Fraser River sockeye salmon: data synthesis and cumulative impacts

Appendix 2. Reviewer Evaluations and ResponsesReviewers:1. Randall M. Peterman2. Sean Cox3. Rick Routledge4. John ReynoldsThe authors’ responses to each reviewer’s comments are provided in bold below.Report Title: Fraser River Sockeye Salmon: Data Synthesis and Cumulative Impacts(draft final report)Reviewer Name: Randall M. PetermanDate: 12 March 20111. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of this report.Strengths:a. Most of this report is extremely well written. The hierarchical organization of thematerial is a very effective way for readers with different levels of understanding of theFraser sockeye situation to easily access the report to the desired depth. For the mostpart, tables and figures are clear and useful.b. In recognition of the variety of backgrounds among readers, sections 2 and 3 do anexcellent job of setting out the context and limitations for this type of work, as well asexplaining the process for drawing conclusions. I particularly like Fig. 3.3-3 on page 19as a way of succinctly showing how the categories of relative likelihood were assignedto hypothesized mechanisms. The report also nicely differentiates between explanationsof past observations and making forecasts of the future.Weaknesses:c. There are two short sections in them main text that are poorly written (pages 58-59and 77-79). Those are sections that deal with the authors' own analyses of data (asopposed to the summaries of other researchers' analyses that are covered in the rest ofthe report).Response: These two sections have been re-organized and rewritten to address both thisissue and the more specific criticisms raised below. In particular, a new section (Section3.3.6) has been added to ensure that an appropriate overview of the quantitative methods isprovided prior to any discussion of the results of those analyses. This section is intended toprovide a concise, non-technical description of the quantitative methods such that bothnon-technical and technical readers will be able to clearly understand the basicterminology and overall methods used without needing to refer to the technical details121