Habitat Ecology, Structure Influence Diversity, and Host-Species Associations of Wild Orchids in Undisturbed and Disturbed Forests in Peninsular Malaysia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript titled Diversity, Ecology, Distribution, and Host-Species Associations of Wild Orchids in Undisturbed and Disturbed Forests in Peninsular Malaysia (forests-2200847) by Edward Entalai Besi, Muskhazli Mustafa, Christina Seok Yien Yong and & Rusea Go provides us some valuable information about wild orchids in Peninsular Malaysia, especially in undisturbed and disturbed forests. I think the manuscript is worth to be considered for publication in Forests, but before that, more revisions and data analysis are required. Some questions and suggestions are as follows:

For entire manuscript:

1.     I hope the manuscript could be prepared more reasonably, including English written style and data arrangement.

2.     Most important, the manuscript gave me an strong impression that disturbed forest hold more wild orchid species than undisturbed forest (despite lower density)!!! So more discussion are necessary from sample area, sample site and so on. For instance, in this research, disturbed forest had area of 1,409.71 km², however, undisturbed forest only had area of 67.818 km².

 In details:

3.     Row 98. Fig.1 is not quite clear, I could not recognize some words in Fig.1.

4.     Row 104-106/125-131. Significant digit must be applied in Tab.1, or number of decimal places must be unified.

5.     Row 207-209. “The light intensity was first measured in Lux unit with Milwaukee MW700 Standard Portable Lux Meter (Milwaukee Instruments, Inc, United States) and then value was converted to Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD) unit.” How to convert Lux unit to Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD)? It is very complicated between Lux unit to Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD).

6.     Row 308-312. In Fig.3, is it reasonable to compare two situations? Disturbed forest had area of 1,409.71 km², however, undisturbed forest only had area of 67.818 km²? In facts, this problem also existed in entire manuscript?

7.     Row 330-335. In my opinion, Fig.4 A also provided the data of different orchid groups, similar with Fig. 4 B and C. Additional, the unit of Species density is individual number/m²，whether to change to individual number/km²?

8.     Row 375-380. Arrangement of D and H in Fig 5 were slightly strange. if so, format must be unified（with C and G）.

9.     What’s meaning of “Δ” in Fig.1,2,& 5? Suggested to be replaced by English word or give an explanation in Tab.

10.  Row 437-443. Fig 8 is not a good appearance. It also lacks of statistics information.

11.  Row 830. In reference 39, Can 1995, 22, 587-603, whether the “Can” is correct?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript reports on surveys of wild orchid communities in forests of peninsular Malaysia. In particular, the authors compared intact sites with sites that have sustained various disturbances, including commercial logging.   Major differences in abiotic conditions and light resource levels were found between the contrasted sites. Density of orchids was higher in the intact sites. Such a study can have important implications for conservation management of a diverse family of plants. I have the following main comments on the manuscript. More minor comments are pointed out in the PDF that I uploaded.

Main comments

Title: Please consider a title that is more result-oriented, particularly that a comparison between intact and disturbed forests was made. Such a result-oriented title could take the form of a statement of main difference(s) between the intact and disturbed forests for wild orchids at the study sites.

Abstract: Report on the differences in the abiotic factors before reporting on the density of orchids, because those factors appear to shape the orchid communities.

Abstract and main text: The density of orchids per km square appear impossibly small for such large areas. It seems that '.' is being incorrectly used instead of ','

Abstract and main text: The problem of greater access to fallen trees in logged area seems to be a methodological problem that appears to invalidate the 'higher diversity' found in disturbed forest. This situation should be prominently discussed in the main body of the manuscript for not risking passing the incorrect conclusion that disturbance may lead to higher diversity of orchids.

Abstract and main text: Authors to please add some discussion and concluding comments on the potential applications of the findings. In other words, what are the findings good for?

References: There are issues with the references used, for example reference [1] is about colour dimorphism of one species and is therefore an incorrect reference for the statement made (that the Orchidaceae is a good model to study diversity etc.) where it is cited. This applies to several places in the manuscript. It appears probable that a number of references may have been used for the secondary research information that they contain (i.e. information found in their literature review), instead of for their primary findings. Please improve the referencing along the line described here. Also some very specific statements are made that lack backing reference (for example, L38-39 the ‘982 previously found orchid species’ is a very specific statement and must be referenced). Same for sentence ending on L45, and elsewhere. Also, a clearer distinction must be made about when the authors are referring to orchids and when they are not. For example, on L 48, the two references used to back the statement made are for lichens, not orchids. These different epiphytes are biologically very dissimilar. Unless similar valid references can be found that apply specifically to orchids, the sentence should be reworded, for e.g. to something like: 'In studies of epiphytic lichens, host's size was found to matter due to...'

Figure 1: Some texts on the map are too small to be read and should be increased and readability checked at final publication size. Also, please use full names instead of abbreviated letters in the caption, because captions of display items (figures, tables) should stand alone from the text and not contain unexplained abbreviations.

Please clarify more fully why the study used such enormously different sample sizes. For example, there are up to 40 x difference in sampling plots used (compare PG 7 with plots that are on average of 0.225 km sq; and BP with plot of 9 km sq).

Table 1: Does the triangle mean ‘Elevation’? If so, please write in full and specify unit (metres?). Please standardize the information provided in the column by specifying range for all sites instead of for most only. Also, please standardize the number of decimal places used in the column on there right end. Here, it currently varies widely from 0 to 3. Finally, about this table, please clarify better in the text why there was such a large difference in number of samples taken? (there is up to a six-fold difference in number of samples taken between different sites). There appears to be an enormous difference in total sampled area per site (up to 4,800 x difference – see Table 2LB vs TM). Please explain the rationale behind this and discuss the implications better in the text.

Figure 2: From this figure, it appears that the sampling required spotting and correct identification of orchids to up to 10 m from the observer? In my experience, this is very hard to do with orchids and very prone to errors when small orchid species are concerned, even at or around eye-level. How are orchids spotted and identified when these are growing higher up in the canopy? Please provide more detail in the caption of this figure. For example, did the observer criss-cross the 20 m band, or just walked along the middle line? Were binoculars used to inspect higher up the trees? Etc.

Section 2.4: I am not sure I follow why the authors opted to use a software developed for palaeontological data, which can be very particular and different from such orchid sampling. Could an explanation be provided please? Or at least a clarification that this software was found to be fit for purpose in the current study?

There are several places where the English used must be revised. Sometimes the verb is missing, sometimes the sentence appears incomplete and sometimes the style must be improved. These instances have been flagged in the PDF attached.

Figure 4, fifth line from the bottom: The tabulated figures here [ranging from 0.2 to 37.8] appear far too low per km square. Please check. Graphs provided earlier [e.g. Figure 4] suggested much higher densities. Also, it is unclear what 'plants' mean here. Are these 'host plants'? The density of orchids (four following rows) also appear to be impossibly low, in particular in light of data presented in Figure 4. Please check these figures.

Discussion: Much of the text here comes across as that of a review, with a series of statements backed by their respective references. The discussion section should instead be placing the findings of the current study more clearly at its core and discussing more those results in the light of the literature, as whether being in line with it or not, and propose explanations. In so doing, the discussion section should be much shortened also. Also, please split the Discussion into distinct parts instead of providing one large block of text. For example, the first part could be focussing on the ‘ecological implication’ (that is interpretation of the findings in the context of ecology and distribution of epiphytes), i.e. answering the question ‘What does it mean?’. Then the second part could be focussing on the applications of the findings, for example answering ‘What is it good for?’ For instance, what implication for informing conservation? Or ecological restoration? Or even informing policies and laws? etc.

Reference section:

Complete missing formation in reference 20.

Journal names should start with a capital letter for each word (for example ‘Applied Vegetation Science’ instead of ‘Applied vegetation science’ (see references 41, 51, 52, 76, 78, 115, and possibly also elsewhere to be checked).

Reference 90 appears to be the same as Reference 2. Please check any possible other such duplication and renumber the references accordingly.

 

Minor comments

Please refer to the uploaded PDF of the manuscript where I have flagged many minor corrections.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This is the second time that I am reviewing this manuscript. Most corrections/modifications flagged at first round of review have been implemented to a few exceptions which appear to have been missed. These are flagged in the attached PDF along with some new mistakes made during revision. These include:

Title: The last word of the title is an author's given name and should be deleted.

Introduction: L42: To specify here that this is 'unpublished data' or 'personal observation'. [from what corresponding author wrote in the response letter]

Caption of Figure 1: Best practice when writing captions of display items is for them to contain no unexplained abbreviations and for the caption to be self-contained and understandable without the reader having to look for the information elsewhere. However, if the journal is fine with not applying such best practice, its fine.

Rewrite text by asterisk into: 'Drawing not to scale'

Results: L324: The letter of response to reviewers specified that the density figures are confirmed to reflect the truth and that there has been no confusion between full stop and comma. This being the case, then it is necessary to reduce the number of decimal places. It is sufficient to write 2.4 orchids because providing information to one thousandth of a single orchid individual per km square does not make much sense.

Section 3.3. The original P = 0.000 have been changed to P = 0.001. It should be P < 0.001 instead.

There are several other small corrections flagged in the PDF attached, along with a need to rephrase some sentences to improve English and clarity. These are also indicated.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx