PONE-D-23-26216Exploring the effects of habitat management on grassland biodiversity: A case study from northern SerbiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Milić,

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Reviewers' comments:

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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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

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: Yes

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: This study focuses on the effects of different grassland management types, specifically grazing and mowing compared to control, on the diversity of three different groups: plants, pollinators, and birds. They show differences in the diversity of these three groups in response to management. In my specific comments on the paper I've highlighted places where I think additional methodological details are needed.

Reviewer #2: Exploring the effects of habitat management on grassland biodiversity: A case study from northern Serbia

This an interesting study presenting the effect of grassland management (mowing and grazing) on different biodiversity taxa. Although the study is valuable, it could be much improved. Some parts of the manuscript are not easy to follow, especially the introduction, due to poor writing. And the discussion section is too lengthy, should be shortened and more focused to the main questions assessed in the study. But the main concern is the sampling design, which is unbalanced (only 1 control site vs. 3 grazing and 3 mowing sites) and this should be acknowledged and dealt with proper statistical analysis in the study.

Minor comments

L81: I recommend changing the sentence to make it clearer. By “initiatives” you refer to the conservation strategies? Something like “these conservation initiatives cover ecosystem services such as biomass production and…”, as you are referring here to the ecosystem services grasslands provide

L84 To what species you are referring to by “as many species are presently threatened”? Of solitary bees?

L83-87 the whole sentence would benefit from some rephrasing

L86. Fix typo, forging should be “foraging”

L167: fix typo, nearest tree (NOT three)

L171-175: treatments could be explained in a more structured and clear way, without mixing information

L186-192: no information on time of the day when pollinator sampling was conducted, please add

L205: I suggest rephrasing, species diversity was "calculated" instead of interpreted.

L249: In the study area is not needed, I suggest to delete that

L250. Please rephrase. Recorded instead of “noted presence”

L253: Please correct. Unmanaged site, singular as there was only one site.

Table 1. Are those numbers mean % across sites? Please specify. Also, would be better if the description of social behaviour types in table legend text follows the order of appearance of the table, starting with S, D, DT, NP and IAS

Table 4. Fix typo, distance to nearest TREE

Fig. 3. IT would help to add the full name of management type in the legend in the figure: Control, Grazing, and Mowing. Also Variat should be replaced by Management.

Discussion could be shortened in order to improve flow and focus on main messages.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: my comments.docx

Exploring the effects of habitat management on grassland biodiversity: A case study from northern Serbia

PONE-D-23-26216R1

Dear Dr. Milić,

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.

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Kind regards,

Tzen-Yuh Chiang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. 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: The authors have addressed my comments on the original manuscript, and I commend them for their attention to detail in responding to my comments and the comments of the other reviewer.

Reviewer #2: I thank the authors for addressing the comments raised, although I would appreciate that they would have made reference to the specific lines where changes have taken place in the new version of the manuscript. Yet, having the tracked changes version at the end helped.

I think the current manuscript has improved substantially and I recommend it for publication. I particularly appreciate the additional information regarding on the statistical methods used to account for the imbalance study design.

I have only 2 minor comments on the current version:

- Lines 299-302. Please rephrase as current form it's not clear. Something similar to:

“Greatest number of plant, pollinator and bird species was found at the grazed (G) and mowed sites (M) with 85, 14, and 26 species and 115, 21, and 19 species respectively, while at unmanaged… “

- Conclusions. I would suggest to modify slightly the conclusions to strengthen the main findings of the work. What do you mean by “clear differentiation”? Also the role of mowing, in addition to grazing, could be highlighted as for example the highest number of Asteraceae and Fabaceae plant species, together with highest number of pollinators, were recorded in mowed sites.

Lines 651-653 are not very clear, I suggest rephrasing. For instance, when you say “modern management measures should follow this practice…“ which practice do you refer to? grazing with ruminants?

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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