Roles of Spatial Distance, Habitat Difference, and Community Age on Plant Diversity Patterns of Fragmented Castanopsis orthacantha Franch. Forests in Central Yunnan, Southwest China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present study investigated plant diversity patterns of Castanopsis orthacantha forests. The authors showed the variability in community assembly processes across different spatial and temporal scales.

 

Comments:

179-183: Shouldn't these sentences use the past tense of the verbs, as in the other text?

202-205: Please, indicate the name of the equipment used for measurements and the manufacturer. Explain how ion exchange capacity was measured;

219: Use ‘X_ik’ except of ‘X_ik’;

218: Please clarify how were 𝑋𝑖𝑗 and 𝑋𝑖 calculated;

231: ‘different’ or  ‘equal’?

230-235: It is not clear what samples were collected;

120: Further in the text, neither in the Materials and Methods section nor in the Results section, the authors do not write anything more about ‘α diversity’;

244: It's not clear what ‘several distance matrices obtained’ means;

268: What  ‘𝑋k’ and ‘𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑘a’ means? Please, clarify.

184: Please explain how the age of the species in the shrub and herbaceous layers was determined;

325: Use ‘a’ and ‘b’ except of ‘left’ and ‘right’;

330: First ‘Figure 4a’, then ‘Figure 4b’;

Table 2. Unexpectedly for the reader, a new matrix appears, called GEO. Authors should explain what parameters are included in this matrix and present them and the GEO concept in Table 1. Furthermore, it is unclear why DCo from the Table 1 was not included in Table 2.

 It's very strange to see that r=0.125 or r= 0.2 from Table 2 is significant;

421: Table 2 appears for the second time with the same title;

426: The ‘alpha diversity’ was not analyzed;

463-467: Which researcher posits this? Give a reference, please;

493-494: Above in the text the authors used ‘dispersal limitation’ and not ‘diffusion limitation’. Is this the same expression or not? Please, clarify;

525: Use ‘As a result’ instead of ‘In synthesis’.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Several questions and remarks regarding the article by Wang et al. “Roles of spatial distance, habitat difference and community age on plant diversity patterns of fragmented Castanopsis orthacantha forests in Central Yunnan, Southwest China”.

Herbaceous plants exhibit a seasonal cycle of growth. Furthermore, many herbaceous plants have a brief life cycle. The investigations were only carried out for two months, as stated in the Methods section. How comprehensive is the evaluation of the diversity of herbaceous plants over the course of two months?

Figure 1 shows that the research sites were situated at various elevations. Meanwhile, height above sea level has a considerable impact on vegetation. Why was the height above sea level recorded but not considered as an environmental factor?

This article does not contain a Conclusion section. Add Conclusion to the article.

Add research limitations and perspectives for future exploration to the Discussion section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors have modified carefully their manuscript and have considered all requested changes.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx