Population Structure of Pyrola chlorantha (Family Ericaceae) at the Southern Range Margin (Samara Region, Russia)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

p. 18, 77 , 116.Replace " partial shrub partial" with " partial bush partial"

 p. 85, 87, 93. Replace square brackets with round ones

 р. 104. Incorrect link. Need  “Coenopopulations of Plants: Essays of Population Biology”, Moscow: Nauka, 1988

 p. 111. Invalid link. This index was first proposed by A.A. Uranov (1975)

 p. 112-115.  Link to literary sources

 p. 141. This spectrum is bimodal (see Coenopopulations of Plants, 1988; Zaugolnova, 1994)

 p. 23-24.  Numbers  32.1%, 65.8%, 2.1% do not match the averages in Table 1

numbers 0.48; 0.49 do not match the average in the table  one.

 p. 180-182.  This is mistake. 5 coenopopulations belong to the mature type (see Zhivotovsky, 2001;  Osmanova, Zhivotovsky, 2020), one coenopopulation (Buzuluksky pine forest) is transitional (see Zhivotovsky, 2001;  Osmanova, Zhivotovsky, 2020).

 p. 268-269. The left-modal spectrum is not characteristic of all long-rhizome plants. In some long-rhizomatous species, the spectrum is centered (see Smirnova, 1987; Zaugolnova, 1994) and bimodal (for example Potentilla bifurca, Basargin, 2011; Cheryomushkina, Basargim, 2011).

Author Response

Many thanks to the reviewer for the thorough work with our article. We have made corrections. Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Line 11-12: “Structure of plant populations is not clear here. What do you mean by structure here?

Line 32: Citation needed

Line 32-34: These two sentences can be summarized in one and be clearer. Please rewrite.

Lines 37-39: Rewrite by: “Monitoring of threatened plant populations is one of the main methods to evaluate their conservation status”

Line 39-40: This sentence is not clear. The study of populations is indeed what monitoring consists of. I would say “The monitoring of rare species populations is ongoing for those included in the Red Data Books in the Russian Federation [14-17]”

Line 45: The topic of the Introduction has changed drastically at this point. I would smooth the transition from conservation biology to Pyrola chorology/ecology

Line 48: Scientific name in italics

Line 50: “[…] populations of the species have been rarely studied.

Line 60: This must be rewritten: “The research tasks were to determine the population dynamics considering ontogeny, total size and the main regularities of the spatial distribution of individuals.

Paragraph 2.1.: I feel this is quite repetitive with the content of Lines 49-59. I suggest to compile this information in a single section.

Lines 67-70: citation needed. Also, is it necessary to write all the regions?

Line 76: citation needed

Line 83: “The main forest types where Pyrola was registered” – do you mean P. chlorantha or the whole genus?

Lines 93-94: “[…] is also located in a moderately continental climate with an average annual precipitation of 530 mm.”

Lines 92-101: The information provided in this section can be written together instead of presenting isolate sentences apparently independent among them.

Line 100-101: “This influences the structure and dynamics of P. chlorantha populations

Section 2.3. should be entitled “Experimental design”

Line 105: Briefly explain what the route method consist of

Section 2.4. I am afraid that you will need to develop more deep statistics analysis to be publishable on an indexed journal

Line 135: This sentence is not adequate in Results section

MAJOR ISSUE: Figures 1, 2, 3 lacks statistic support. Error bars were made by Excel default system and the aesthetic is not appropriate for a high-level scientific work. Also, significant differences are not assessed by any statistical method anywhere. I consider that this must be deeply improved for further consideration.  I am not revising Results section since this major issue is fixed, because the information can substantially change after statistical analysis.

Line 212: How can you distinguish seed reproduction versus vegetative reproduction using your data?

Line 216: Pyrola in italics

MAJOR ISSUE: I am not deeply revising Discussion since the interpretation of data may vary after statistical analysis.

Author Response

Many thanks to the reviewer for the thorough work with our article. We have made corrections. Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

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