PONE-D-23-32228Preserving the spots of the land: Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution and priority conservation areas in ColombiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. González-Maya,

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Dárius Pukenis Tubelis, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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“This work was partially funded and developed in ProCAT Colombia and Laboratorio de Ecología Funcional from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. We appreciate the support, comments and review from J. Nicolas Urbina-Cardona and Ginna Gomez-Junco, the support from Lab mates and ProCAT staff and the language editing and comments of Jan Schipper.”

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Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr José González-Maya,

Thank you for submitting your study for publication in PLOS ONE.

We have received two reviews that suggested "Minor Revision" for your submission.

Both reviewers considered your study as important, interesting and well done.

Reviewer 1 is mainly concerned with the lenght of the Introduction and Discussion, and with the number of figures.

I ask that you try to consider these and other questions presented by this reviewer, when you consider appropriate. His/her corrections are in an attached file.

Reviewer 2 also liked your study and present a few corrections, that you also can consider.

The text of your manuscript has some problems regarding the English and punctuation (mainly commas). Reviewers pointed out some mistakes, but it

would be good if you can ask the help of an Englich native speaker before submitting the corrected version of your manuscript.

Additionally, I ask that you try to follow my sugestions below. They involve formatting and other aspects of the submission.

Review by the Editor Dárius Tubelis:

Title.

"spots" is not a common term in the Landscape Ecology literature. Why not "remnants" ?

Abstract.

Introduction.

I do not consider that the Introduction is too long, as pointed out by R1. Its lenght and content are appropriate.

Line 75. For sure, start a new sentence for the objectives - "....Colombia. The objectives of this study....".

Material and Methods

Line 106 ahead. I would appreciate a paragraph, or some sentences, in which you provide information on the system of protected

areas found in Colombia. How many reserves occur ? What is the territorial extension that they protect in total , and in each ecoregion? Basic information on this aspect

of the country would be welcome here in this section, as you discuss about this later.

Line 155. "fragmented forest" could be any of these 3 forest ypes....

Lines 157 to 160. Something is wrong with the writing. It appears to have a contradiction here.

Lines 227-228. This is important, but did you mention this in the objectives and methods ?

Line 229. This caption appears to be too short. There is nothing more to add ? maybe: ...based on...

Also, this caption is there but where have you cited Fig 2 along the text ? I did not find. Please check this.

Line 245. The caption is there, but where did you cite Fig 3 along the text ? I could not find it.

Line 259. Again for Fig 4. An "Error!" appeared some times along the last paragraphs. Maybe, this refer to your figure citations ? If so, this error

was done during the pdf creation. Please check your text.

Discussion.

You will make the reading easier if you create sub-sections with sub-titles along the Discussion. This would help to avoid eventual

repetitions, and reduce its lenght. Six pages it a bit long. Please try to reduce it a bit, as also suggested by R1.

Conclusion.

Please review it to avoid repeating parts of the Discussion. Maybe you can make it shorter.

References

They appear to be ok, but please make a last check before sending the corrected version of your manuscript.

Line 681. The words should not be with intials in capitals. Please check this aspect for all refs.

Lines 789-790. Is the common name correct ? Also, scientific names in itlalics.

Line 799. brackets not in italics.

Figures.

Would it be possible to combine figures 1 and 2 in only one ? Figure 2 appears to bring little information, and the map is "clean" (it could have major cities, major rivers, etc..and/or this info of Fig 1).

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Minor changes and improvements in English are needed. Cut back in length especially Intro and Discussion and delete Conclusions. Some English review is suggested and tightening the writing. Some highlights suggested at the end in Discussion to enhance the potential and applicability of the paper. I am sure the authors will resolve all of these without much difficulty. Please see the attached document with additional suggestions and comments.

Reviewer #2: Dear authors and editors,

Thank you for approaching me to review this paper. The authors developed a jaguar distribution map and determined potentially important areas for its conservation (corridors and patches) to inform conservation planning. I think the methods and science behind it are good and the information is an important contribution to jaguar conservation. I think the paper can be published as it is. However, there are some issues with the writing and style which I recommend reviewing critically. I have suggested a few points below but encourage the authors to do a careful inspection of these issues throughout the manuscript.

Below are other general comments for the authors to reflect on.

1. In line 111, it would be good to clearly state what the “primary sources” were. The authors only mention an example, but a clear list of what these sources were would be useful. For example, we are not sure whether this includes records of predation events or hunting events. Were these records considered in the models? Panthera has collected good records of predation and hunting events in Colombia in case authors would find this useful. This is not a requirement for publication, but I take the opportunity to respectfully mention this for future consideration.

2. Would it be possible to elaborate a bit more on the two criteria used for filtering the data? It is clear that the authors used two filters (credibility and geographic precision), but it is not straightforward to understand when a record is deemed as low, medium or high. This is just a matter of perhaps adding a parenthesis or something like that just for the sake of clarity.

3. Line 170: seems like the word should be “die” not “died”

4. There is regularly an error message in the ms stating that “Error! Reference source not found” This must be a cross reference or something similar, so please check this error for publication.

5. Line 310, change “comma” for a period in “. For example,”.

6. Line 321: correct the typo in “meanly” for “mainly”.

7. Line 367: correct the typo in “reduces” for “reduce”.

8. Line 402: correct typo in “taken”.

9. Lines 417-422: organize ideas, maybe split into a couple of sentences for better understanding.

10. Line 420: correct typo in "meanly”.

11. Line 426, delete the comma.

12. Line 427-428: check flow, correct (e.g. period is not correctly used).

13. Line 432: avoid shortening words (spell out “That´s”).

14. Line 441: delete “in this way”, this is a new paragraph no need for this link.

15. Line 460: delete “a”.

16. Line 461: correct type “meanly”.

Congratulations!

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Lain E. Pardo

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review of MS 32228 PLOSONE .docx

Preserving the spots: Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution and priority conservation areas in Colombia

PONE-D-23-32228R1

Dear Dr. González-Maya,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Dárius Pukenis Tubelis, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr González-Maya,

Thank for submtting the corrected version of your manuscript on the Jaguar in Colombia (PONE-D-23-32228R1).

I have appreciated your responses to revieweres and the changes done.

With this, your manuscript was improved, and I now consider that it can be accepted for publication in PLOS ONE.

In my last reading, I found a range of minor mistakes that have to be fixed.

Please do so during the proofs correction, or another final stage of the evaluation process.

These mistakes/problems are:

Please check again if your affiliations are correct and according to the Guidelines.

Line 40. JPCA and JPRA are not appropriate as keywords, as they could mean different things in other countries or studies. Please replace them by

words such as the family name and "forest". Also, Jaguar is repetitive; consider "corridor".

Introduction

Here and along the text, there should be a space between the numbers of references: example [2, 3] instead of [2,3]. Please fix this along the ms.

Line 53. This reference [19] is wrongly placed. You should cite the number [8] here, as the previous reference was [7].

You have to change the position of ref 19 in the References Section, and change all posterior numbers along the text and in the References section. Be carefull !!

Accordingly, the references in line 55 would need to be [9, 10]. And so on...

Methods

Line 136. Is "(M)" wright here ? It sounds strange. Please check this.

Line 151. it is better to replace "&" by "and". The same for line 152.

Line 180. Change to "we used".

Line 196. Change to [91, 93]. Join them.

Line 203. ranges??

Lines 208 to 214. You were using values (e.g. "3") and now you use words (e.g. four). It is correct ? Please change for uniformity.

Results

Table 2. Consider writing "Max" in full (Bio5).

Line 245. Change to "had sizes".

Lines 270, 271. Some problem with the figure citation here.

Discussion

Line 302. Change to "have disappeared".

References

You are using the DOIs in a wrong way. The correct is "https://doi.org/numbers and letters". Please check the Guidelines and recent issues.

Some DOIs are missing....

Figure 5. Some numbers are overlapped in the scale.

That is all.

If you fix this, you article likely will be accepted in definitive.

You have produced an interesting and important paper.

Thank you for considering PLOS ONE as home of your research.

Dárius Tubelis