The Role of Wood Density Variation and Biomass Allocation in Accurate Forest Carbon Stock Estimation of European Beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) Mountain Forests

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Line 157-158: “Size and mass measurements for the stem and crown (the length of the tree from the lowest living branch and the top of the tree) were collected on the field”.  Please revise this sentence.

Line 163: “Compartments from above..” please clarify the term compartments all over the manuscript.

Line 167: “The stem was cut to the appropriate lengths” Please mention the size.

Line 178: “The small branch category also includes the leaves” Why leaves were added to this category?

Line 190: “The wood density of each tree compartment..” please clarify the term compartment. Does it mean vegetative organs of the species?

Line 285: R Statistical Software… mention the version as well.

Line 285-288: Would be better if the authors provided the functions in a systematic way along with the packages they used to make it more clear and easily understandable for the readers.

The figures are scientifically robust and help in the better understanding of the results.

Line 531: No need to mention the aims in the conclusion to avoid repetition, rather the author should respond one by one to the aims.

Line 532: “Our findings, while concentrated”? please revise this sentence.

Avoid detailed results in the conclusion, just conclude your results.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We express our sincere appreciation for the evaluation and valuable feedback on our manuscript. The valuable comments have significantly contributed to refining our study and improving the clarity of our work. In response to your recommendations, we have implemented substantial revisions to the manuscript.
The authors deeply appreciate for generously dedicating valuable time and offering constructive feedback, which has notably improved the quality of our manuscript. We have tried as much as possible to incorporate the suggestions, aiming to meet your expectations. Once again, we sincerely thank you for your invaluable support and guidance.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ing. Radu Gheorghe Raul
Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article of wood density and biomass allocation in the above ground beech tree is an interesting subject of study.

The introduction is oriented to carbone allocation in regard to climate change and the importance to know how many carbone is stocked inside a tree (in this case: mature mountain beech trees). 

To better understand the forest type studied in the paper, more information are missing, specially on the crown structure of the beech tree. Also, water loss during manipulation should be pointed out (for the leaf biomass and the increment cores especially). We can see, that the increment cores are not very exact to investigate wood density and biomass estimation.

The number of beech trees for the leaf biomass is low (9 trees only) and I miss many information for the selection of the branches and the trees in this study.

The weak point of this study is the discussion. It contains mainly a repetition of the results and a comparison with already published papers. I suggested some orientation to improve the discussion.

Many comments are written directly into the manuscript. Yellow: corresponding comments written on the left side. Mauve: parts to be removed from the manuscript.

 

Comments on the supplementary table and figures:

Table 1: here we see that only 9 trees were used for the leaf biomass - this must be stated clearly in the manuscript. Only tree 14 has only 3.92kg leaf biomass. Was this due to the selection of the branches or to the health of this particularly tree.

Figure 1: WDin = ? Should be added to the legend, WWDS_Bcateg = ? I observe a significantly lower WDic value compared to the stem section - look at the explanation of water loss in small samples.

 

Figure 2: Suggestion - omit this figure

Figure 3: Model 1 =?, model 2 = ?

I am not sure that I understand this figure.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear  Reviewer,

We express our sincere appreciation for the evaluation and valuable feedback on our manuscript. The valuable comments have significantly contributed to refining our study and improving the clarity of our work. In response to your recommendations, we have implemented substantial revisions to the manuscript.
The authors deeply appreciate for generously dedicating valuable time and offering constructive feedback, which has notably improved the quality of our manuscript. We have tried as much as possible to incorporate the suggestions, aiming to meet your expectations. Once again, we sincerely thank you for your invaluable support and guidance.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ing. Radu Gheorghe Raul

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I added some comment in regard to your reply (look at your letter, my comments are included)

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We express our sincere appreciation for the second round of evaluation and valuable feedback on our manuscript. The valuable comments have significantly contributed to refining our study and improving the clarity of our work. In response to your recommendations, we have implemented substantial revisions to the manuscript.
The authors deeply appreciate for generously dedicating valuable time and offering constructive feedback, which has notably improved the quality of our manuscript. We have tried as much as possible to incorporate the suggestions, aiming to meet your expectations. Once again, we sincerely thank you for your invaluable support and guidance.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ing. Radu Gheorghe Raul

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf