Impacts of Harvesting and Prescribed Burning on Forest Soil Carbon Dynamics: A Global Meta-Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I consider the following to be the strengths of this article:

- Broad global dataset, including long-term and diverse ecosystems

- Careful distinction between management practices

- Robust statistical approach (mixed-effects models, moderator analysis, bootstrapping)

 

Overall, I consider the article to be very successful, but I have a few questions and comments about it:

Differences in how respiration components were measured across studies may introduce uncertainty. Are you aware of this?

The meta-analysis necessarily reduces site-specific ecological complexities (e.g., microbial community shifts, mycorrhizal dynamics) to broad trends. Why?

While substrate availability is identified as the dominant driver, the study leaves open questions about microbial community adaptation and long-term carbon stabilization. Could you mention this fact in your article?

The dataset is heavily weighted toward temperate and boreal forests in North America and Western Europe. How representative are the findings for tropical and subtropical forests where data are sparse?

While the study includes observations spanning up to 100 years, do the relatively short-term effects (<5 years) dominate the dataset? Could long-term soil carbon recovery trajectories be underrepresented? Please mention this in your article. If that is the case…

The majority of prescribed fire observations were low-intensity. Would the results hold under more severe or variable burn regimes? inform the readers of your article about this.

 

Addition to the issue you describe in the introduction:

In the introduction to your article, you write: „Recent meta-analyses have assessed the impact of disturbances on soil respiration in global forest ecosystems [16], and under specific management disturbances, such as forest fires [17-19], thinning [20-22], and harvesting [23].“ But what about the movement of heavy forestry machinery on the soil surface? Which is an integral part of forestry logging. Please include this issue in your introduction as well. I remember reading an article on this topic recently (Changes in the concentration of CO2 in forest soils resulting from the traffic of logging machines, DOI: 10.17221/6/2025-JFS). Add this article to your introduction. This will improve the quality of your article, as it will cover the issue of logging from the perspective of timber transport.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Please find the responses to Reviewer 1 in the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper presents a detailed analysis of the effects of clearcutting, thinning, and burning. While thinning has been addressed in previous studies (which are quite similar to this one), the manuscript offers the advantage of examining combinations of these management practices. The manuscript is written in a clear and understandable manner, supported by well-prepared figures, which are thoughtfully inspired by prior research. I have only a few comments that should be considered:

• L76: The hypotheses focus primarily on Ra, which gives the impression that Ra is the central topic of the manuscript. This may be misleading and should be clarified.
• Captions for Figures 2, 4, and 5 (L483, 544, 500, 553, and 567): Please add “mass” after “forest floor” to ensure consistency throughout the manuscript.
• The authors compare their results to other similar metaanalyses that reported no or negative impacts of clearcutting on soil respiration. However, some studies have shown the opposite — an increase. It would strengthen the discussion to mention these studies and explore possible reasons for these differences.
• The conclusions should also include more general outcomes beyond summarizing the results. For example, it would be valuable to state which management combinations appear most favorable or unfavorable for soil processes and ecosystem recovery.

 

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Please find the responses to Reviewer 2 in the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. L8-25: The abstract effectively summarizes key results. However, the logic behind some conclusions could be sharper. For example, L17-20, L21-23.
2. L8-25: The abstract fails to sufficiently articulate the transformative value of your research.
3. L29-81: The introduction provides a good overview of the background, but could be more detailed in explaining the motivation for this research.
4. L47-48: It is recommended to add “thus” before “accelerating” in order to make the logic of this sentence more coherent.
5. L75: The introduction frames clarity on “Soil Carbon Stocks”. However, the rest of the introduction focuses almost exclusively on soil respiration fluxes (SR, Ra, Rh).
6. L96-98: “Regarding criterion (1), we excluded incubation studies, as this method may yield divergent results due to the lack of environmental and biophysical variability inherent in field settings.” To enhance it, the authors could more explicitly state the primary concern.
7. L161-170: For full reproducibility, the exact model structure must be specified.
8. L181: The authors should consider specifying what constituted “limited availability”.
9. L192-432: Although it is adequately written, it offers no new information and no new slant on the topic.
10. L201-204: The word “recovery” in this sentence should be corrected to “recoveries”.
11. L433-560: The discussion section does not fully interpret the results. Analyze each finding in depth and explain its significance within the context of the research question. More importantly, there are instances where correlation is presented as causation without sufficient mechanistic explanation.
12. L433-560: The discussion clearly states that the primacy of substrate availability over microclimate warming has critical implications for predicting the carbon balance of managed forests under climate change.
13. L433-560: It is suggested that the discussion section consider the broader significance of your work and its contribution to the field.
14. L571-574: It is recommended to consider specifying what deteriorates for absolute clarity.
15. L573: The authors should add “can” between “which” and “further”.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Please find the responses to Reviewer 3 in the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for adding to my comments. Although I still think that the "Introduction" section should be expanded.

Author Response

We appreciate the reviewer's attention to this paper. We concur that, simply on length grounds, the Introduction is a bit shorter than average. So we carefully reviewed the introduction and tried to expand it, but could not come up with a solution that would clearly improve on the current version, which covers key background (including other recent reviews), key knowledge gaps, and the objectives and hypotheses for the current work.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have no other comments

Author Response

Thank you again for reviewing our manuscript.