Impacts of Climate Change on the Potential Suitable Ecological Niches of the Endemic and Endangered Conifer Pinus bungeana in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The research is devoted to an interesting topic and is performed at a fairly high level. Meanwhile, there are a number of comments.
The last paragraph in the Introduction section is very informative, but its presentation is more like conclusions. Could the authors reformulate it in such a way that it focuses on the purpose and objectives of the study?

In the Methods section, could the authors briefly explain on the basis of which criteria exactly those set of factors were selected, which is shown in Table 1?
Have similar studies been conducted for other representatives of the genus Pinus or similar genera in any region of the globe? If similar studies have been performed, could the authors compare their results with them in the Discussion section?

In the Conclusions section (lines 398-400, page 15), expand this statement and add specifics.
Pinus
The quality of Figure 1,5,6,7,9 needs to be improved. The notation is hard to read.

In Table 2, the Type column is not always clear whether the type is missing or the same as in the previous row. For example, the Soul Factor is mentioned first, followed by several empty lines, and then the Soul Factor again.

What does the dashed line mean in the pasting of Figure 8? The designation must be added to the picture caption.

TypeType

 

 

Author Response

Comments 1: The last paragraph in the Introduction section is very informative, but its presentation is more like conclusions. Could the authors reformulate it in such a way that it focuses on the purpose and objectives of the study?

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments, we have reformulated this paragraph in the Introduction section, and listed the main objectives of this study at the end.

Comments 2: In the Methods section, could the authors briefly explain on the basis of which criteria exactly those set of factors were selected, which is shown in Table 1?

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. We selected four types of environmental factors: climate, soil, topography, and drought index. The selection of these factors is based on the following reasons: (1) The ecological niche of a species is determined by its adaptation to various environmental factors. Therefore, incorporating more environmental factors into the analysis will lead to more accurate predictions of species distribution. (2) The geographic distribution of species is influenced by numerous factors beyond climate alone. Soil characteristics and topographical features play significant and non-negligible roles in regulating this distribution. (3) Numerous related literatures have demonstrated that climate, soil, topography, and drought-related factors have important impacts on the distribution and ecological niche of Pinus species.

Following your comments, we have incorporated the corresponding sentences into the manuscript. Please review the changes made in Section 2.2, Environmental Data Acquisition and Processing.

Comments 3: Have similar studies been conducted for other representatives of the genus Pinus or similar genera in any region of the globe? If similar studies have been performed, could the authors compare their results with them in the Discussion section?

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. We had conducted comprehensive research on other representatives of the genus Pinus in the manuscript. However, due to our inadequate expression, it led to deviations in reading and understanding. We have rewritten the relevant sentence for clarity. Meanwhile, we have also included references to other studies on representatives of the genus Pinus in the corresponding paragraphs of the Discussion section. These studies are as follows:

[52] Yan Y, Cen Y, Zhang P, et al. Predicting distribution pattern and future change of Pinus massoniana in China based on MaxEnt model. Chinese Journal of Ecology, 2019, 38(9): 2896.

[53] Feng J, Wang B, Xian M, et al. Prediction of future potential distributions of Pinus yunnanensis varieties under climate change. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 2023, 6: 1308416.

[67] Chi Y, Wang G G, Zhu M, et al. Potentially suitable habitat prediction of Pinus massoniana Lamb. in China under climate change using Maxent model. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 2023, 6: 1144401.

[68]Akyol A, Örücü Ö K, Arslan E S. Habitat suitability mapping of stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) under the effects of climate change. Biologia, 2020, 75: 2175-2187.

Comments 4: In the Conclusions section (lines 398-400, page 15), expand this statement and add specifics Pinus

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. We have expanded this statement and added “the endemic and endangered” to describe Pinus bungeana.

Comments 5: The quality of Figure 1,5,6,7,9 needs to be improved. The notation is hard to read.

Response: Thank you very much for pointing out the issues with the images in our paper. We have now output the images at the higher resolution and used a larger font size for the annotations. Furthermore, we have converted the black-and-white images to color ones to enhance visual recognition.

Comments 6: In Table 2, the Type column is not always clear whether the type is missing or the same as in the previous row. For example, the Soul Factor is mentioned first, followed by several empty lines, and then the Soul Factor again.

Response: I apologize, but I don't fully understand the term “Soul Factor” as it appeared in your question. However, upon your mention of an issue related to the table, we have noticed that the soil factor was inadvertently duplicated in the 'type' column of Table 1. We have since corrected the mistake. Thank you once again for bringing it to our attention.

Comments 7: What does the dashed line mean in the pasting of Figure 8? The designation must be added to the picture caption.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. The dashed line means international boundary. We have added to the picture caption, including Figure 1, 8 and 9.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Introduction:

The study titled “Impacts of Climate Change on the Potential Suitable Ecological Niches of the Endemic and Endangered Conifer Pinus bungeana in China” attempt to predict the potential distribution of suitable ecological niches of Pinus bungeana, to assess the impact of climate change on its future distribution, and to quantify its suitable conditions by employing some modelling approach. The study is timely and well needed in this current age of climate change impact on ecosystems and their inhabitant flora and fauna. However, I found it difficult to understand the logic behind the study, as the aim of the study was not clear enough in the introduction section. I found it difficult to even understand the arguments for the subject matter. There are so many disjointed and very hard to read sentences, this made the introduction boring and uninteresting in my own assessment. There were many instances where citation was replaced with error message, e.g. [Error! Reference source not found], this raise a concern that AI writing tool might have been used by the authors, but the authors didn’t take notice of such error messages to correct them. I will suggest the section should be revisited and re-written all over, clearly stating the arguments behind this study. Please, see other comments in the attached document. The grammar should also be checked by an English editor.

Materials and research methods:

I am sorry, as I cannot give a more favourable assessment here, as most of the write ups were hard to read and confusing. To the best of my understanding, the authors could not clearly explain how their model was developed. I was taken about by the way the selection of the environmental variables for the model development was done. Overall, the section is more confusing than the message that would have been delivered here. There were so many syntactic issues, which made the section not presentable. However, this does not suggest that the authors did not have all it entails to come up with a very good methodology, but the mode of presentation is where the issue lies. I would suggest they revisit this section with the help of an English editor to come up with a good methodology section, as this is the backbone of a study of this nature for easy reproduction.

Results:

 This section was fairly well written, and the results were well articulated except for some unreadable sentences which I think the authors should be able to amend with the help of an English editor. This will present the message much better for the scientific community.

Discussion:

To me, the section was more or less a repetition of the results presented in the results section. No concrete engagement with the key findings. Coupled with many unaligned sentences, there is no discussion here. I would suggest the author discuss their key findings telling us their implications with regards to Pinus distribution now and in future in response to climatic factors and other variables they explored.

 

Overall, this manuscript should be completely overhauled with the help of an English editor before re-submission for re-assessment. Please see the attached document for other specific comments and concerns.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The help of an English editor is needed to properly drive home the message presented by the authors.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Comments 8: I found it difficult to understand the logic behind the study, as the aim of the study was not clear enough in the introduction section. I found it difficult to even understand the arguments for the subject matter. There are so many disjointed and very hard to read sentences, this made the introduction boring and uninteresting in my own assessment. There were many instances where citation was replaced with error message, e.g. [Error! Reference source not found], this raise a concern that AI writing tool might have been used by the authors, but the authors didn’t take notice of such error messages to correct them. I will suggest the section should be revisited and re-written all over, clearly stating the arguments behind this study. Please, see other comments in the attached document. The grammar should also be checked by an English editor.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Taking into account your comments as well as those of other reviewers, we have revisited and rewritten the Introduction section, especially highlighting the main objectives of this study in the last paragraph. Please review the changes in the manuscript.

Regarding the citation errors in the manuscript, they were caused by our failure to disconnect links with references prior to submission, resulting in link loss during typesetting. These errors were unrelated to AI writing tools. We have corrected them accordingly.

Comments 9: I am sorry, as I cannot give a more favourable assessment here, as most of the write ups were hard to read and confusing. To the best of my understanding, the authors could not clearly explain how their model was developed. I was taken about by the way the selection of the environmental variables for the model development was done. Overall, the section is more confusing than the message that would have been delivered here. There were so many syntactic issues, which made the section not presentable. However, this does not suggest that the authors did not have all it entails to come up with a very good methodology, but the mode of presentation is where the issue lies. I would suggest they revisit this section with the help of an English editor to come up with a good methodology section, as this is the backbone of a study of this nature for easy reproduction.

Response: Thank you very much for your in-depth comments and valuable feedback regarding the model development section of our article. We have incorporated a more detailed and step-by-step description of the model development process. Furthermore, we have thoroughly reviewed the text and corrected any grammatical issues that were identified.

Comments 10: To me, the section was more or less a repetition of the results presented in the results section. No concrete engagement with the key findings. Coupled with many unaligned sentences, there is no discussion here. I would suggest the author discuss their key findings telling us their implications with regards to Pinus distribution now and in future in response to climatic factors and other variables they explored.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments, we have incorporated references to other similar studies on the impact of climate change on the niche of Pinus species. We have also revised the discussion section to focus on more intently on the key environmental factors affecting the distribution of Pinus bungeana. Additionally, we have elaborated on the interactive effects of climate factors such as temperature, precipitation, and humidity, as well as other variables like soil texture and topography, on its distribution. Furthermore, this revised section also was included the implication for control and prevention measures for the natural forest resources of P. bungeana.

Comments 11: other comments in the attached document.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments in the attached document, we have carefully reviewed and made the necessary modification to each one.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors! Your study was focused on environmental modelling of biogeographical conditions of endangered endemic tree-species to predict response of its habitats due to climatic change. Despite evident importance of your study to more effective nature conservation, the study was loaded by several mistakes that could block future applicability. Firsts, I suggest to improve introduction and methods.

Introduction was composed as technical report without theoretical background of the study. On the other hand, the introductory information was applied from relevant sources. Thus, we need to read about theory of climate change impacts on endemic species.

Additionally, the methods require clear structure with clear charasteristics of all procedures used. We want to know clear flow of data analysis and all variables including indicators used for data interpretation.

Specific comments:

Line 43 and 64: Check all references! Especially, please, focus on citations at points of each assumed knowledge, software or data.

Line 69: I am no sure if I can understand right to formulation "segmentation distribution"? Please, try to use simplified term (e.g. segment distribution?).

Lines 59-79: Whole paragraph should to be rewritten in general. The paragraph should to be focused on endemic tree species. Define only biogeographic characteristics common for all endemic trees. Facts about Pinus bungeana belongs to Material and methods, where you should define model species.

Line 84: What do acronyms SSP126 and SSP585 mean? These acronyms were not defined before first occurrence. Define every acronym at the point of first use!

Line 99: Generalize firsts Material sentense to tree-species potential distribution problematics.

Line 120: The sentense about dependence between environmental factor number and species distribution seems as originated from wotking thesis, not from methods. Define approach to data acquisition clearly!

Line 138: Please, explain, why did you analyse multicollinearity? The paragraph about data processing requires deep revision with detail specification of all indicators, what you calculated.

Line 147: It is not clear if the correlation  matrix belongs to methods or to results? Anyway, the heat matrix did not show significancy of any correlation. Thus, I recommend replacement of coloured squares by numbers with highlights of statistically significant values.

Line 181: The formulation si similar with statement in conclusions. Please, remove all repetitive sentenses to make the article brief! Here, define only particular results without summary of any approach to investigate it.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I am afraid that the manuscript was loaded by mistakes due to quick finalisation without careful reading or revision by native speaker. The manuscript contained some synopsis without clear text flow. Except mistakes mentioned above, the whole text was loaded by unusual word connections of by phrases.

Author Response

Comments 12: Firsts, I suggest to improve introduction and methods. Introduction was composed as technical report without theoretical background of the study. On the other hand, the introductory information was applied from relevant sources. Thus, we need to read about theory of climate change impacts on endemic species. Additionally, the methods require clear structure with clear charasteristics of all procedures used. We want to know clear flow of data analysis and all variables including indicators used for data interpretation.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments, we have added a theoretical background that outlines how climate change affects endemic species. Additionally, based on your comments as well as those from other reviewers, we have revisited and rewritten the Introduction section. Furthermore, we have revised the Methods section to include a more detailed and step-by-step description of the model development process. Lastly, we have conducted a thorough review and corrected all grammatical issues identified.

Comments 13: Line 43 and 64: Check all references! Especially, please, focus on citations at points of each assumed knowledge, software or data.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. The citation errors in the manuscript arose due to the oversight of disconnecting links with references prior to submission, which resulted in the loss of these links during typesetting. We have meticulously reviewed and corrected the sections containing citation errors.

Comments 14: Line 69: I am no sure if I can understand right to formulation "segmentation distribution"? Please, try to use simplified term (e.g. segment distribution?).

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. The issue arose due to our inaccurate expression, which has caused some difficulty in reading. To accurately convey the meaning, we have replaced the difficult-to-understand term "segmentation distribution" with "the distribution exhibiting fragmented characteristics." Additionally, we have revised the entire sentence for clarity.

Comments 15: Lines 59-79: Whole paragraph should to be rewritten in general. The paragraph should to be focused on endemic tree species. Define only biogeographic characteristics common for all endemic trees. Facts about Pinus bungeana belongs to Material and methods, where you should define model species.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. We have revised this paragraph. In this paragraph, our main focus is on the changes in the distribution of Pinus bungeana and the advancements in research on simulating its distribution, thereby highlighting the significance of our study. Taking your suggestion into account, we have emphasized the importance of endemic species in the first paragraph.

Comments 16: Line 84: What do acronyms SSP126 and SSP585 mean? These acronyms were not defined before first occurrence. Define every acronym at the point of first use!

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. SSP126 and SSP585 are two of the Shared Socio - economic Pathways (SSPs). Following your comments, we have modified the corresponding sentences.

Comments 17: Line 99: Generalize firsts Material sentense to tree-species potential distribution problematics.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Taking into account your comments as well as those of other reviewers, we have reformulated the Materials and Research Methods section and modified this sentence.

Comments 18: Line 120: The sentense about dependence between environmental factor number and species distribution seems as originated from wotking thesis, not from methods. Define approach to data acquisition clearly!

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Taking into account your comments, along with those of other reviewers, we have revised the Materials and Research Methods section and integrated these detailed data collection methods into the relevant parts of the manuscript.

Comments 19: Line 138: Please, explain, why did you analyse multicollinearity? The paragraph about data processing requires deep revision with detail specification of all indicators, what you calculated.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. It is essential to analyze multicollinearity in this study. If severe multicollinearity exists among environmental factors, the estimated values of model parameters may fluctuate significantly, rendering the model highly sensitive to minor changes in sample data. This, in turn, reduces the reliability and predictive power of the model. Furthermore, when there is multicollinearity among environmental factors, it is difficult to accurately evaluate the independent contribution of each factor to species distribution. Some factors may exhibit inappropriate importance in the model due to their correlation with other factors. For example, two highly correlated environmental factors may jointly explain a portion of the variation in species distribution, but the actual role of each factor cannot be clearly distinguished in the model. Additionally, multicollinearity may lead to overly complex models and increase the risk of overfitting. Overfitting models perform well on training data, but have poor predictive ability on new data. Following your comments, we have modified this paragraph.

Comments 20: Line 147: It is not clear if the correlation matrix belongs to methods or to results? Anyway, the heat matrix did not show significancy of any correlation. Thus, I recommend replacement of coloured squares by numbers with highlights of statistically significant values.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments, we have modified the heatmap of the correlation matrix and added the statistically significant values.

Comments 21: Line 181: The formulation is similar with statement in conclusions. Please, remove all repetitive sentenses to make the article brief! Here, define only particular results without summary of any approach to investigate it.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments, we have removed all the repetitive sentences from the relevant part, and modified this paragraph.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made the necessary corrections.

Author Response

Response:

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review the revised version of our manuscript. We have carefully considered your concerns and would like to address them in detail.

 

Comment 1: The Introduction section still lack in several ways, e.g. the arguments are not connected. For instance, the paragraph that starts from line 54 to 68 is not connected to the preceding paragraph, this will leave the reader confused on the direction of the story. Please check and reconcile.

Response: Thank you for your constructive feedback. Following your comments, we have reformulated the Introduction section and addressed the unclear connections between paragraphs, .

 (1) We have restructured each paragraph within the introduction to make its overall logic stronger.

 (2) We have revised the opening sentence of the second paragraph to ‘Species distribution modelling (SDM) has become an essential and powerful tool to understand the profound impacts of environmental changes on species.’ This sentence now effectively links with the end phrase of the first paragraph ‘understanding the impact of climate change on the biogeographic patterns of endemic species is of utmost importance’, then introducing the SDM.

(3) To strengthen the contextual connection between the second and third paragraphs, we have incorporated the sentence ‘This makes MaxEnt particularly suitable for predicting the distribution of species with limited occurrence data, such as endemic and endangered species.’ This sentence connects with ‘Pinus bungeana is an endemic rare and endangered conifer in China’ in the opening sentence of the third paragraph. Additionally, we have added ‘which provides an ideal material for us to study the impact of climate change on an endemic species’ at the opening sentence of the third paragraph to improve the coherence of the Introduction section.

(4) We have also relocated the discussion on research deficiencies from the end of the original third paragraph to the beginning of the fourth paragraph. This adjustment allows for a smoother transition between paragraphs and maintains the focus of each section.

Please review the revised Introduction. Thank you again.

 

Comment 2: My concerns on the methodology and discussion were not also addressed satisfactorily, please check.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. we have made the following modifications based on your feedback.

In Materials and Research Methods:

(1) We have carefully reviewed all the described procedures, from data collection to model implementation, to ensure that each step was exhaustively and clearly elucidated;

(2) We have reorganized the specific process of environmental factor screening, providing a more detailed explanation of the criteria used for the excluding specimen records.

(3) We have transferred sentences related to method descriptions from Results section to Materials and Research Methods section, enhancing the completeness of the Materials and Research Methods and making the Results more concise.

These improvements have made ‘Materials and Research Methods’ more organized and coherent.

 

 making the article more organized.

In the discussion section, we have revisited your comments again and made the following modifications:

(1) We have removed the subtitles to diminish the interference they may cause.

(2) We have adjusted the paragraph structure and shortened the paragraph lengths to enhance readability.

(3) We have eliminated the repeated statements describing the results, optimized the expression around our key findings, and strengthened the connections between sentences.

These improvements have made ‘Discussion’ more logical and continuous.

 

Meanwhile, we have revised the Abstract, Results, and conclusion. And we used MDPI's professional English to polish the language of our manuscript. Now the overall presentation of this revised manuscript has become more coherent and clearer. Please review the revised manuscript.

Comment 3: In manuscript “the specimen records that were not belong to P. bungeana, without any geographic information or obviously beyond the distribution range, were excluded.”(in line 117-119) The statement is confusing, please recast.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments, we have revised this sentence to ‘Records lacking any effective distribution information, those obviously outside its natural distribution range, or those with species identification errors—identified through a visual check of available species photographs—were excluded.’ This revision is more in line with expression.

 

Comment 4: In manuscript “If the probability of existence was higher than 0.33 in the region where had higher chances of survival and growth of organisms.” (in line 382-384) Hard to read, please recast.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. This sentence was intended to emphasize the significance of a survival probability exceeding 0.33, introducing the concept of the core suitable ecological niches to simplify the expression of high- and medium- suitable ecological niches. However, our imprecise formulation made it difficult to understand. Furthermore, since the core distribution niches was infrequently mentioned in the discussion, we omitted this sentence and any related expressions to minimize distraction.

 

 

Thank you again for your valuable guidance which has been instrumental in improving our research.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Many thanks for submitting a revised version of your manuscript for re-assessment. There is a slight improvement on the current version. However, it seem as if my earlier comments were not addressed, as the Introduction section still lack in several ways, e.g. the arguments are not connected. For instance, the paragraph that starts from line 54 to 68 is not connected to the preceding paragraph, this will leave the reader confused on the direction of the story. Please check and reconcile. 

My concerns on the methodology and discussion were not also addressed satisfactorily, please check.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The services of an English editor is needed to help with the grammar, as most of the sentences were hard to read.

Author Response

Response:

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review the revised version of our manuscript. We have carefully considered your concerns and would like to address them in detail.

 

Comment 1: The Introduction section still lack in several ways, e.g. the arguments are not connected. For instance, the paragraph that starts from line 54 to 68 is not connected to the preceding paragraph, this will leave the reader confused on the direction of the story. Please check and reconcile.

Response: Thank you for your constructive feedback. Following your comments, we have reformulated the Introduction section and addressed the unclear connections between paragraphs, .

 (1) We have restructured each paragraph within the introduction to make its overall logic stronger.

 (2) We have revised the opening sentence of the second paragraph to ‘Species distribution modelling (SDM) has become an essential and powerful tool to understand the profound impacts of environmental changes on species.’ This sentence now effectively links with the end phrase of the first paragraph ‘understanding the impact of climate change on the biogeographic patterns of endemic species is of utmost importance’, then introducing the SDM.

(3) To strengthen the contextual connection between the second and third paragraphs, we have incorporated the sentence ‘This makes MaxEnt particularly suitable for predicting the distribution of species with limited occurrence data, such as endemic and endangered species.’ This sentence connects with ‘Pinus bungeana is an endemic rare and endangered conifer in China’ in the opening sentence of the third paragraph. Additionally, we have added ‘which provides an ideal material for us to study the impact of climate change on an endemic species’ at the opening sentence of the third paragraph to improve the coherence of the Introduction section.

(4) We have also relocated the discussion on research deficiencies from the end of the original third paragraph to the beginning of the fourth paragraph. This adjustment allows for a smoother transition between paragraphs and maintains the focus of each section.

Please review the revised Introduction. Thank you again.

 

Comment 2: My concerns on the methodology and discussion were not also addressed satisfactorily, please check.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. we have made the following modifications based on your feedback.

In Materials and Research Methods:

(1) We have carefully reviewed all the described procedures, from data collection to model implementation, to ensure that each step was exhaustively and clearly elucidated;

(2) We have reorganized the specific process of environmental factor screening, providing a more detailed explanation of the criteria used for the excluding specimen records.

(3) We have transferred sentences related to method descriptions from Results section to Materials and Research Methods section, enhancing the completeness of the Materials and Research Methods and making the Results more concise.

These improvements have made ‘Materials and Research Methods’ more organized and coherent.

 

 making the article more organized.

In the discussion section, we have revisited your comments again and made the following modifications:

(1) We have removed the subtitles to diminish the interference they may cause.

(2) We have adjusted the paragraph structure and shortened the paragraph lengths to enhance readability.

(3) We have eliminated the repeated statements describing the results, optimized the expression around our key findings, and strengthened the connections between sentences.

These improvements have made ‘Discussion’ more logical and continuous.

 

Meanwhile, we have revised the Abstract, Results, and conclusion. And we used MDPI's professional English to polish the language of our manuscript. Now the overall presentation of this revised manuscript has become more coherent and clearer. Please review the revised manuscript.

Comment 3: In manuscript “the specimen records that were not belong to P. bungeana, without any geographic information or obviously beyond the distribution range, were excluded.”(in line 117-119) The statement is confusing, please recast.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. Following your comments, we have revised this sentence to ‘Records lacking any effective distribution information, those obviously outside its natural distribution range, or those with species identification errors—identified through a visual check of available species photographs—were excluded.’ This revision is more in line with expression.

 

Comment 4: In manuscript “If the probability of existence was higher than 0.33 in the region where had higher chances of survival and growth of organisms.” (in line 382-384) Hard to read, please recast.

Response: Thank you for your kind reminder. This sentence was intended to emphasize the significance of a survival probability exceeding 0.33, introducing the concept of the core suitable ecological niches to simplify the expression of high- and medium- suitable ecological niches. However, our imprecise formulation made it difficult to understand. Furthermore, since the core distribution niches was infrequently mentioned in the discussion, we omitted this sentence and any related expressions to minimize distraction.

 

 

Thank you again for your valuable guidance which has been instrumental in improving our research.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors! Thank you for careful revision of the manuscript. I presume that the manuscript is now close to full acceptance. Nevertheless, I again have to recommend improvement of the figure 2 including related results. Of course, It is evident that you accepted my previous recommendations for this correlation matrix. But I think that the correlation coefficients should to be separated into two groups along statistical significance at p < 0.05. Significant values should to be highlighted as bolt, while insignificant values should to be writtern by normal font. Additionally, please revise again results and discussion statements related with the linear correlations. I expect input of more detail information about correlation significances.

Author Response

Response:

Comment: Dear authors! Thank you for careful revision of the manuscript. I presume that the manuscript is now close to full acceptance. Nevertheless, I again have to recommend improvement of the figure 2 including related results. Of course, It is evident that you accepted my previous recommendations for this correlation matrix. But I think that the correlation coefficients should to be separated into two groups along statistical significance at p < 0.05. Significant values should to be highlighted as bolt, while insignificant values should to be written by normal font. Additionally, please revise again results and discussion statements related with the linear correlations. I expect input of more detail information about correlation significances.

Response: We are truly grateful for your recognition of our efforts in carefully revising the manuscript. Your feedback is of utmost importance to us, and we are committed to further enhancing the quality of our work based on your suggestions.

 

Your previous question about " Line 147: It is not clear if the correlation  matrix belongs to methods or to results? Anyway, the heat matrix did not show significancy of any correlation. Thus, I recommend replacement of coloured squares by numbers with highlights of statistically significant values." The last response mainly explained the problem of overfitting, but did not explain it clearly, which caused you to have doubts about this.

The correlation matrix belonged to methods. We only use it to screen the environment factors in the early stage of modeling. The absolute value of the correlation coefficient between any two environmental variables exceeded 0.8, this indicated a high degree of linear association and can lead to decrease in model prediction accuracy by overfitting [1]. And the purpose of Figure 2 is solely to demonstrate that the absolute values of the correlation coefficients for the selected environmental factors all do not exceed 0.8, While, the linear relationships among them do not constitute the content of the findings of our study. Hence, there is no need to add more relevant information about correlation in the results and discussion section.

Meanwhile, we have revised the paragraph, and emphasizing significant correlations by bolding them in Figure 2.

References

[1] Shi X, Yin Q, Sang Z, et al. Habitat distribution pattern of rare and endangered plant Magnolia wufengensis in China under climate change[J]. Forests, 2023, 14(9): 1767.

 

We understand the importance of these revisions in making our manuscript more robust and comprehensive. Thank you again for your valuable guidance, which has been instrumental in improving our research.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf