming back. It certainly gives the backbone for further studies, which could untanble their incredible comback and coexistence with an emerging disease that caused their mass extinction in the first place. The conclusions are well stated, I would appreciate more on the conservation efforts, that given the authors experience they would recommend as stated above. Is this species now on solid footing? Should we try to be expanding its range artifically or is natural dispersal going to be enough for it to recover?
No comment.
No comment.
No comment
The paper ”Path for recovery: an ecological overview of the Jambato Harlequin Toad (Bufonidae: Atelopus ignescens) in its last known locality, Angamarca Valley, Ecuador“ by Vega-Yánez et al. deals with conservation-related research on one of the most threatened – and most enigmatic – amphibians from Andean Ecuador. The paper provides important life history data for in situ and ex situ conservation measures, both in process for a couple of years already. I am fine with the questions asked in this paper and not aiming at hypothesis testing.
As an option, I would like to ask the authors to consider to exclude the call description, as there is next to no direct benefit of this information for conservation practices (different to climate, food, Bd etc.). The call description may well go in a separate short note, making the species even more visible.
Apart from this, I have minor comments or recommendations only and I hope the authors find them useful.
I like the paper, find it informative with very cool illustrations, useful and well-done. I suggest minor revision.
Stefan Lötters
Comments
Title: Here you refer to “harlequin toad”, while elsewhere in the text you refer to “harlequin frog” – never “harlequin toad” but you use “toad”. Chose one, both is possible but not within the same piece of text I would say.
Line 58: I suggest removing key words that appear in the title.
Line 67: Say “2,800 to 4,200 m a.s.l.”
Line 69: Provide full name of Jimenez de la Espada, which reads better, I think; otherwise place year and page after mentioning the name here and delete at the end of the sentence.
Line 71: What does he describe with regard to reproductive habits?
Line 72: Rewrite: “Years later, in 1981, at the same site…”.
Line 86: Move year in parentheses behind name and delete at the end of the sentence.
Line 87: Say “public monument”, if true.
Line 89: “last record” not correct, restate like “last record for almost three decades” or so.
Line 90: Be precise, what do you mean by “prior”?
Line 94: Although La Marca (2005) is the first genus-wide study, the update of that study (Lötters et al. 2003) refer to more species (131 instead of 113) – including those undescribed or not identified in 2005 – and provides data on declines. Maybe cite both here.
Line 97: Say “amphibian skin fungus”.
Line 103: Say “pathogenic fungus”.
Line 122: I recommend to exclusively or in addition mention the full Spanish name of the ministry.
Line 126: Place year in parentheses.
Line 128: Say “2,812 m a.s.l.”
Line 135: Say “4,064 m. a.s.l.”
Line 138: You refer to WorldClim2 data here that are based on interpolations. You should refer to this circumstance, as interpolations in the Andes may easily have errors. Also mention the period for with these data are valid. See below my comment on line 259.
Line 139: You have super nice and informative illustrations including ventral aspects of the jambato. It would be informative to the reader to see what the species looks like from above (I mean the adult, not only the tadpole that you illustrate). Maybe add a specimen on white background to figure 1 here. Alternatively, maybe right in the beginning show a separate illustration of the frog in its natural habitat (a new figure 1), which provides a better impression of the study organism to the reader who is not so much into Atelopus.
Line 140f.: I think that he term “opportunistic” should be added somewhere in this paragraph, as this is a common term for how data were obtained.
Line 147: How many nocturnal surveys, at which hours? Rephrase “with the goal to find sleeping individuals”. What about nocturnal activity of tadpoles? Did you look for tads at night?
Line 162, line 226: Which type of gloves?
Line 167: Instead of “categories” better refer to the common term “landuse class” throughout the paper.
Line 168f.: What is a “spatial spread of areas”? You mean the spread of specimens within the area?
Line 170: Not “1 km2” but “1 km²”. BTW; this is quite coarse, given the general size of the area. Couldn’t you downscale?
Line 178: What do you mean by “two lacking any presence record”? Please rewrite in way that you have not recorded the here. Maybe state how far the nearest ever captured specimen was to provide a better picture of apparent absence.
Line 200: Amanda analyzed the photographs by visual inspection only? No software was used? You could easily provide them all in an electronic appendix here.
Line 205: Say “2,971 m a.s.l.”
Line 242: Add “a.s.l.” again to the elevations mentioned here.
Line 259: Climate is defined as the mean weather conditions of the atmosphere over 30 years at a given site. I doubt the 51-year-period (1960-2021) given here for WorldClim 2.1. According to https://www.worldclim.com/version2, this period is 1970-2000.
Line 265: I am not an expert and maybe I am wrong here. The longer the periods are, the more unnormalities are smoothened. Are the results the same when comparing e.g. only 1971-1980, 1981-1990, 1991-2000?
Line 273: Instead of “recognized as different” say “considered to be likely different”. BTW; I find this tricky, as, given figure 2, all 6 larvae were found over a distance of 1,000 m in the same stream and tadpole symbols in the figure even overlay suggesting they were close to each other. Honestly, we don’t know much about larval movement or drift in Atelopus.
Line 276: Maybe add to “habitat” the term “landuse classes” in parentheses (see comment to line 167). This also applies to the text of figure 5 and to line 407f (and perhaps elsewhere in the text, figure legends, tables, appendices).
Line 294: What is “minimal”?
Line 299f.: You do not refer to figure 6A in the text.
Line 323: As you also did the photo ID method to learn more about recaptures (cf. title of paragraph!) you state “our study was not designed with the aim of recapturing individuals”. This is a bit unlucky, although I understand what you mean. However, this should be rewritten. I would especially recommend to emphasize that during the entire period you ONLY had 2 recaptures, which is remarkable.
Line 328f: You mentioned above (MM) where photographs are deposited. Do not repeat here.
Line 353: I there seasonal variation? Worth checking and mentioning. Maybe plot time against number of positives/negatives and show. Tadpoles were not tested for Bd, correct? Maybe mention in MM if not there.
Line 354: What kind of signs of sickness would you expect? What did you look for? Maybe also mention in MM.
Line 380: Maybe consider to show Table S6 in the main paper, not the appendix. I find it interesting.
Line 383f.: This is what I mentioned before. There should be an effect of length of period, too!
Line 430: use the abbreviation “Bd” here.
Line 432: Is this prevalence among all A. ignescens samples over time? What about seasonal variation? What about prevalence of the entire amphibian community? Be clear here.
Line 435: “Lötters” not “Lotters” please, it makes a difference in German language.
Line 441: It is not clear for all the stressors mentioned why they affect A. ignescens in Angamarca.
Line 454: Maybe. But one may also see a direct link between the 1983 warm period and declines some years later. First, there is no robust data. What is ‘the end of the 1980s’? Maybe it only then became more obvious to the people, as probably the species silently started to decline before. Second, what about delayed effects, e.g. a short life span combined with lack of reproductive success?
Line 692: “Köhler”, not “Köehler” please.
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