Evasive Planning for the Management of Eucalyptus Rust Austropuccinia psidii for Espírito Santo State, Brazil
, Daiani Bernardo Pirovani 1, Reginaldo Gonçalves Mafia 4, José Francisco Teixeira do Amaral 3, Plinio Antonio Guerra Filho 5,*, Thuelem Azevedo Curty 3, José Romário de Carvalho 6 and Alexandre Rosa dos Santos 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- General Comments
The use of Fuzzy methodology to calculate risk index is very interesting and could be used in distinct biological models. So, from this point of view, is a reliable contribution for science development.
- Section by section
2.1. Introduction:
Introduction is easy to read, however I would appreciate a deeply description about the bioecology of eucalyptus rust, Puccinia psidii.
2.2. Material and Methods:
Material and Methods is clear and allows to replicate the work done. Furthermore, Fig 3 is very appealing.
2.3. Results:
I had doubts about the results presented, namely concerning Fig 4 and Fig. 5. The legends of y - axis in both figures are the same but I don’t understand quite well the differences in x- axis of the referred figures. In my opinion, the presentation of the results in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 are not clear for the readers and seems to be contradictory. In addition, the code of colour is not presented in Fig. 4. I suggest improving these aspects.
2.4. Discussion:
Discussion is well conducted and interesting to read.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Provides a species distribution model for P. psidii in Espírito Santo. Due to the economic value of eucalyptus in Brazilian forestry, this has important implications for the region.
Since Eucalyptus is a genus, if it is capitalized, it needs to be italicized. If you are referring to it by the common name eucalyptus, then it isn’t a proper noun and should not be capitalized (e.g., done properly in the title and L 39).
L 41 – All species of eucalyptus? Is there a subset commonly planted? Provide context of the number of species and overall forestry area planted with eucalyptus (80% of plantations does not provide the reader with much context for Brazil).
L 46 – Provide more biological information about the rust. Is Eucalyptus spp. obligate hosts? Potential for secondary hosts in the region? Severe damage, how? Foliar? Vascular?
L 50-51 – Does the rust damage seeds, seedlings, fruits? How is it impacting regen and development? Clarify with description and sources.
L 52-60 – Severely lacking introductory justification of the research. Authors need to expand the introduction to provide clear and more structured justification.
L 61-62, 111-112, etc. – One sentence cannot be a paragraph.
L65-68 – Again, a single sentence cannot be a paragraph. Also, this sentence is poorly structured and difficult to understand.
Eq. 1 should be inserted as a LaTeX item, current format is hard to read.
L 87 – I would like to see correlation coefficient between T and H to demonstrate you are not overfitting the model with correlated variables. Even if they are the suitable variables from Ruiz et al. (1989), it would be informative to the reader their relationship in this situation.
L 89 – Infection rates were not estimated; infection index was estimated with Eq. 1.
L 100, 103, etc. – Fuzzy is not a proper noun, should not be capitalized.
L 101 – Make sure methods are all past tense.
L 114 – This is the first instance of calling it a risk index. Previously, it was an infection index. Standardize the language throughout. Also, there has not been an explanation of the rasterization of the point data. L 97 should explicitly state that the interpolation produced a solid surface raster. What is your raster resolution?
Figure 6 – Has white polygon as Municipalities, however, there are no white polygons in the figure. It appears here (and in Figure 7) that you then vectorized the raster. However, you didn’t state this in your methods. Either that, or you used an overly fine resolution in the raster. Clarify.
Figure 7 – Clarify that you calculated mean. I don’t think mean is the proper measure of central tendency here – I think you should use median. I think it would provide a more conservative interpretation. Also, like Figure 6, the legend has a white polygon as Municipalities, but I see no white polygons in the map.
I think the discussion is within the scope of the results. However, the conclusions need to be rewritten into paragraph form and proved direct conclusions drawn from the discussion.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
