Growth Rate, Tree Rings, and Wood Anatomy of a Tropical Cloud Forest Tree Invader

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

General remarks of the reviewer

This study aimed to determine the growth rate and wood density of Eriobotrya japonica in a secondary cloud forest.

The following chapters requires some clarification:

Keywords

Too many keywords, please combine terms: relative growth rate-tree growth rate, tree rings-tree ring anatomy, shade-tolerant invaders-woody invaders.

2.Materials and Methods

 

Show the study area on the map and the experiment diagram.

Climate with three clearly defined seasons, show in the table the diversity of basic meteorological factors: air temperature and precipitation (monthly climate data).

Explain why 35 sample trees were used and provide ranges for the seven DBH classes.

 

2.4. Tree growth rate

 

Refine the formula:

 RGRdbh = ln (d2) – ln (d1)/t2-t1

 

3.Results

 

3.2. Tree rings

 

Figure 2.

Why DBH classes do not have the same range: 1 (2-2.9 cm), 2 (3-4.9 cm), 3 (5-6.9 cm), 4 (7-8.9 cm), 5 (9-10.9 cm), 6 (11-12.9 cm), and 7 (>13 cm).

„The DBH values of the sampled trees in the secondary forest ranged between 5 and 16 cm”.

According to Figure 2, from 2 to > 13 cm?

 

4.Discussion

 

4.3. Tree rings and age

“Assuming the rings to be annual, the estimated age of the individuals indicated that the old trees were approximately 37 years old”.

Was the absolute age correlated with the breast height age?

Technical Notes

Always use precise dendrometric terms and units.

If possible, make the figures clearer.

Details in the attached manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

This manuscript titled “Growth rate, tree rings, and wood anatomy of a tropical cloud 2 forest tree invader” by Guadalupe Williams-Linera et al. studies several key traits and growth patterns of a potential invasive species Eriobotrya japonica in cloud forests of Mexico. Overall, the manuscript presents a clear introduction and background on the subject of the species and how the traits make it a potential invader; the Materials and Methods are described clearly with lots of details on how data were obtained; Results are straightforward and highlight the important findings; and the Discussion relates the results to previous studies on tree growth, ring identification, and invasiveness. However, I found the Abstract could be improved with better clarity and the statistical analysis part could be elaborated with more information.

 

I recommend Major Revision. Below are my major concerns. The detailed comments can be found in the attached annotated PDF document.

 

·      A map of the study area could be helpful in Section 2.

 

·      An illustration of the intra-ring zone and the ring limit zone would be helpful, since these two concepts were repeatedly talked about in the study.

 

·      Method 2.1.2: is this (the Python programming) a method invented by the authors in this study, or the Python scripts were developed by other studies? If it's a previous method, need citation and literature review on its usefulness. If it's new, it requires more validation of the method, especially how it is compared with previous commonly used tree ring detection methods.

 

·      Need to explain the statistical parameters (e.g, t, df, P, F…) before reporting the values of them in the Results.

 

·      Another concern about statistics: sample size matters. The reporting of statistical results in the text are lacking information about the tests and samples, thus jeopardizing the validity of the results.

 

·      Need more explanation on the relative growth rate and what the unit of cm/cm/year means regarding tree growth.

 

·      Line 252-253: “The growth rate of saplings and trees of E. japonica under shaded secondary cloud 252 forest was relatively low, while the density of the wood was relatively high”. When claiming “relative to” something, it needs back-up information, such as what did you compare to? How did you find the information of the things you compared to?

 

·      Move the Appendix figure to the Methods section where proper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I reviewed with great interest your manuscript entitled “Growth rate, tree rings, and wood anatomy of a tropical cloud forest tree invader”, recently  submitted to the journal Forests.

The topic is

 interesting, and the text is easy to follow. However, the Discussion should be improved.

Specific comments are reported in the manuscript (pdf).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All the issues I cared about were addressed by the authors.  The manuscript has been carefully revised.