Seasonal distribution of short-tailed shearwaters and their prey in the Bering and Chukchi seas

Nishizawa, Bungo; Matsuno, Kohei; Labunski, Elizabeth A.; Kuletz, Kathy J.; Yamaguchi, Atsushi; Watanuki, Yutaka

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-203-2017

Articles | Volume 14, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-203-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-203-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 1

Research article

|

13 Jan 2017

Research article |

| 13 Jan 2017

Seasonal distribution of short-tailed shearwaters and their prey in the Bering and Chukchi seas

Bungo Nishizawa, Kohei Matsuno, Elizabeth A. Labunski, Kathy J. Kuletz, Atsushi Yamaguchi, and Yutaka Watanuki

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Final revised paper (published on 13 Jan 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 06 Nov 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C8160: 'Review of Nishizawa Shearwaters in the Bering and Chukchi Seas', George Hunt, 02 Dec 2015
RC C9697: 'Review for bg-2015-499', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Feb 2016
AC C10327: 'Final response by Bungo Nishizawa', Bungo Nishizawa, 26 Mar 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (10 Apr 2016) by Makoto Sampei

AR by Bungo Nishizawa on behalf of the Authors (31 May 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Jun 2016) by Makoto Sampei

RR by George Hunt (25 Jun 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Nishizawa et al have responded to the questions and suggestions of the reviewers quite well. On the easy stuff, they have made the changes, and on the more difficult questions, they have made what modifications that they felt they could. It is a disappointment that they did not attempt to query the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database, as it is now publicly available, and co-author Kuletz would have had little difficulty in getting the appropriate data extracted, particularly since she has been a major contributor to the NPPSD. The figures were missing from the material available to me. I am assuming that they have not changed since the first version.

The data in Table 1 show that shearwaters are not present in the Chukchi in June and July, but are there in August and September. The data in the Table, both for presence-absence and for density, do not support the conclusion of an exodus from the Bering Sea in summer. It is now 2016- do they have data from 2014 or 2015 that would strengthen the paper?

That said, the paper is a potentially important contribution. Their data on krill sizes by season and location are worth a paper in and of themselves, and the data on shearwater movements and habitat preferences are also a significant addition to our knowledge.

However, the paper needs a very significant editing- both for grammar, and for clarity. There are too many areas with convoluted sentences, mixtures of data and description, and awkward passages for this reviewer to feel comfortable with even a final evaluation of the merits of the science. I think that the paper is of more than sufficient scientific quality for publication, but I am not sure, as I did not follow the writing in a number of critical areas. Co-author Kuletz is a good and critical writer, and it is essential that she gives this paper a careful editing for both English and science content.
George Hunt, Reviewer

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (11 Jul 2016) by Makoto Sampei

AR by Anna Mirena Feist-Polner on behalf of the Authors (27 Oct 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (10 Nov 2016) by Makoto Sampei

RR by George Hunt (19 Dec 2016)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (21 Dec 2016) by Makoto Sampei

AR by Bungo Nishizawa on behalf of the Authors (21 Dec 2016) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

To investigate seasonal distribution of short-tailed shearwaters we conducted vessel-based seabird surveys and net samplings of krill, i.e., their main prey, during summer and fall in the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea. Short-tailed shearwaters in the Bering Sea during summer moved to feed in the Chukchi Sea during fall, which might be associated with the seasonal increase in krill size in the Chukchi Sea.