Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Dear authors

 Thank you for submitting the revised version of your manuscript entitled "Integrating locals’ importance-performance perspective of adaptation behavior into Invasive alien plant species management surrounding Nyika National Park, Malawi" to Forest. I have carefully reviewed the revised manuscript, and I would like to acknowledge the efforts you have made in addressing the comments and suggestions provided during the review process.

 

 

I have thoroughly examined the revised manuscript, and I appreciate the revisions you have made. The clarity, structure, and presentation of the study have been improved, and the manuscript now meets the high standards of the journal. I have no further comments to add at this time.

 

I want to commend you on your diligence and the improvements you have made in response to the previous review. The methodology, data analysis, and conclusions are sound and well-supported by the data.

NA

Author Response

Thanks for your feedback, we really appreciate your comments.

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

General Comments

-        The grammar and structure throughout make it hard to read and follow. I understand that the authors do not have English as their primary language, but the English of the paper needs to be checked for grammar, style, and syntax, especially verb tenses, prepositions, and punctuations. For example, in Abstract, “we has” or “These finding” are grammatically wrong. I would recommend the authors to ask a native speaker or use a professional English editing service for editing the English of the paper. The paper suffers from a lack of coherence and contextualization, making it challenging to establish a clear connection between the preceding and subsequent sections.

Specific Comments

 

Abstract

-        I got no idea about materials and methods and results when reading the Abstract. I would like to see the authors revise the abstract somewhat by adding more methods and results. Most parts of the Abstract are general opinions regarding the local community’s awareness. For example, this statement, "The results show that the locals consider community awareness of the impacts of IAPS and incorporation of IAPS topic in the school curriculum as important with corresponding low performance," is more like a general idea than the actual results of this study. Readers need to have an idea regarding materials, methods, and results when reading the Abstract.

-        Keywords are not too precise and specific. Most of them are mentioned in the title. Therefore, they must be eliminated or replaced with other key words highlighting the focus of the study.

 

1.     Introduction

-        Long paragraphs that make it difficult to read and understand. I would recommend using more short paragraphs than less long ones. It should only give a brief background, emphasize the problem, justify the study, and state the objectives. The subheadings may be necessary.

-        The authors say: “Finally, this study analyzes the factors affecting locals’ participating behavior towards change in IAPS management strategies from the binary choice models”, but I didn’t say anything about these factors from previous studies in Introduction. I would recommend revising this part by adding more recent relevant references introducing the main factors affecting locals’ participating behavior towards change in IAPS management.

-        In section 2.1., I couldn’t find socioeconomic and ecological impacts of IAPS. I need to see a revision on this. I need to see what these impacts are.

-        I couldn’t relate “2.1. Social-Economic and Ecological impact of IAPS in Malawi” to “2.2. The theory of adaptive capacity”.  I need to see a paragraph explaining how 2.1 relates to 2.2.

-        Again, I couldn’t relate “2.2. The theory of adaptive capacity” to “2.3. Social resilience: The role of adaptation in IAPS management”.  This needs revisions as mentioned above.

3. Conceptual Framework

-        Why 3. Conceptual Framework? Why not materials and methods? If this is for explaining the conceptual framework of the study, which is not, it should be somewhere in introduction, not here.

-        Figure 1: it is hard to relate the map on the left to the one on the right. The coordinates are not clearly readable. The numbers of the scale bar are not readable. The quality of the Figure 1 needs to be improved.

-        In 3.2. Research design: This “literature on invasive species impacts and management” has been explained in previous sections.

-        In 3.2. Research design: Study sample? How many stakeholders? Who are they? Local people, farmers, ranchers, experts? How were they selected?

-        In 3.2. Research design: How they designed the questionnaire? What was the reliability and validity of the questionnaire? How the authors determined these critical issues?

4. Results

-        Well explained but the sentences are difficult to read. I need to see it revised.

-        Why, suddenly without any explanations in other parts, non-farmers and farmers have been compared? And who are non-farmers? It needs to be clarified in previous sections (Introduction, Material and Methods).  

5. Discussion

-        This section should focus on your results.

-        Why numbers (e.g., 97.2%) here? Move them to Results.

-        The authors discuss "environmental awareness" in this section, even though it is not the primary focus of the study. If the intention is to include this aspect, it is crucial for the authors to provide clear clarification and integration of it in the previous sections (Introduction, Materials and Methods, and Results) to ensure coherence and proper contextualization.

-        Some parts of in this section (e.g., The study confirms that the presence of the following IAPS) are more like results than discussion about results. They need to be moved to results.

-        Why is Figure 4 in this section? It shouldn’t be here. It should be moved to previous sections or removed.

-        The same goes for Figure 7.

-        Once again, there is a recurring issue: the inclusion of certain results in the discussion section instead of the appropriate results section. Specifically, the results pertaining to issues such as "the locals that are 50.5 years in both models used; those with income above MWK30,000" should be mentioned in the Results section rather than in the discussion.

6. Conclusion

-        The conclusion section appears to be excessively lengthy. I recommend condensing it and relocating several sentences to the discussion section.

-        The same problem about Figure 4.

 

References

-        The majority of the references provided are dated prior to 2020. To enhance the relevance and currency of the information, I suggest including newer references from post-2020.

 

If these issues are appropriately addressed in the revised paper, it would enable me to make a better decision about the revised manuscript. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The grammar and structure throughout make it hard to read and follow. I understand that the authors do not have English as their primary language, but the English of the paper needs to be checked for grammar, style, and syntax, especially verb tenses, prepositions, and punctuations. For example, in Abstract, “we has” or “These finding” are grammatically wrong. I would recommend the authors to ask a native speaker or use a professional English editing service for editing the English of the paper. 

Author Response

Thanks for your feedback, we already revise the manuscript based on your comments and suggestions, best regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

I appreciate your consideration of my suggestions. The paper has now reached a level of quality that makes it suitable for publication. 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

 

Thank you for submitting your manuscript titled "Integrating locals’ importance-performance perceptive of adaptation behavior into Invasive alien plant species management surrounding Nyika National Park, Malawi." I have reviewed your manuscript and have attached a document with comments and suggestions for improvement.

 

I encourage you to carefully consider and address the comments before resubmitting the revised manuscript. This will ensure the quality and integrity of the research presented.

 

Thank you for your attention to these matters.

 

Best regards.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting paper, in which the authors present the results of estimation of the perspectives of community resilience for the management of invasive alien plants under importance-performance analysis in communities in Malawi. As I understand the purpose of the research, appropriate methods were used for data collection and analysis. The results are also adequately presented and discussed. I suggest that in the introduction, in addition to the many negative properties of invasive plants, some positive ones should also mentioned; e.g. their usefulness for pest control....I suggest to add some newer papers with the mentioned topics, for example:

BOHINC et al., 2020. The first evidence of the insecticidal potential of plant powders from invasive alien plants against rice weevil under laboratory conditions. Applied sciences, 10, 21, art. 7828, 16 p.

LAZNIK et al., 2020. Efficacy of invasive alien plants in controlling Arionidae slugs. Spanish journal of agricultural research, 18, no. 1 (e1001), 13 p.