Accelerating Capoeira Regeneration on Degraded Pastures in the Northeastern Amazon by the Use of Pigs or Cattle
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript describes the results of an experimental study that compares the effects of cattle, pigs, and human laborers on restoring degraded land to a more natural state. The study was conducted on smallholdings in the northeastern Amazon and has potentially important implications for forest regeneration throughout the Neotropics. Results suggest that pigs had effects that were rather similar to the effects of humans who had been instructed on what to do. Using pigs would be much more cost-effective than relying on human laborers. In general, the manuscript is much improved from the first version that I read. I have a number of comments.
The grammar and word choice to be carefully edited to make it more readable by correcting ambiguities and statements that are confusing. Examples, and some other suggestions, include the following:
Line 47: it is unclear what “natural strong forest succession” is.
Line 51: “dispersion” is the physical arrangement of objects in space, while “dispersal” is the movement of objects across space, so it is unclear which one the authors intend.
Line 71: the Amazon is a subset of the Neotropics, so this statement needs to be reworded to something like “in the Amazon and perhaps the remainder of the Neotropics…”.
Line 96: “are entrapped” would be better than “got stuck”.
Lines 102 and 103: “pigs” would suffice, rather than “heads of pigs”.
Line 114: “would reduce its” should be “would reduce their”.
2.1. Study area and experimental design: use “mean” rather than “average”.
Line 129: insert “than” between “more” and “the”.
Line 149: “five barbwires” should be “five strands of barbwire”.
Lines 160 and 163: it is first stated that the pig treatments received 10 pigs, but then it is stated that the “average” (again, use mean) was 11.7 pigs.
Line170: “left to oneself” should be “was not altered”.
Line 190: I see no number after “class 7=”.
Lines 209 and 211: the subscripts following Y are different (ijk vs tfi).
Line 231: “multiplicated” should be “multiplied”.
Results: test statistics should be given, along with the P values.
Line 270: it is not at all clear what “diminutive animal effects” might be.
Results: much of the Results section is extremely tedious to read and simply repeats what is in the tables. There is no need to be so verbose in describing the results because the tables give most of the information. Briefer summaries would suffice.
Line 342: use “mean” instead of “average”.
Line 347: I think “financial investigations” should be “financial investments”.
Line 347 and 348: it is unclear what “as the organization in context with the other treatments required some more expenses” means.
Line 356: “its impacts” should be “their impacts”.
Line 357: use “major” instead of “huge”.
Line 374: it is not clear what “of particularly benefiting trees” means.
Line 397: “compactions” should be “compaction”.
Line 399: it is unclear what “re-bouncing” means.
Line 412: it is unclear what “auxiliaries” are.
Line 416: “base” should be “basis”.
Line 442: “this” should be “these”.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you for your improvements!
We tried hard to improve them all! Especially the selection and graphical inclusion of the
P-values in Fig. 3 was challenging and took us some time.
We hope that we have understood you right and that we could work out our manuscript in your sense.
Best regards,
DSH
The grammar and word choice to be carefully edited to make it more readable by correcting ambiguities and statements that are confusing. Examples, and some other suggestions, include the following:
>>ok, we tried to avoid ambiguities and make the text better readable.
Line 47: it is unclear what “natural strong forest succession” is.
>>done: we used the term “trusting in the substantial biomass accumulation of the lush forest fallows in the humid tropics”, now.
Line 51: “dispersion” is the physical arrangement of objects in space, while “dispersal” is the movement of objects across space, so it is unclear which one the authors intend.
>>so, we mean “dispersion”- animals bring seeds into the plots.
“Naturally, the dispersion of seeds by animals like bats, birds, and/or rodents are responsible for forest restoration”
Line 71: the Amazon is a subset of the Neotropics, so this statement needs to be reworded to something like “in the Amazon and perhaps the remainder of the Neotropics…”.
>>ok, done: we wrote now: “in the Amazon and perhaps the remainder of the humid Neotropics”.
Line 96: “are entrapped” would be better than “got stuck”.
>> done: “but are entrapped in…”
Lines 102 and 103: “pigs” would suffice, rather than “heads of pigs”.
>>done.
Line 114: “would reduce its” should be “would reduce their”.
>>done. Also, all other “its” concerning animals.
2.1. Study area and experimental design: use “mean” rather than “average”.
>>ok, done.
Line 129: insert “than” between “more” and “the”.
>>done.
Line 149: “five barbwires” should be “five "strands of barbwire”.
>>done. Also, in other parts of the manuscript.
Lines 160 and 163: it is first stated that the pig treatments received 10 pigs, but then it is stated that the “average” (again, use mean) was 11.7 pigs.
>>ok, withdrawn: 10 pigs is wrong. “mean”, ok.
Line170: “left to oneself” should be “was not altered”.
>>done.
Line 190: I see no number after “class 7=”.
>>sorry, there was a formatting error. It continued below the figure. We have altered now the text.
Lines 209 and 211: the subscripts following Y are different (ijk vs tfi).
>>done.
Line 231: “multiplicated” should be “multiplied”.
>>done.
Results: test statistics should be given, along with the P values.
Line 270: it is not at all clear what “diminutive animal effects” might be.
>>we mean significant lower treatment effects. Altered now.
Results: much of the Results section is extremely tedious to read and simply repeats what is in the tables. There is no need to be so verbose in describing the results because the tables give most of the information. Briefer summaries would suffice.
>>Ok, good idea! We tried to make it more readable by putting the most important (significantly different) P-values on the charts and withdrawing all doublings from the text. Therefore, we enormously shortened the result chapter. We hope that the P-values are big enough, in the figures. We did it also for the number of capoeira tree individual, mean tree height, and number of capoeira saplings sections. The tables included already all significance information (a-d,1-2), to our mind?
Line 342: use “mean” instead of “average”.
>>done.
Line 347: I think “financial investigations” should be “financial "investments”.
>>done.
Line 347 and 348: it is unclear what “as the organization in context with the other treatments required some more expenses” means.
>>ok, we tried to clarify this text passage.
Line 356: “its impacts” should be “their impacts”.
>>done.
Line 357: use “major” instead of “huge”.
>>done.
Line 374: it is not clear what “of particularly benefiting trees” means.
>>we used the term “pioneer tree species”, now.
Line 397: “compactions” should be “compaction”.
>>done.
Line 399: it is unclear what “re-bouncing” means.
We meant that values dropped back to the level where they started at time1. We used the word “drop” now for clarification.
Line 412: it is unclear what “auxiliaries” are.
>>Ok, we changed now to the word "workers".
Line 416: “base” should be “basis”.
>>done.
Line 442: “this” should be “these”.
>>done.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
I found the paper very interesting and very useful I reccomend to publish it as it is
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you very much for your improvements and recommendation!
Best regards,
Stefan
