Role of Tree Vegetation and Associated Environmental Factors on the Understory Herb-Layer Composition in a Reforested Area: A Study from “Kulon Progo Community Forestry”
JoaquÃn Moreno
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Major comments The manuscript describes a simple experiment in a simple way.Some conclusions are trivial (e.g. in the understory of a stand with a higher canopy cover there is a higher representation of shade tolerant species). I also recommend very careful interpretation of CCA and correlation analysis results.
You found that there is a significant relationship between canopy cover, Ed-silt, Ed-SOC and Ant_BsU.
These characteristics have some relation to the composition of the undergrowth.
But this does not mean that, for example, Ed_silt significantly influences the composition of the undergrowth.
Most of the information in Table 4 (and in the lines 340-344) is not necessary, it is presented in Fig 4. You could give the variance explained by the two first axes only.
Minor comments
L. 21 fewer number of seedling species
L. 106 omit „The“
L. 113 „masl“ – what is this? Meter above sea level? Please, clarify it.
L. 174-180 – Table 1 is unclear. Please, explain BD, SOC and TN. Which Vegetation characteristics relate only to the tree layer, which to the undergrowth, and which to both? What are the two numbers in the lines Diversity index and Canopy coverage? One slash in the column SA is missing…
L. 198-200 Why do you use both abbreviation IV and IVI for the importance value?
L. 277 Fig. 2 - Please give the same order of stand types in all graphs
L. 300 – „As shown in Figure 2e“ is correct, I think
L. 312 I do not see any species with asterisk in the Table 3
L. 324 – Table 3
L. 343 – 20.8% - what is it? I see 18% variance explained by the two first axes in Table 4
L. 347 weak
L. 355-360 – Maybe some interpretation of the Fig 4b could be interesting. I suppose shade tolerant species in the left side and shade intolerant species in the right side of the ordination diagram
L. 364 Table 5 – please give the correlation coefficients above diagonal only.
L. 388 Veg-CC
L. 403 59,60
L. 427 from
L. 430-431 and the number of seedlings species (Figure 2e)
L. 440-441 to the fewer number of seedling species (Figure 2e)
L. 450-451 the number of seedling species in AS and MA was similarly fewer
L. 512 each
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
We thank you very much for your careful review and kind advise
We submitted our response through the attached file
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors expose an interesting study in which the understory herb-layer composition in 86 various stand types and the relationship to tree vegetation characteristics and associated 87 environmental factors in the protected forest of Kulon Progo Community Forestry is assessed.
The introduction and the goals are clear, an the hypotheses are well exposed and related by the conclusions. The methodology selected is adequate for this study, but the exposition of the results should be improved (Figures and tables). Similarly, the discussion is not clear due to the fact that the results are not clear (mixed tables and figures).
Therefore, several changes in results should be considered to improve this part of the manuscript:
- Table 1: The words "Table 1." (line 174) in the beginning of the caption is not in bold letter. Please, change it in concordance with the remaining of the table captions. In addition, some items od the column "Items" are cutted. Please, fix it and include the name species in italic letters in the section "note" (lines 176 and 177). The final of the caption should be marked by a point (.).
- There are 2 "Table 3" in the manuscript (one in line 271-272 in page 7, and another one in line 209 in page 9). Both tables are completely different and provided different information. Please, numerate the tables of the manuscript correctly.
- Table 3: Please, include the name species in italics letters in the section "note" (lines 273-276). Besides, I suggest avoid the use of italic letters for the column "Comparison of Sorensen Distance" because these abbreviations are not in italics in the rest of the text.
- Table 3: Please, include the name species in italic letters in the section "note" (lines 310 and 311).
-Table 4: The words "Table 4." (line 345) in the beginning of the caption is in italics. Please, change it in concordance with the remaining of the table captions.
-Figure 3: It does not exist. Please, numerate correctly the figures. Moreover, the Figure 3 is explained in the "Results" (lines 478-501). Please, fix these aspects.
-Figure 4: The words "Figure 4." (line 361) in the beginning of the caption is in italic letters. Please, change it in concordance with the remaining of the figure captions. Besides, it is necessary including the abbreviations for the predictors showed in the plots. Moreover, I reckon that the aspect and the format of this figure should to be improved.
- Appendix A. Table A1: The species name should be in italic letters. The abbreviations of "important value index" should be described in the table caption. The final of the caption should be marked by a point (.).
- Appendix A. Table A2: The term "other species" in the column "species" should not be in italic letters. The abbreviations of "forest type" should be described in the table caption. The final of the caption should be marked by a point (.). The tem "RS" should be also described in the table caption.
In addition, other changes should be considered in the text:
- Overall: The authors of plant species should be included in the first time that the species appears in the text.
-Abstract: The name species should be in italic letters (lines 13-15).
-Keywords: I do not undestand why one of the "keywords" is the term "keywords". Similarly, I do not understand the numbers which are related to the words in "keywords", except for the last one (lines 34-35).
- Line 86: Please, change "Current study" by "The current study".
- Conclusions: Please, indicate the name species in italic letters (lines 515 and 516).
- References: The names of the journals should to be homogenised. In some references the name of the journal is abbreviated (e.g., references 2, 5, 10, among others) and in other ones is not abbreviated (e.g., references 1, 7, 11, among others). Please, use the same format according to the journal guidelines.
Similarly, in some references appears the year of the publication in bold letters (e.g., references 24, 25,, 32, 72, 73, 82, 83 and 84) and in the other ones is not used bold letters. Besides, the DOI is indicated only in some references and it is written in different formats (e.g., reference 72 vs 64, 67, among others). Please, homogenise the format of the references.
The reference 65 has a letter size different that the other ones. Please, change it.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you very much for your careful review and kind advise
We are submitting our responses through the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have considered the comments and suggestions of last review and they have modified the manuscript. I reckon that the current version of the mqnuscript have been improved.
