Multi-Stemmed Habit in Trees Contributes Climate Resilience in Tropical Dry Forest

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

the manuscript describes an important aspect of trees growing in LDF, and its results can be applied in the future conservation efforts. However, there are few things that should be improved prior to publication. Below you can find specific comments and suggestions to improve your manuscript.

Abstract- line 32- in the manuscript you say that you did not find a difference between mortality of single versus multi-stemmed trees (lines 275, 381-383), so this claim that it is a predictor of survival is not really supported by your data!

line 55- delete word emerge in the sentence "Resprouting in woody species is the emergence of new tissues emerge from buds"

line 74- e.g. is in italic, while i.e. is not italicized. Please, be consistent in the use of Latin abbreviations

lines 102-103- You say "Globally, TDF restoration is increasingly an important national priority..." please, rephrase

line 109- "Forest Dynamic Plot Descriptions" --> in line 85 you use phrase "forest dynamics plot" and do not capitalize it; please use the same terminology

lines 110-113- you use HIPPNET two times in the same sentence

lines 129-130- spell out full Genus names

in the Materials and Methods section, please add explicitly when each of the censuses were conducted in each of the plots.

"generalized linear model" is usually capitalized (GLM)

line 192- add "to" in the sentence "Withing the LDF, additional models were used to investigate..."

line 248- you use RGB_biom, however you do not explain what this _biom in subscript refers to

In Result and discussion- for species that you already previously mentioned in the text, you can write only the first letter of the genus, and do not have to spell out full names

line 254- what does it stand for "lsmean"?

line 294- "...traits key..." is there something missing?!

line 305- "...may be in part due to..." (or partially)

Figure 1. last column- # of individual trees in census 5 -->should this be number 2? or something else?

Figure 2. title in the figure is broken by a figure itself- please correct this.

for figures 2, 3, 4- please add a sentence that a full species list can be found in supplement

Figure 4- what do error bars represent? Add this. In any case, SD/SE cannot be negative!!!! change this in graph

Figure 5- I do not see any shadings? Font in the graph is very different from all others, and I suggest changing it to be in line with others. The dot in the figure is orange, and not red. Please change this as well.

Figure 6- spell out the abbreviations used in graphs (you do not have to explain them)

Author Response

We are very thankful for the helpful review and suggestions from the reviewers. Please see individual responses to each comment in blue below. 

Reviewer 1:

Dear authors,

the manuscript describes an important aspect of trees growing in LDF, and its results can be applied in the future conservation efforts. However, there are few things that should be improved prior to publication. Below you can find specific comments and suggestions to improve your manuscript.

Abstract- line 32- in the manuscript you say that you did not find a difference between mortality of single versus multi-stemmed trees (lines 275, 381-383), so this claim that it is a predictor of survival is not really supported by your data!

Thank you for bringing attention to this clarity issue. We have revised this sentence to point directly to the results regarding the “number of stems” and eliminated confusion about patterns of mortality and stem habit (multi- vs. single stemmed). While mortality didnʻt differ between multi and single stemmed trees, we did find that trees with a higher stem abundance in Census 1 were more likely to be alive in Census 2, and which suggests stem abundance might be a mechanism for survival. See results in lines 360-367 and in Figure 5B.

line 55- delete word emerge in the sentence "Resprouting in woody species is the emergence of new tissues emerge from buds"

Thank you for catching the typo. ʻemergeʻ has been removed.

line 74- e.g. is in italic, while i.e. is not italicized. Please, be consistent in the use of Latin abbreviations

Thank you for catching this inconsistency. All instances of ʻi.e.ʻ have been italicized to match.

lines 102-103- You say "Globally, TDF restoration is increasingly an important national priority..." please, rephrase

The sentence has been revised to alleviate confusion.

line 109- "Forest Dynamic Plot Descriptions" --> in line 85 you use phrase "forest dynamics plot" and do not capitalize it; please use the same terminology

The section heading was corrected to be consistent with the following text.

lines 110-113- you use HIPPNET two times in the same sentence

Thank you for catching this error, it has been corrected.

lines 129-130- spell out full Genus names

Thank you for catching this error. Genus names are no longer abbreviated.

in the Materials and Methods section, please add explicitly when each of the censuses were conducted in each of the plots.

The following sentence was added on line 210-212 to address this comment:

“Census 1 was conducted from December 2007 to May 2009, and Census 2 was conducted from November 2013 to October 2014.”

"generalized linear model" is usually capitalized (GLM)

All abbreviations of GLM are now capitalized.

line 192- add "to" in the sentence "Withing the LDF, additional models were used to investigate..."

Thank you for catching this error, it has been corrected.

line 248- you use RGB_biom, however you do not explain what this _biom in subscript refers to

Specifics regarding RGR_biom can be found on lines 224-231. Equations were amended to bring attention to each RGR estimate.

In Result and discussion- for species that you already previously mentioned in the text, you can write only the first letter of the genus, and do not have to spell out full names

Thank you for pointing this out. I kept full Genus names in the results section (for consistency) and abbreviated them in the discussion.

line 254- what does it stand for "lsmean"?

Lsmean represents a least squares mean. Abbreviation was dropped and revised to say ʻleast squares meanʻ.

line 294- "...traits key..." is there something missing?!

Here ʻkeyʻ just means important. The sentence has been revised in hopes of improving clarity.

line 305- "...may be in part due to..." (or partially)          ʻ
Thank you for catching this error, it has been corrected.

Figure 1. last column- # of individual trees in census 5 -->should this be number 2? or something else?

Thank you for catching this error. It has been corrected.

Figure 2. title in the figure is broken by a figure itself- please correct this.

Fixed.

for figures 2, 3, 4- please add a sentence that a full species list can be found in supplement

A sentence in each figure legend now references that the species list can be found in the supplement.

Figure 4- what do error bars represent? Add this. In any case, SD/SE cannot be negative!!!! change this in graph

Thanks for catching this error. It has been corrected.

Figure 5- I do not see any shadings? Font in the graph is very different from all others, and I suggest changing it to be in line with others. The dot in the figure is orange, and not red. Please change this as well.

For some reason, shading isnʻt appearing in the PDF file built in the submission portal. Individual PDFs show shaded areas. I will also let the editor know so the figure is properly printed in the final publication.

The font is certainly the same for all plot axes. I did increase font size to make them appear similar. Lastly, the orange points are now referenced as orange points in the Figure 5 legend.

Figure 6- spell out the abbreviations used in graphs (you do not have to explain them)

Thanks for catching this issue. I have included a sentence in the Figure 6 legend spelling out the photosynthetic traits for each panel.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments to the Authors

Understanding how plants and ecosystems adapt to changeable environment may help forecast ecological climate resilience or potential for restoration in forests. The manuscript by Mare et al., entitled “Multi-stemmed habit in trees contributes climate resilience in tropical dry forest” compared the roles of multi-stemmed versus single-stemmed habit in community structure and climate resilience. It’s an interesting topic. Based on the correlation analysis in 7 plant functional trait modules in lowland dry forest (LDF) and montane wet forest (MWF), the authors proposed that the stem abundance and multi-stemmed trees can be an important component for climate resilience in LDF in Hawaii. After carefully review the whole manuscript, I found some analyses could still improve. There are several major points that I think would need attention.

1. In the analyses of demographics of small populations, the authors excluded the species with less than 15 individuals. Why the threshold value was wet at 15? Whether the authors have tried to set other thresholds values for the analyses and checked the results?
2. What’s the differences of hight between multi-stemmed trees and single-stemmed trees, and can it influence your results?

Other minor points:

P1, L17: The first sentence may need to change to “Understanding how plants and ecosystems adapt environmental changes becomes increasingly important under accelerating global environmental change.”

P3, L113: The word “HIPPNET” may need to be deleted.

P3, L146: The empty parentheses can be deleted.

P3, L148: After “[37]” a point needs to be used.

P4, L167, L170: The word “analysis” may be corrected to “analyses”.

P4, L192: The word “withing” may be corrected to “within”

Author Response

We are grateful for the thoughtful comments from reviewers. Individual responses are below in blue. 

Reviewer 2:

Understanding how plants and ecosystems adapt to changeable environment may help forecast ecological climate resilience or potential for restoration in forests. The manuscript by Mare et al., entitled “Multi-stemmed habit in trees contributes climate resilience in tropical dry forest” compared the roles of multi-stemmed versus single-stemmed habit in community structure and climate resilience. It’s an interesting topic. Based on the correlation analysis in 7 plant functional trait modules in lowland dry forest (LDF) and montane wet forest (MWF), the authors proposed that the stem abundance and multi-stemmed trees can be an important component for climate resilience in LDF in Hawaii. After carefully review the whole manuscript, I found some analyses could still improve. There are several major points that I think would need attention.

1. In the analyses of demographics of small populations, the authors excluded the species with less than 15 individuals. Why the threshold value was wet at 15? Whether the authors have tried to set other thresholds values for the analyses and checked the results?

This threshold represents a common practice established in supporting literature. The threshold was not established for this manuscript.

Please see the following citations for more details:

41. Fiske, I.J.; Bruna, E.M.; Bolker, B.M. Effects of sample size on estimates of population growth rates calculated with matrix models. PLoS One 2008, 3, e3080, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003080.
42. Medeiros, C.D.; Scoffoni, C.; John, G.P.; Bartlett, M.K.; Inman‐Narahari, F.; Ostertag, R.; Cordell, S.; Giardina, C.; Sack, L. An extensive suite of functional traits distinguishes Hawaiian wet and dry forests and enables prediction of species vital rates. Functional Ecology 2019, 33, 712–734, doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13229.

1. What’s the differences of hight between multi-stemmed trees and single-stemmed trees, and can it influence your results?

            Though we do not have height data, we did examine patterns of stem abundance among tree size classes. The size class comparisons and visuals show a large proportion of individuals reside in the smallest size class. Anecdotally, the dry forest has an open canopy that reaches a maximum canopy height of ~7-8m and does not vary much across the FDP. There appear to be no highly apparent differences in tree height between multiple and single-stemmed trees.

Other minor points:

P1, L17: The first sentence may need to change to “Understanding how plants and ecosystems adapt to environmental changes becomes increasingly important under accelerating global environmental change.”
Thank you for the suggestion. We have amended the sentence in question.

P3, L113: The word “HIPPNET” may need to be deleted.

Thank you for catching this error, it has been corrected.

P3, L146: The empty parentheses can be deleted.

The empty parentheses have been deleted.

P3, L148: After “[37]” a point needs to be used.

Thank you for catching this error, it has been corrected.

P4, L167, L170: The word “analysis” may be corrected to “analyses”.

Thank you for catching this error, it has been corrected.

P4, L192: The word “withing” may be corrected to “within”

Thank you for catching this error, it has been corrected.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript with tittle “ Multi-stemmed habit in trees contributes climate resilience in tropical dry forest” is a very usefully in future forestry ecology research and deserve publication in this form in Sustainability journal.

Minor suggestion 

in line 129 and 130 

used full name of species

Author Response

The manuscript with tittle “ Multi-stemmed habit in trees contributes climate resilience in tropical dry forest” is a very usefully in future forestry ecology research and deserve publication in this form in Sustainability journal.

Minor suggestion 

in line 129 and 130 

used full name of species

Thank you for the comments regarding the manuscript. 

We corrected the species names by writing out the full species name.