Contribution of Advanced Regeneration of Pinus radiata D. Don. to Transpiration by a Fragment of Native Forest in Central Chile Is out of Proportion with the Contribution to Sapwood Area

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I suggest to improve your ms. Especially:

the title does not support the text (please improve it) Page 1 lline 22-23 your write P. radiata contributed nearly 60% of the total stand transpiration, While in page 9 line 298-299 you write P. radiata contributed justa under 60% of total transpiration. I think there is something wrong with these expressions. I suggest to improve these. page 1 line 38-39. I suggest ot delete the dot and join the two setences Rewrite the lines 66-68. Please write the aim of this ms in a clear way Rewrite the site description and give more details in this part for the period of the measurements. Why you select only one three for every size classes. what size class yoy had in this survey. Please give more details Page 2 line 71 -72 your write there were 273 stems/ha but in page 5 line 155 you write 38 trees in the plot or 950 stems per ha. It is something different. I dont understand. Please write these setences in a clear way Rewrite all the figure legends and move all the result in the text. Example Figure 1 delete the part " The measurement  period ....between 2009 and 2019. Please write the name of the species everywhere in the ms with italics Improve figure 2 Figure 3 improve the fig and give with different symbols the differend size tree of the same species. Page 8 line 252-253 improve this setence Page  9 line 260-261 Please impove it Rewrite your resuts to supported from the text and improve the abstract

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1.

 

We thank the reviewer for their helpful comments and for taking the time to read and comment on the manuscript.

 

In some cases we found it difficult to respond to these comments as the line numbers don’t seem to be the same as in the version I have downloaded from the editorial system.

               

the title does not support the text (please improve it)

 

The title. We have edited the title to better reflect the results of the study.

 

Page 1 lline 22-23 your write P. radiata contributed nearly 60% of the total stand transpiration, While in page 9 line 298-299 you write P. radiata contributed justa under 60% of total transpiration. 

 

We have changed to "approximately" in the abstract

 

page 1 line 38-39. I suggest of delete the dot and join the two sentences

 

Not sure to which “dot” the reviewer refers. Can’t find anything one page either side of the line numbers 38-39

 

Rewrite the lines 66-68. Please write the aim of this ms in a clear way Rewrite the site description and give more details in this part for the period of the measurements

 

The hypothesis (aim) tested by this paper has been re-written in the last two lines of the introduction. The duration of the measurements is noted more explicitly in this part of the methods. Similarly, the first paragraph of the methods has been re-written.

 

Why you select only one three for every size classes. what size class yoy had in this survey.

 

At this time, we were limited to six sensors (later that year we added a number of other plots in the native forest). Thus, we were limited to three sensors per tree for this comparison. We acknowledge the limited scope of the study (see response to reviewer 2).  We selected the median tree within each of three size classes, each of which contributed one third of the stand basal area for that species. Thus, the smallest size class has more than half the trees but only one third of the basal area while the larger size class had only 4 or 5 large treed. We have tried to edit the description so that this approach to selecting the trees is clearer. This included new sections describing the selection of trees and calculation of stand transpiration (see lines 100 to 110, 156 to 166).

 

Please give more details Page 2 line 71 -72 your write there were 273 stems/ha but in page 5 line 155 you write 38 trees in the plot or 950 stems per ha. It is something different. I dont understand. Please write these setences in a clear way

 

There were 950 trees per hectare, 273 of which were Pinus. We have tried to make this clearer in the text.

 

Rewrite all the figure legends and move all the result in the text. Example Figure 1 delete the part " The measurement period ...between 2009 and 2019.

 

I disagree with this comment by the reviewer and have not edited the captions as suggested. I have been advised by a number of editors and colleagues over the years that it is helpful to include a sentence to the caption that describes what the figure means. This helps the figures meet the requirement of being readable and understandable without reference to the text. If the editor disagrees then of course I will edit as suggested but I would like an adjudication on this point.

 

Please write the name of the species everywhere in the Ms with italics

 

Improve figure 2

 

??  A moot point in any case as we have elected to delete this figure.

 

Figure 3 improve the fig and give with different symbols the different size tree of the same species.

 

Figure modified as suggested

 

Page 8 line 252-253 improve this sentence

 

Edited and revised

 

Page 9 line 260-261 Please improve it Rewrite your results to supported from the text and improve the abstract

 

It is difficult to know exactly what the reviewer wants. We have edited the entire paper to correct grammatical errors and improve the writing, which the second reviewer suggests was already very good.

Reviewer 2 Report

This study examines the relative contributions of Pinus radiata and Nothofagus glauca to the basal area, sapwood area and transpiration of forest in central Chile. It shows that the invasive P. radiata contributes a disproportionately high amount of transpiration compared with basal area and sapwood area. It is an interesting study. Well written and structured. The main weaknesses are that it is a single site, with a very small plot, and for transpiration measurements there was a very small sample size (n=3).

 

Minor comments:

 

L68 the “per” can be removed.

 

From L155 the species names are not italicized anymore.

 

L210 to 216 I somehow missed the description of scaling up the tree measurements of transpiration to the stand transpiration. Was it assume that all trees of a given species have the same sap flux density? Or perhaps not, given that a sample size of 3 could make it difficult to test whether tree size influences sap flux density.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their helpful comments and for taking the time to review the 

 

Reviewer 2

 

1. This study examines the relative contributions of Pinus radiata and Nothofagus glauca to the basal area, sapwood area and transpiration of forest in central Chile. It shows that the invasive P. radiata contributes a disproportionately high amount of transpiration compared with basal area and sapwood area. It is an interesting study. Well written and structured. The main weaknesses are that it is a single site, with a very small plot, and for transpiration measurements there was a very small sample size (n=3).

WE accept this general criticism of this paper. We were analysing these data as part of a much larger and more general data set comparing different forest types. When we looked at the data in this mixed stand, we noticed the disproportionately large contribution of the Pinus. Nonetheless, we accept that this is data from a single plot and would understand if the editors feel it is better suited as a short communication.

 

L68 the “per” can be removed.

Done

 

From L155 the species names are not italicized anymore.

Corrected

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

 Please find my comments in  the attached files. 

I suggest you to pay for attention in the aims and the conclusions of this MS

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for their very thorough and detailed review of the paper

P. radiata changed to italics Line 30

Sapwood area removed from keywords

Parentheses not deleted, think they are correct

Line 51, sentence edited

Line 62, corrected

New sentence with aim added to lines 66 to 68

FOREL replaced by Forel

Numbers of trees 25 native forest of which 20 were N. glauca and 5 were other evergreen species, mostly Cryptocaria alba. I have tried to clarify this and changed the figure labels accordingly.

Units corrected to cm³ cm^-2 day^-1

Species names changed to italics in figures throughout, Fig 2, Fig 3, Fig 4, Fig 5 and Fig 6

Conclusions edited to refer to the aims and hypothesis