Review Reports - Selection of <i>Abies nephrolepis</i> Materials for Restoration of Genetic Diversity in Mt. Gariwangsan Degraded Area

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, we evaluated the distribution of eight kinds of genetic diversity of Spirochaeta rocheina from Korea by using nuclear simple 9 sequence repeat markers, and analyzed the genetic differences among populations. Ten suitable genetic repair populations were selected and the selection strategy of repair materials was proposed. AMOVA, principal coordinate analysis, UPGMA and STRUCTURE analysis were used to analyze the genetic diversity of 326 individuals from 10 populations and 12 kinds of genetic relationships among populations. This paper conforms to the paradigm of behavioral agronomy analysis and the research content conforms to the direction of journal. It can provide better guidance for the development of agricultural economy and has reference value for the government to formulate policies to deal with the development of agricultural economy. It enriched the industry's experience in the study of restoration materials, and helped subsequent scholars to further study the genetic diversity in the selection of restoration materials on this basis.

To sum up:

The full text has a strong practical significance in the topic selection, which can better improve and enrich the genetic diversity in the ecological environment.

In terms of research norms, it meets the requirements of scientific and rigorous academic papers, and the logical correlation between each chapter is strong.

In terms of theoretical value, it can provide real and practical data and promote the generation of new knowledge.

Although the two aspects of literature and writing standards still need to be strengthened, but the defects still cannot obscure the manuscript. It is therefore recommended that it be published with appropriate revisions.

The contents that still need to be modified are as follows:

1. Without relevant literature review, readers do not have a clear understanding of the current research status and do not know the research progress and difficulties in the current field.

2.There is no need to list a separate section in parts 2.3, and relevant indicators can be explained before formal analysis.

3. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to propose countermeasures for the selection of appropriate repair materials, but the countermeasures part takes up less space.

4. Empirical results need to be further analyzed in combination with existing studies. In those aspects, this paper supplements the views of existing scholars.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Reply letter to reviewers’ comments
Division of Forest Bioinformation,
National Institute of Forest Science
39, Onjeong-ro, Gwonseon-gu, Suwon-si,
Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea
iistorm@korea.kr
May 2, 2023

Dear Dr. Editor and Reviewers,

First of all, we would like to thank the reviewers for their comments on our submission manuscript.

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: Without relevant literature review, readers do not have a clear understanding of the current research status and do not know the research progress and difficulties in the current field.

Response 1: We agree with the reviewer's opinion. For readers' clear understanding, we have added information on existing studies on sample selection considering genetic resource conservation. (line 38)

Point 2: There is no need to list a separate section in parts 2.3, and relevant indicators can be explained before formal analysis.

Response 2: We merged 2.3 and 2.4, agreeing with the reviewers. (line 138)

Point 3: The ultimate purpose of this paper is to propose countermeasures for the selection of appropriate repair materials, but the countermeasures part takes up less space.

Response 3: According to the reviewer's opinion, we added information of the sampling strategy, which is the purpose of this study, can be used as a countermeasure. (line 331)

Point 4: Empirical results need to be further analyzed in combination with existing studies. In those aspects, this paper supplements the views of existing scholars.

Response 4: I appreciate your comment. We have added contents to the discussion so that readers can compare our paper with previous studies. (line 324)

We revised the text by according to the reviewer's opinion, and accordingly, references were added and the order was changed.

Please see the attachment (Manuscript_revised).

Once again, we deeply thank the reviewers for their valuable comments on our manuscript.

Sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript provide some interesting scientific information on the conservation and preservation strategies of this Korean sub-alpine tree species. The referee thinks that this manuscript has a merit to be issued in Sustainability; however, the manuscript also has several deficiencies to be improved before acceptance for publication.

Table 1

What do ‘Height’ and ‘DBH’ stand for?

Table 2

What does ‘N’ stand for?

By the results of the spatial autocorrelation analysis, the authors discussed that the plants distributed within 10m were genetically very close, probably of the same descendants. But, in this study some of the samples were collected from a distance of only 50cm from others (Line 98). Given that approximately 97% of the genetic diversity could be explained by within-population variation in this species, the way of sampling in each population should have a strong influence on the results. Was there any bias in the way of sampling among the populations? Detailed explanation is needed in the section 2.1.

To conserve the rare and fragile species under changing environment, it is very important to collect phenotype variation (especially of the traits adaptively significant) to maintain the adaptive flexibility of the populations. In this study, the authors advocated sampling strategy solely in terms of collecting much genetic variation (evaluated by neutral markers). Brief information may be enough, if the authors do not have data, but, provide a description of within- and among-populational phenotype variation and how much phenotype variation could be collected by the sampling of 25 plants with a 10 m spacing.

Populations of A. nephrolepis in Korean peninsula could be classified genetically into two groups, and JW developed a unique genetic characteristics from others, though the degree of total variation was so small (Discussion 4.2).

The referee believes that A. nephrolepis distributed in the sub-alpine zone of South Korea belongs to a single gene pool, since their geographical differentiation was scarce. But the description ‘genetically diverse restoration materials can be secured from the population of GW to restore damaged areas (Line 286)’ seems to contradict Line 43.

Author Response

Dear Dr. Editor and Reviewers,

First of all, we would like to thank the reviewers for their comments on our submission manuscript.

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Point 1: Table 1. What do ‘Height’ and ‘DBH’ stand for?

Response 1: In Table 1, 'Height' and 'DBH' are data for adult trees in Abies nephrolepis populations. We added an explanation of the abbreviation 'DBH' in Table 1.

Point 2: Table 2. What does ‘N’ stand for?

Response 2: According to what we checked, ‘N’ is not mentioned in Table 2. Instead, we added an explanation of the 'N' abbreviation in Table 3 with 'N'.

Point 3: By the results of the spatial autocorrelation analysis, the authors discussed that the plants distributed within 10m were genetically very close, probably of the same descendants. But, in this study some of the samples were collected from a distance of only 50cm from others (Line 98). Given that approximately 97% of the genetic diversity could be explained by within-population variation in this species, the way of sampling in each population should have a strong influence on the results. Was there any bias in the way of sampling among the populations? Detailed explanation is needed in the section 2.1.

Response 3: Thanks for the reviewer's comments. We misrepresented 30 m as 50 cm. Therefore, the section 2.1 was modified to 30 m. We applied the same way of sampling in a total of 10 populations. Therefore, some of the contents of the section 2.1 have been modified. (line 104)

Point 4: To conserve the rare and fragile species under changing environment, it is very important to collect phenotype variation (especially of the traits adaptively significant) to maintain the adaptive flexibility of the populations. In this study, the authors advocated sampling strategy solely in terms of collecting much genetic variation (evaluated by neutral markers). Brief information may be enough, if the authors do not have data, but, provide a description of within- and among-populational phenotype variation and how much phenotype variation could be collected by the sampling of 25 plants with a 10 m spacing.

Response 4: We agree with the reviewer's opinion that it is important to collect phenotypic changes (adaptively important traits) of the population for species conservation that responds to climate change environments. Our study established a sampling strategy to collect the genetic variation of populations using neutral markers. The neutral markers have limitations in containing information about adaptively important traits. Research on adaptively important traits requires the use of advanced markers (SNPs). We will conduct research related to climate change adaptive traits using SNPs in the future.

Point 5: Populations of A. nephrolepis in Korean peninsula could be classified genetically into two groups, and JW developed a unique genetic characteristics from others, though the degree of total variation was so small (Discussion 4.2).
The referee believes that A. nephrolepis distributed in the sub-alpine zone of South Korea belongs to a single gene pool, since their geographical differentiation was scarce. But the description ‘genetically diverse restoration materials can be secured from the population of GW to restore damaged areas (Line 286)’ seems to contradict Line 43.

Response 5: As the reviewer's opinion, since the degree of total variation is small, we agree that the populations of Korean peninsula can be regarded as a single gene pool. However, the purpose of this study is to select materials for restoring the damaged area in Mt. Gariwangsan. The results of our analysis showed that Mt. Jungwangsan population had a relatively different genetic pattern among the 10 populations in Korea. Therefore, for the purpose of restoration, it was judged that it would be better to classify Mt. Jungwangsan population from the other populations.
We hoped that our opinion would be clearly conveyed to the readers, and we have modified the sentence of the introduction. (line 51)
We aimed to secure the genetic traits and diversity of Mt. Gariwangsan population to be restored as a restoration material selection strategy. In the introduction, we wrote that the introduction of nonlocal genotypes results in genetic pollution resulting in the loss of locally adapted genotypes. Therefore, Mt. Jungwangsan population, which was found to have a relatively different genetic pattern from Mt. Gariwangsan population, was confirmed to be an unsuitable population for restoration.

We revised the text by according to the reviewer's opinion, and accordingly, references were added and the order was changed.

Please see the attachment (Manuscript_revised).

Once again, we deeply thank the reviewers for their valuable comments on our manuscript.

Sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx