Improving Sustainable Forest Management of Pinus halepensis Mill. Mid-Aged Stands in a Context of Rural Abandonment, Climate Change, and Wildfires
, Victoria Lerma-Arce 1, David Fuente 2 and Edgar Lorenzo-Sáez 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Journal: Forests (ISSN 1999-4907)
Manuscript ID: forests- 2216431
Title: Improving sustainable forest management of Pinus halepensis Mill. mid-aged stands in a context of rural abandonment, climate change, and wildfires
Overall Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear authors,
Regarding the sustainable forest management of Pinus halepensis Mill. mid-aged stands especially with thinning treatments, this manuscript may be interesting to the relevant researchers who deals with similar issues such as silviculture, forest biometrics, and growth and yield. Overall, the manuscript concept and description were understandable to me. Meanwhile, I was not convinced of the research design and brought me to some questions about the number of samples and replicates. In this sense, I am not sure of the manuscript contents if this is worth proceeding in this journal for publication. Additionally, some results were not clearly described in the manuscript regarding the statistical results, so I consider it needs more revision. With my several questions, I suggested a few comments to update the manuscript. I wish the results in this study will be informative to the studies in the region and Pinus halepensis Mill. stands.
I hope that this manuscript can be improved based on peer-review’s comments. My specific comments were provided in detail as follows.
I thank you authors for the effort on this topic.
Kind regards,
Reviewer
Point 1.
The Introduction was understandable.
In the description of study site, I assume that there must be any silvicultural treatment including cleaning before the first thinning because the measurement age is 50. It would be also informative it other treatment history can be given.
Point 2.
Line 233: I recommend Stand density instead of Stock density.
Regarding Eq. (5), I recommend using the terminology of Periodic Annual Increment (PAI) or Periodic Annual Growth instead of Periodic Growth in Lines 280-284. At least, I suggest mentioning those terms in this sentence with parenthesis.
Regarding Eq. (6), I also recommend using the terminology of Mean Annual Increment (MAI) or Mean Annual Growth instead of Average periodic growth in Lines 286-290.
Why don’t you use the same abbreviation for the “Quadratic” as shown in Dq? If so, I recommend using Hq instead of Hg in Lines 246-247 and also the rest of the whole manuscript.
Lines 249-256: I recommend using Hd for dominant height instead of Ho. Furthermore, make sure that the unit of dominant height. Is it really cm? In this sense, I also recommend Dd for dominant diameter instead of Do.
Line 266: Just in case, check the unit of Volume, dbh, and height in the equation (3) to make sure it’s correct.
Point 3.
For Material section, I believe that some of the the summary statistics of the inventoried data will be informative in addition to the Supplementary files. It will describe the stand characteristics clearly for the readers. Authors can include such stand characteristics as you attached in supplementary file 2 of pdf. For examples, the Table can contain stand density, Basal area, Quadratic mean diameter, Dominant height, stand volume, slenderness, thinning intensity and etc.
However, this is up to the authors’ choice.
Point 4.
For Method section,
Line 298-299: Student’s t-analysis -> Student’ t-test
Line 300: I recommend revising the phrase of “as a function of probability and degrees of freedom”. T-test is a method of testing hypotheses about the mean of a small sample drawn from a normally distributed population when the population standard deviation is unknown.
It is recommended more to clearly mention the response variables and the tested predictors in the t-test.
Moreover, t-test needs to be clarified with the significance level of alpha. Was it 0.05 by default or something else? It would be better to mention in Methodology section in addition to the line 424.
Point 5.
For Results and Discussion section,
Why don’t you authors try to analyze the t-test regarding the major stand characteristics by thinning treatment? For example, those can be dbh, height, ba, and volume. It would be possible to compare it by using the tree-level data.
Figure 3. According to the Figure 2, there must be several plots for each of the thinning treatment. In this case, it would be also a great description to directly present each of the sample point as it were. By doing this, readers are also be able to see the deviation in addition to just the average value.
Figure 4. Can you add the standard deviation? Or was it a bit hard due to the lack of samples in each case?
Figure 6. What is % res AB?? Should it be “% res BA”? Authors should check the manuscript text carefully once again. Additionally, all the abbreviations in Tables and Figures should be understandable independently by itself. If not, it should be added in the caption or the Note.
Figure 10. The significant differences were not easily understandable. The caption indicated the different letters. In that case, what is the meaning of the different number? Does it mean the species category itself? If so, it can be deleted to make it clean and simple.
Point 6.
Overall, the manuscript tried to demonstrate the growth of stand characteristics and regeneration by thinning treatment. I highly appreciate the authors’ effort on this issue. My major concern is the number of replicates to present the results regarding this topic in the target journal, Forests. I would rather think that the number of samples and measurements were not sufficient that much although I totally understand how difficult the data collection is in the study area of our forest growth and yield.
Minor comments
Line 196: pot -> plot
Line 291: regenerate -> regeneration
For the general figure layout: I suggest removing the boundary line of the Figures. It will make the figures tidy and clean.
Additionally, the manuscript may require the detailed revision more to make it clear and tidy as suggested above.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript of Royas-Briales et al. concerns important scientific problem as well as the results may be applicable in the practice. The title well reflects study aims. The choice of Pinus halepensis to such study is precisely explained. This is valuable study, but manuscript in not well written.
INTRODUCTION – Information in this chapter well introduce to the study problem, and the study aims are clearly formulated.
Materials and Methods
1. In subchapter Study area (rows 124-126) citation should be added.
2. Rows 134-135. Please, remove “…” or add information/parameters.
Results and Discussion
1. This chapter should be rewritten.
2. Is the title of this chapter correct? Should be rather Results and Discussion.
3. My main comment – Results and Discussion should be distinct chapters. The present form is not clear and it is difficult to found true results. Moreover, these fragments of text, which include methods should be removed. Results should be better presented. Authors often start the sentences from “Table x /Figure y show…”. They should be rather accent the main result, comparisons etc.
4. The title of Table 1. In my opinion Extraction is not the best term. Indices m2/ha should be changed.
5. The title of Table 2 also may be better formulated.
6. Figure 3. It is difficult to analyse this figure – please explain abbreviations, despite they are explained in the text,
7. Figure 4 and 5. Evolution is not the appropriate term. I suggest to use “changes”.
8. Figure 7. What indicate values in percent?
9. The term “seedling/s” in the case of individuals, which have even 0.25m is not correct. See in which way is seedling defined. The term “young individuals” or “juveniles” will be more appropriate.
10. Fig. 9. Again, the title should be changed. Regeneration is the process and is not characterised by density, rather by the rate. I suggest to replace “Average regeneration density” by Density of juveniles and accent that it is the measure of regeneration.
Conclusions
Conclusion should be much shorter, showing the main founding. Now, they have rather a characters of Discussion. I propose to extent this this part, to complete it and present as Discussion.
References
Many sources are in Spanish, not available for all. I now that they are needed in the context of study species and study area, but References should be enriched, especially with articles presenting ecological problems. 37 positions of literature is too poor to full presentation of study problems. The majority of them are cited in Introduction only. Results should be better compared with founding of other papers.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Journal: Forests (ISSN 1999-4907)
Manuscript ID: forests- 2216431
Title: Improving sustainable forest management of Pinus halepensis Mill. mid-aged stands in a context of rural abandonment, climate change, and wildfires
Overall Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear authors,
Many thanks to the authors’ effort on revising the manuscript. Most of the necessary suggestions have been dealt with adequately. My previous comments with Point 3 are dependent on the authors’ decision. Other comments were reflected well including the terminology. Still, I am concerned about my previous Point 5 regarding Figures 3 and 4. Please note that one may still be interested in that point. I am still worried about the number of samples, but I would also count this on Editors and authors. Other than those issues, the manuscript has been revised according to the peer-review comment.
I thank you authors for the effort on this topic.
Kind regards,
Reviewer
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
INTRODUCTION – Information in this chapter well introduce to the study problem, and the study aims are clearly formulated.
Materials and Methods
1. In subchapter Study area (rows 124-126) citation should be added.
I still suggest citation, since authors din’t study soil of climate.
2. Rows 134-135. Please, remove “…” or add information/parameters. Done
I not see these changes.
Results and Discussion
1. This chapter should be rewritten. Partially done.
2. Is the title of this chapter correct? Should be rather Results and Discussion. We consider is more appropriate to keep it together as it is very difficult later to discuss clearly about a result that has been shown in a previous section and that should be again exposed to give enough understanding to the readers.
It depends. I still suggest that Results and Discussion should be distinct chapters.
3. My main comment – Results and Discussion should be distinct chapters. The present form is not clear and it is difficult to found true results. Moreover, these fragments of text, which include methods should be removed. Results should be better presented. Authors often start the sentences from “Table x /Figure y show…”. They should be rather accent the main result, comparisons etc.
We have removed the methods and tried to improve the presentation of results
4. The title of Table 1. In my opinion Extraction is not the best term. Indices m2/ha should be changed.
Changed to “fellings”
5. The title of Table 2 also may be better formulated. Done
6. Figure 3. It is difficult to analyse this figure – please explain abbreviations, despite they are explained in the text, Done
7. Figure 4 and 5. Evolution is not the appropriate term. I suggest to use “changes”. Done
In figure 5 is “change”. Should be “changes”?
8. Figure 7. What indicate values in percent? The percentage corresponds to the proportion of thrown trees and thrown volume with respect to the corresponding total magnitude per ha. This explanation has been added to the manuscript.
9. The term “seedling/s” in the case of individuals, which have even 0.25m is not correct. See in which way is seedling defined. The term “young individuals” or “juveniles” will be more appropriate. Term replaced.
10. Fig. 9. Again, the title should be changed. Regeneration is the process and is not characterised by density, rather by the rate. I suggest to replace “Average regeneration density” by Density of juveniles and accent that it is the measure of regeneration. Done.
Conclusions
Conclusion should be much shorter, showing the main founding. Now, they have rather a characters of Discussion. I propose to extent this this part, to complete it and present as Discussion.
Conclusions have been shortened and improved
References
Many sources are in Spanish, not available for all. I now that they are needed in the context of study species and study area, but References should be enriched, especially with articles presenting ecological problems. 37 positions of literature is too poor to full presentation of study problems. The majority of them are cited in Introduction only. Results should be better compared with founding of other papers.
The authors consider it is really difficult to find more literature for discussion of results of Pinus halepensis than the present one and for time constrain reasons for the review a deeper research has not been able to be done.
Results on other species may be also appropriate.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
