Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have finished reviewing this manuscript named “Predicting Habitat Suitability of Angelica gigas Medicinal Herb Using Ensemble Species Distribution Model”. I think this manuscript has clear ideas, reasonable structure, reliable conclusions, and is suitable for publication on Diversity after minor modifications.

 

Line 99: I am interested in how to distinguish cultivated and natural populations. If there any cultivations in the data of GBIF?

Table 3. Please add the unit (km²?) in the appropriate place.

References: Please check the format of references, such as the abbreviation of journals.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

  This is a scientifically sound manuscript. It is well written (with clarifications and errors to me amended).

There is, however, lot of confusion between natural habitat and cultivation and how those completely different aspects will be affected by climate change. Authors constantly use one to justify the other or sometimes it is not clear to what authors are referring to (cultivation vs range).Although the models used can eventually help in cultivation decision-making process, they are not the designed for that purpose and caution is advised when range prediction is used for cultivation.

 

Another aspect: authors discuss general aspects of Angelica gigas ecology against literature but failed to include their own results (e.g., temperature  in each climate scenario and its location in terms of altitude (and even latitude).

 

Specific comments

 L 11-12 – why would the species be “expected to be highly sensitive to climate exposure”?

L12 – What does it mean “climate exposure”?  Rephrase.

L35 – What do authors mean by “upward”? Elevation, latitude? The two may have distinct patterns.

L38-39 – It is not clear what authors mean by “possibility of adverse impact of species distribution changes on the benefits that humans gain from the ecosystem is increasing.” Clarify.

L67-68 – Not sure if I understand (or agree with) this statement “climate uncertainty is increasing in the more distant future. How and why climate uncertainty is increasing?

L88 – “determine the important environmental variables affecting the habitat suitability”. Do authors mean the most important variables as the significant ones after statistical analysis? There is a distinction to be made between what the assessment shows in terms of variables significancy and “real” (on the ground) conditions. Authors also do not distinguish cultivation and natural habitat conditions. Are they necessarily the same? If they are not, the differences should be discussed.

L98-100 – Check phrase for English. Unclear.

L111 – Although it was standard in the past, using (and claiming) that 1971-2000 is “current climate” after 22 years passed requires strong justification. Note that last decade had the warmest years in record which should be considered in models. At very least, the study should verified whether the predictions for the first period is consistent with the weather that already occurred; the more inaccurate the initial data in a prediction the higher the chance of an incremental error into the future.

I am aware that the latest WorldClim data is for 1971-2000 period and future predictions using CMIP6 include 2021-2040 onwards periods. However, it does not change the fact that we have data for 2000-2022 that should be considered to confirm model results either from national or other larger scale datasets.

Remember that readers will not be comprised of experts in the field so this kind of questioning goes beyond technicalities.

L116 – First time range for “future” prediction includes 2 past and 1 current year which is awkward.

L124 – “that represents that soil”. Check.

L120-125- What are the scales used for GMTED2010 and TWI? Please cite them in text. How did authors combine them in case of different scales?

L127-128 – “which appears to be high in the natural habitat”? Please be more specific and add references.

L133-137 and table 2 – Please add results for the correlation analysis for the variables tested (here or as a supplementary material).

L158 – “faction”. Please check.

Figure 2 – the description of (A) with “AUC, TSS” is not enough. Also, the mean of the colored parts of (B) and their inside shapes (box plot?) should be described.

Figure 3 – It would be more useful for readers interested in a closer inspection to have those figures in higher definition. Maybe adding them also as supplementary material for zooming in?

Figure 5 – Fully describe the figure: “under climate change scenarios” are SSP245 and SSP 585?

Table 3 – Include scale (unit) for area. Describe to what the numbers between brackets refer.

L280-also 304 , 308 (but see 314-315) -  I do not necessarily disagree with the statement that the results can indicate areas for cultivation but : 1 ) the use of this type of model is not for that purpose; 2) cultivation implies in many management practices that can even compensate for climate change (authors even mention in L27 “ temperature reduction facilities”); 3) potential habitat/range is different from indication of areas for cultivation. I suggest that authors rephrase to better contextualize the implications of this study (in accordance to abstract and conclusions).

L316-318 – A higher altitude with its (colder) temperature and (shorter) growing season is only a limiting factor in current climate. As the effects of climate change kick in (as foreseen in predictions), the increase in temperature will compensate/ameliorate/reverse the effects of higher altitudes. That is precisely why species range tend to go upwards higher altitudes/latitudes. The rationale is flawed, please revise.

L314-327 – The paragraph did not well link current species preferences with climate change and its respective range change. Again, authors mix species natural “preferences” with cultivation – those two things are not the same.

L368-337 – The information here should be based on the specific temperature results found in this study. Authors cite general information (rate of flower stalk formation is highest at 20 ℃ regardless of photoperiod conditions) and cite other studies without comparing with the results from their own study. Only with the temperature being taken into consideration (from this study) this paragraph makes sense.

L339-341 – “TWI or aspect had inadequate impacts on the distribution because their variable importance was lower than that of other climate variables”. Is not clear what this sentence means. Because a variable has less importance than others it had “inadequate” impacts on distribution? One thing is TWI showing a reduction on preferred habitat (even with low certainty) the other is having an inadequate impact “because” its variable importance.

I also should note that TWI as a consequence of maintains and deep valleys are heavily affected by micro-climate conditions which very unlikely would be shown in the results both because of the scale and the limitations inherent to the model.

I would use caution with the statements involving the aspects mentioned above.

L346-348 – I am not sure how certain one can be that CEC – a inherent characteristic of soils – will be affected by climate change, ie, temperature increase will directly and quickly change cations exchange in soils. I have profound doubt about that direct relationship.

Authors cite the relationship between nutrients and CEC with A. gigas growth both failed to related them to the results from predicted climate.

L364 – Results show restriction in terms of natural range not cultivation.

L367 – Again, cultivation and natural distribution are not the same.

L381-384 – Not sure that citation #68 confirms the statement that cultivation moves to highland.

L386-387 – Again confusing between natural habitat and cultivation: “efforts to develop and propagate varieties of A. gigas that are tolerant to high temperature stress are required” I highly challenge the solution of developing a new variety to be deployed in natural habitats but restricted only for cultivation. Another reason for carefully decouple natural occurrence to areas for cultivation.

L400-402 – Cultivation vs natural habitat conundrum.

L402-404 – Range will move upward into areas where the temperature are adequate?

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

All points raised in my review were adequately resolved. I thank authors for their effort.