Forest Harvesting Impacts on the Structure and Composition of Coniferous Forests in Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have conducted a study of the changes after harvesting three separate tracts of a larger forest area in three different years.  Sampling prior to each harvest consisted of a 1ha plot that was subdivided into 25 subplots.  

The description of the study site should include the elevation or elevation range, the slope or range of slopes, the aspect(s), information about the soils, any harvest or management history prior to the harvest described in the paper, and other basic information about forest type, major tree species, etc. if known before the study was conducted.  

More information about the management objectives for the harvest would also be helpful in interpreting the results, along with information about how prevalent that harvest approach is in that area.  

The tables and text all refer to the areas harvested as the year in which they were harvested.  It would be much simpler to refer to them as, say "Harvest Area 1", "Harvest Area 2" and "Harvest Area 3".  I believe they are basically 3 separate stands.  Describing them by the year of harvest is confusing because readers may think that the same area was harvested three times.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper deals with the problem of recovery after harvesting. Thus it is devoted more to forest management than forest ecology. The manuscript seems to be written very quickly and carelessly. It is not sure why this study was done. There are no explict aims.

I have some specific issues to be addressed:

Abstract: "In this forest, we identified seven families and eight species". I guess that authors mean species in tree stand i.e. tree plants only.

In material and methods "Study site" is repeated twice as 2.1. and 2.2. It looks like an error. The 2.1.1 is called as "subsection" it is another editorial mistake.

The description of study site is too short. Reader cannot know find out anything new about area, ecological conditions, vegetation etc.

There are chapters 2.3 and 2.4 each contain two sentences and are titled Species Composition and Species richness and diversity respectively. I suggest to combine them in one chapter. 

Lines 77-78: "In addition, abundance of individuals for tree diameter classes was calculated and subjected to a one-way analysis of variance to test for differences among commercial tree species" But how? Do authors perform analysis over years or among species in particular years? Unclear. It is not certain whether ANOVA was done well. It should be repeated measures ANOVA. By the way, what about multiple comparisons tests?

"Species richness was estimated using Simpson’s and Margalef’s indices and species diversity with the Shannon-Wiener index" - No, species richness it is number of species while Simpson, Margalef and Shannon-Wiener are biodiversity indices.

Tables 2 and 5 there are commas instead of dots as decimal in numbers!

Discussion is too short and does not take into account all obtained results.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors revised a little the paper but despite what they said some changes were not provided. 

In introduction - no changes. The aim is too general. Authors did not study species composition of forests. Only tree species were taken into account. No herb, bryophyte, lichen species were observed and their layers. There is no information about deadwood, uprooted trees etc. Thus, forest structure was not studied in detail. In the whole manuscript there are many similar  generalizations. 

Material and methods: what "2.11 Subsubsection" mean? Can't you give the name?

Results: "Horizontal structure showed significant differences for P. pseudostrobus (p<0.05) among the three harvesting years (Figure 3), with 2007 having the largest differences in diameter distribution"

Could you present evidence for that? Pair-wise comparisons tests are needed. The same remark refers to other figures.

Discussion: only half of sentence was added.

 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx