Internal Seed Structure of Alpine Plants and Extreme Cold Exposure
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is quite interesting paper, what made attempt to describe freezing tolerance.
There are several points what should be corrected.
For example, line 10: Cold tolerance mechanism .
Line 121: I am not sure "seed structure" is optimal name. Structure means more complicated.
in the table please, separate words in column D and E. Column G; please, clarify what do you mean as seeds size.
Line 231: please, corrected km2.
Author Response
Point 1: line 10: Cold tolerance mechanism .
Response 1: we have not changed this because we feel that the lack of understanding of cold tolerance is not just about mechanisms of tolerance, but also there is very little knowledge of the thresholds of temperature minima and its variance between species, populations and individuals.
Point 2: Line 121: I am not sure "seed structure" is optimal name. Structure means more complicated.
Response 2: we have added to text to specify that by 'seed structure' we mean the presence or absence of an endosperm.
Point 3: in the table please, separate words in column D and E. Column G; please, clarify what do you mean as seeds size.
Response 3: The data is in a '.txt' file in order to facilitate easy sharing and analysis with programmes such as DIVA-GIS and packages in R. To this end, the column titles may not appear to be properly spaced and may even appear to be labelling the incorrect column, however, changing the format of the files for aesthetic reasons would render them inoperable in the type of software we envisage being important to future analyses so we have left the dataset structure unchanged. However, we have changed the column G title to "Mean_seed_mass" as detailed in the manuscript text, to more clearly convey this metric. Thank you for pointing out this inaccuracy.
Point 4: Line 231: please, corrected km2.
Response 4: done.
Reviewer 2 Report
The objectives of this paper were to provide a dataset of seed structure, mass and locations in which alpine species experience extremely low temperatures in the hope that others may utilize the data to build our understanding of the impacts of reduced snow cover and develop experimental approaches that can elucidate the role of the endosperm in conferring resilience when exposed to extremely low temperatures.
The paper is interesting and deserve publication in Data. In my opinion, some improvement could render the final result even more attractive for the reader.
I suggest to authors to explain better the Figures 3-7.
Please, include information about the boxplot figures in the Method section.
The quality control measures employed should be better described.
Please, the possible sources of error and noise should also be described.
Author Response
Point 1: I suggest to authors to explain better the Figures 3-7.
Response 1: In section 2.3 we have added more detailed rationale and explanation for each of the climatic variables selected for analysis and inclusion as boxplots in Figures 3-7. Specifically we have added text in lines 177-184.
Point 2: Please, include information about the boxplot figures in the Method section.
Response 2: we have added descriptive text at lines 253-256.
Point 3: The quality control measures employed should be better described.
Response 3: We have added information on this in lines 231-233 (correcting out of date taxonomic listings), and 237-242 (controlling for widespread species that may not ordinarily be classed as alpine). We have also generated an additional supplementary file that allows others to check each individual location by listing the RGBIF citation and occurrence source for every species. This file has been referred to in lines 141-144.
Point 4: the possible sources of error and noise should also be described.
Response 4: 224-227 on seed mass derivations, 258-260 on the resolution of climatic data with respect to the environmental conditions we are attempting to describe. Additionally, we have added a new section on User notes (from line 270) to help others avoid errors associated with the adaptation of our R code for other applications and specifically, on the download of distribution data. We hope this helps others avoid some of the frequent problems associated with these extremely large datasets.
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript by Jaganathan and Dalrymple represents a ‘Data descriptor’. The authors present a dataset of alpine angiosperm species with seed mass and seed structure defined as endospermic and non-endospermic. This dataset is original and has a value. The only thing I would like to suggest authors is an addition of a conclusion, which is missed in the current version of the manuscript. I think it should contain a short description of the scientific area where presented dataset can be used. Similar appropriate phrase could be also included into the Abstract.
Author Response
Point 1: The only thing I would like to suggest authors is an addition of a conclusion, which is missed in the current version of the manuscript. I think it should contain a short description of the scientific area where presented dataset can be used. Similar appropriate phrase could be also included into the Abstract.
Response 1: Although we had tried to summarise our main conclusion and specify what utility it has in the previously submitted version, we recognise that this could have been more clearly stated and have amended the final sentence of the abstract and the final paragraph of the summary sections to address this point. We hope that by including a better description of the mechanism we intend to highlight, and more specific, testable hypotheses, this makes the dataset more amenable to future use and citation.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Accept in the present form
