Divergent Responses of NPP to Climate Factors among Forest Types at Interannual and Inter-Monthly Scales: An Empirical Study on Four Typical Forest Types in Subtropical China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors!

This research is devoted to calculating the productivity of 4 types of forest ecosystems in China. The authors investigated the influence of climatic factors on forest productivity for a fairly long time. Scientists have also built a model for changing this parameter in the future. The authors' research is of fundamental importance for the ecology of forest ecosystems and of applied importance for the management of forest ecosystems.

The use of various statistical methods of processing results causes high confidence in the results and conclusions. The authors gave a decent discussion of the results obtained.

I highly appreciate the manuscript. I ask the authors to consider 2 small recommendations.

1. It is necessary to specify the dominants of all studied plant communities.

2. In my opinion, in Figures 3 and 4 you used the wrong colors. Too colorful.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

study is well defined and presentation was also good. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The authors presented a good work focusing different subtropical vegetation types. However, there is need to discuss the importance and application of the research. How and why this is important to conduct other ecological/environmental research.

My few comments are as follows,

1.       Several composing and grammatical mistakes found. Need to improvise langauge

2.       Abstract: add two sentences the importance of current research types.

3.       The research is claimed to be the first of its nature in the study area.

4.       Add concluding remarks.

5.       Introduction: the state of the art is weak. Address why this is important to conduct??? No hypothesis and research questions.

6.       Revise the study sites revising the geo-physical traits

7.      L 130 - physiological ecological parameters???????? How???? Need to be explained. Physiological characters of what???

8.      Climate scenarios ….. Scenario or scenarios …check it.

9.      Result is presented but again composing and grammatical mistakes

10.  The significant of the study is very weakly articulated????

Need to be improved.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This research attempts to assess the various NPP responses to climatic factors among different forest types on an interannual and inter-monthly timeframe. Although this paper is important from a scientific and practical standpoint, there are some questions and comments that need clarification.

Would you kindly explain the reasoning behind using the cumulative temperature of 10°C to compute the correlation? The region's average annual temperature is 18°C; average temperatures for the coldest and warmest months are not provided.

One of the study's aims was to find variations in the amount of NPP response on an interannual and inter-monthly timeframe. However, it is well recognised that the monsoon climate is characterised by variations on an inter-monthly scale in both the amount of precipitation (wet and dry months) and the average temperature (cold and warm months). Tree plants are adapting to these climate changes, including biomass accumulation.

Have forest ages been accounted for in the computation models? After all, net primary production declines with ageing. And, in my opinion, your conclusion (“…the NPPs demonstrating different degrees of fluctuating decline after 2000…” Lines 482-483) is attributable to the increasing age of the investigated forests.

Please change the color scheme in Figures 3 and 4. On the green backdrop of the graph columns, the red and blue lines are quite difficult to discern.

Incomplete submission. A file with additional information (Table S1. Ecophysiological parameters of the forest types…) was not loaded in the manuscript submission system. Basic data used for modelling cannot be verified.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

All questions and comments were addressed by the authors.  The manuscript has been carefully revised. I believe that the manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for giving us the following comments.

Reviewer: All questions and comments were addressed by the authors.  The manuscript has been carefully revised. I believe that the manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Response: Thank you very much for your previous valuable suggestions on our manuscript. In addition, thank you very much for recognizing our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx