Effects of Windthrows on Forest Cover, Tree Growth and Soil Characteristics in Drought-Prone Pine Plantations
, Michele Colangelo 1,2, Antonio Gazol 1, Manuel Pizarro 1, Cristina Valeriano 1 and José M. Igual 3,4Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments:
In general, this manuscript has a valuable topic. The topic is scientific sounds.
It is fairly written just organization and support to the discussion is needed.
The topic is not new but at the same time it is not well studied.
The manuscript is well written except for minor English language check required. The experimental design is adequate. There are some minor comments.
Detailed comments:
Title
Line 2 Please change soils in the title to soil characteristics.
Abstract:
-This section is missing the direct and clear aim. Please state the aim of the study clearly.
-In general, please avoid using personal pronouns such as we, our results, and apply this rule throughout the manuscript (for example -Line 19-We assessed, Line21 We also analyzed, and more).
Key words; Please change climate events …to extreme climate conditions.
Introduction:
The topic is very important and has a great value. I see that the introduction is very poor. This section needs to be enriched and provided with more background about the topic.
Materials and Methods:
Line 221 Soil texture was analyzed….Please add citation or explain if this is your method (But if you just did some modifications you need to cite the original citation of the manufacture source for the extract)
Line Line 135 i.e. in Materials and methods the author write exact fact and solid information, please take off the i.e and start the following sentence as The area with the, put a full stop after gap
Results:
Figure 1 line 287-288 what do you mean by the photographs show……,respectively. To me this is not clear in the figure please clarify or change the figure display to be easy to understand.
Discussion:
The results were well discussed. the author was able to come up with some valuable suggestions and recommendations.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
General comments:
In general, this manuscript has a valuable topic. The topic is scientific sounds.
It is fairly written just organization and support to the discussion is needed.
The topic is not new but at the same time it is not well studied.
The manuscript is well written except for minor English language check required. The experimental design is adequate. There are some minor comments.
> We thank you for your positive comments on the study. We have improved the discussion and better organized the text. We have corrected the minor issues and revised the English usage.
Detailed comments:
Title
Line 2 Please change soils in the title to soil characteristics.
> Done.
Abstract:
-This section is missing the direct and clear aim. Please state the aim of the study clearly.
> We stated the main objective of the study.
-In general, please avoid using personal pronouns such as we, our results, and apply this rule throughout the manuscript (for example -Line 19-We assessed, Line21 We also analyzed, and more).
> Done, we replaced them by passive forms.
Key words; Please change climate events …to extreme climate conditions.
> Done.
Introduction:
The topic is very important and has a great value. I see that the introduction is very poor. This section needs to be enriched and provided with more background about the topic.
> We improved the Introduction providing more background on the topic. Note, however, that the windthrow impacts on seasonally dry Mediterranean forests are scarcely assessed, which justified our study.
Materials and Methods:
Line 221 Soil texture was analyzed….Please add citation or explain if this is your method (But if you just did some modifications you need to cite the original citation of the manufacture source for the extract)
> We added the manufacturer source.
Line Line 135 i.e. in Materials and methods the author write exact fact and solid information, please take off the i.e and start the following sentence as The area with the, put a full stop after gap
> We rephrased the sentence.
Results:
Figure 1 line 287-288 what do you mean by the photographs show……,respectively. To me this is not clear in the figure please clarify or change the figure display to be easy to understand.
> We modified and clarified the legend.
Discussion:
The results were well discussed. The author was able to come up with some valuable suggestions and recommendations.
> Thanks for your comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
Authors has done very good job to write this paper of global interest. Authors worked to see the impacts of windthrows on pine plantations in seasonally dry regions using NDVI and field study. This study will be helpful to the policy makers, foresters, environmentalist to know the how windstorm impact the pine stand in the forest. Before considered for publications, manuscript need substantial corrections as suggested below:
Line no 71-72: spatial scale (0.1 1 km) ??
Line no 96: larger the differences in soil conditions.......soil conditions should be soil physio-chemical characteristics
Objective of the study is not clear
Line no 98-99: 2017 storm.....2020 storm ??
Line no 105: m a.s.l. ........should be meters above mean sea level (m a.s.l)
Line no 115: 18,000 m2....should be 18,000 m^2 (kindly check the sub-script and super-script throughly, Line no 146; plz)
Methodologies and statistics used in this study is written nicely
Kindly discuss a bit about the implementation of stoichiometric ratio (C/N) to know the microbial degradation in discussion section
Section 4.3: Implications for management of disturbed pine plantations...could be strengthen by the recent study on pine forest (see: https://doi.org/10.1002/clen.201600650; https://doi.org/10.1080/10549811.2020.1794907; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01178-y)
Conclusion need to be re-written in technical way, written generalized
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Authors has done very good job to write this paper of global interest. Authors worked to see the impacts of windthrows on pine plantations in seasonally dry regions using NDVI and field study. This study will be helpful to the policy makers, foresters, environmentalist to know the how windstorm impact the pine stand in the forest.
> Thanks for your positive comments.
Before considered for publications, manuscript need substantial corrections as suggested below:
> We corrected the commented issues.
Line no 71-72: spatial scale (0.1 1 km) ??
> We meant from 0.1 to 1 km2.
Line no 96: larger the differences in soil conditions.......soil conditions should be soil physio-chemical characteristics
> We rephrased the sentence.
Objective of the study is not clear
> We clarified the aim.
Line no 98-99: 2017 storm.....2020 storm ??
> We rephrased the sentence. One site was affected by a storm occurring in 2017, and the other stand by storm occurring in 2020.
Line no 105: m a.s.l. ........should be meters above mean sea level (m a.s.l)
> We corrected the sentence.
Line no 115: 18,000 m2....should be 18,000 m^2 (kindly check the sub-script and super-script throughly, Line no 146; plz)
> We corrected the sentences.
Methodologies and statistics used in this study is written nicely
> We thank you for the positive comment.
Kindly discuss a bit about the implementation of stoichiometric ratio (C/N) to know the microbial degradation in discussion section
> We discussed this interesting issue.
Section 4.3: Implications for management of disturbed pine plantations...could be strengthen by the recent study on pine forest (see: https://doi.org/10.1002/clen.201600650; https://doi.org/10.1080/10549811.2020.1794907; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01178-y)
> These studies are on soil carbon stocks in different Indian sites. We cited one of them to emphasize the implications for forest soils management of our study.
Conclusion need to be re-written in technical way, written generalized
> We rephrased the conclusions.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
I have gone through the revised version and found you have addressed all the raised comments. But still minor revision is requested as suggested below;
1) first 5 lines need to be supported with the past literature
2) conclusion need to be written in technical way, kindly have a look to the abstract. This paper is very important to the researchers to understand the main finding and further gap to work on it.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Regarding your 2 queries:
1) first 5 lines need to be supported with the past literature
> We added the supporting past literature.
2) conclusion need to be written in technical way, kindly have a look to the abstract. This paper is very important to the researchers to understand the main finding and further gap to work on it.
> We rewrote the conclusion in a more technical way providing more precise findings.
