SEE PEER REVIEW

INTRO:

Stop-over sites are highly important for the survival of migratory birds populations. These sites can gather large numbers of specimen during migratory periods, and therefore their protection and study is essential when preserving migratory bird populations.

MERITS:

The study is based on migratory wading birds in western Greek wetlands. Waders breed in the wetlands of the northern latitudes and they are highly dependent on the environmenatl conditions on the migratory stop-over sites. Many of the waders have declined during the past decades. The authors have measured invertebrates, food for the migratory waders, in these wetlands to study fuelling capacity of these wetlands and to study what are the important habitat characteristics related to high food availability. This is a reasonable and justified approach.

CRITIQUE:

Some results of your study should be represented, now you only show the methods and background of your work.

DISCUSSION:

You should relate your results with your study goals. The first sentence of your title should be excluded,  and the title should be as follows: Food availability of wetlands for waders in a migration bottleneck in western Greece

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INTRO:

The authors are studying the importance of different western Greek wetland types as stopover foraging habitats for wading birds in the Ionian flyway which is considered to be a migration bottleneck and thus important to different avian species. More specific, the goal is to quantify the refueling capacity of the wetlands studied and assess which habitat characteristics are related to high food availability.

MERITS:

The study links nicely the different wetland habitat characteristics on food quality and availability for different wading bird species and the relative importance of different sites for migrating waders in western Greek wetlands.

CRITIQUE:

I do not see any major weaknesses or problems in this abstract.

DISCUSSION:

In my opinion, the results of this study are important since the wading bird species have become more and more threatened worldwide and by knowledge of the most important stopover habitat types these habitats could be more efficiently protected and managed through out the entire flyways.

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INTRO:

The authors have studied the refuelling capacity of western Greek wetlands and assessed which habitat characteristics are related to high food availability for waders. Benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled at 90 locations in four wetlands protected under the European Natura 2000 legislation. Invertebrates were identified, weighed and their biomass and nutritional quality was determined. Additionally, for each sampling location, information on environmental parameters, wading bird abundance and foraging intensity was collected. The authors will show the first results of the sampling campaigns and discuss the implications for aligning Natura 2000 habitat types with patterns of prey availability and quality.

MERITS:

Highly relevant topic for theory and practise of conservation. 

CRITIQUE:

No results at the moment.

DISCUSSION:

No weaknesses.