Predicting the Potential Risk Area of the Invasive Plant Galinsoga parviflora in Tibet Using the MaxEnt Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Tibetan plateau is a specific region belong to alpine mountain ecosystem, which is important to conserve the species that adapted to such environments. The manuscript of sustainability-2946304 predicts the potential distribution of invasive plant Galinsoga parviflora in Tibet under climate change based on the status of presence/absence, which provides an important basis for protecting the ecosystem in Tibetan plateau. However, a drawback in this manuscript is that the present/absent status of an invasive species could not well represent the invasion potentials in this area. The current distribution status may be the degradation phrase of population of Galinsoga parviflora in the sampled point. Thus, I think it is better to use the occurrence gradients (such as growth performance, population density, relative coverage, or others) to predict the potential distribution of this invasives rather than the present/absent status. Therefore, I recommend to publish this manuscript in Sustainability with a major revision.

Some minor comments are as follow:

Line 11, remove “with complex and diverse ecosystems”.

Lines 61-63, A scope should be defined in the sentence of “The species was identified as an invasive weed at the end of the 20th century…”, in some counties or worldwide?

Line 70, change several to some.

Line 72, it is repetition of “invasive process” and “rapid expansion”, delete the former.

Line 199, upright letters of “G. parviflora”, also in lines 211 and 245.

Lines 211-228, it is repetition of the two paragraphs.

Lines 377-391, this paragraph has no contribution to the paper, I suggest deleting it.

Author Response

请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors of this paper aimed to survey the distributions of the alien and invasive species Galinsoga parviflora in the ecologically vulnerable Tibetan region.

It is interesting that the authors focused on a certain species, which has great invasion power, and made a prediction of the possible evolution of this species until the end of this century in the studied area. 

This research focuses only on the weed species Galinsoga parviflora, which clarifies all aspects related to this species. I have not found any scientific communication of this kind for the Tibetan Plateau.

From my point of view the methodology used is adequate.

The authors present the invasion risk directions of the studied species, including taking into account the trend of the following climate changes, especially since Galinsoga parviflora is relatively resistant to drought. However, the authors could propose concrete recommendations and measures that could be taken to preserve biodiversity in this area.

References are from the field studied, current and sufficient.

Regarding figure 1, it should be presented more clearly what is the density, number of Galinsoga parviflora plants, in the studied points.

In line 98: wrong ”(World Geodetic System 1984))”,  correct  (World Geodetic System 1984).

Author Response

首先，感谢您的评论意见。请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I had the opportunity to review the manuscript “Predicting the Potential Risk Area of the Invasive Plant Galinsoga parviflora in Tibet under Climate Change”. The manuscript deals with the distribution of Galinsoga parviflora as an invasive plant species and used MaxEnt models to predict the suitable habitat for its future distribution. The current manuscript needs some revision which are listed below:

Abstract: needs to be re-written by adding more information about the Galinsoga parviflora plant related to the native range and why it is invasive in Tibet.

 

Introduction:

-          More information about the invasive plants and the invasion process should be added to the introductory paragraph. As the authors added just one sentence which is not enough.

-          When introducing Tibet, more information about the invasive species should be added and why these species are invasive. Moreover, the authors said that the area is subjected to threats and did not enumerate these threats in detail, you should include these threats along with reasonable citations not just one.

-          Jumping from the invasive species to Tibet is not acceptable, the authors should rephrase their introduction to have a smooth transition between the main problem of the invasive species and the study area.

-          The paragraph that discusses the invasive plant Galinsoga parviflora needs more information about its current status in Tibet, what made it invasive in Tibet, since when it found, how many areas that confirmed its presence, and what is the ecological impacts of it.

-          More information is also needed when jumping from the invasive species to climate change, I suggest to re-write this paragraph and move it up after introducing the invasive species and before the introducing Galinsoga parviflora.

-          The last paragraph should include more information about the objective of the study and/or research questions and in its current form is useless.

 

Methods:

-          Rename “2.1. Distribution point collection” to “Field survey”

Results:

-          It is well written, and nothing needed here.

 

Discussion:

-          Please, avoid repeating the results again and concentrate only on discussing your results. The current form of the discussion is not accepted, so please try to revisit it again.

 

Conclusion:

-           Is too long, please try to have prober and concise conclusion and avoid repeating the results again.

Author Response

请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript sustainability-2946304 presents interesting data on the distribution of the invasive plant Galinsoga parviflora in Tibet. However, the results of calculations about future changes in the area of this plant raise doubts in me and, in my opinion, require clarification. In this connection, I think that the manuscript should be subject to major revision.

Major remarks:

1. The results presented in tables 2 and 3 should be subjected to statistical analysis. Differences in variables in different years should be assessed as significant or insignificant. In addition, it must be indicated with what accuracy the values were calculated. For example, (lines 264, 266, and 268), how significant are the differences between 95.62%, 96.39%, and 94.91%?

2. The authors do not provide or discuss information about how the parameters of environmental conditions will change in the models they used. The contribution of which variable or variables will be decisive in the change of the area for Galinsoga parviflora?

3. In the Discussion section, the authors argue that Galinsoga parviflora will become dominant in the future in areas where it currently grows. What is this statement based on? Have the authors assessed range changes for other plant species in Tibet using the same models?

Minor remarks:

1. In the Introduction section, the description of Galinsoga parviflora should be expanded using newer references. Descriptions of the prevalence of a species based on works more than 30 years ago cannot be used without confirmation by newer references or an explanation of why these particular references were used.

2. Also, in the Introduction section, it would be useful to mention the possible applications of Galinsoga parviflora.

3. Why are climatic variables such as temperature called bioclimatic and designated as “Bio...”?

4. What is the correlation between the effects of mean annual temperature and elevation?

5. Figure 3 requires changes. The abscissa axes and the figure caption must contain the full names of the variables.

6. How do the authors explain the presence of several peaks in the graph Fig. 3 – elev?

7. Line 343: What mean “G. parviflora in the Caucasus Mountains of Mexico, where it originates"?

Author Response

First of all, thank you for your review comments.Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

The manuscript "Predicting the Potential Risk Area of the Invasive Plant Galinsoga parviflora in Tibet under Climate Change" present an interesting research regarding the mechanism that allow to a species to extend its area up to an invasive species. The subject is also important in the context of using forecast models for the prediction of the invasive mechanism, based on climate scenarios.

There are some suggestions that can improve the work of the authors.

Introduction section - the section have an appropriate length and provide all the background information for the research. The last paragraph of this section provide the information regarding the aim and the objectives. It should be slightly reorganized to clearly state the aim, and in separate sentences the objectives of the study.

The Materials and Methods section is explicit, and offers enough information for both the replication of the study and to understand the flow of the manuscript and how the data were collected and analyzed.

The Results and the Discussion section presents well the results of this research and make valuable comparison with other international references in the field.

Overall, the entire manuscript is interesting and suited to the current research topics.

 

Author Response

Has been completely modified in accordance with the amendments.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors answered my questions carefully, so I can recommend publishing the current version. 

Author Response

非常感谢您对我们稿件的认可。

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Unfortunately, the answers from the authors of the manuscript sustainability-2946304 did not clarify all aspects of my questions and remarks. As a result, I think that this manuscript cannot be improved to an acceptable version for publication in the Sustainability.

My remarks remain the same:

1. In the work, the authors studied the environmental conditions in which Galinsoga parviflora grows and assessed the factors limiting the range of this plant in Tibet. This is good experimental work. However, predicting changes in the area in the next 30 and 80 years is, in my opinion, not scientific since the authors use only one calculation algorithm, and for the results obtained, they do not provide an assessment of significance (there is no statistical analysis of the results) or a comparison of data obtained by different methods. In addition, the variables used for analyses are not valid. On the one hand, some parameters have a high degree of correlation with each other and thus duplicate each other. On the other hand, biological factors are not taken into account.

2. A separate remark to the authors is their incorrect use of literary sources to which references are given in the text. For example, (lines 59–60) “Galinsoga parviflora is native to Mexico and has spread worldwide, mainly in temperate and subtropical regions, covering over 130 countries except Greenland [7],..." and (lines 63-65) “G. parviflora has attributes that make it highly invasive in new environments, including high levels of reproductive outputs, dispersal ability, and allelopathic effects [7]. " have links to the source [7], but in the text of the source [7] there is nothing that would correspond to the above sentences. Another example (lines 331-332) “G. parviflora in the Caucasus Mountains of Mexico, where it originates and found that temperature and elevation play an important role in its distribution [35].” is an incorrect interpretation of data from the source [35]. There are four known mountain systems in Mexico: the Sierra Nevada, the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the Sierra Madre del Sur. Which of these mountain systems do the authors consider "the Caucasus Mountains of Mexico"?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

       Firstly, we greatly appreciate the comments and suggestions for revision that you have provided for our manuscript. We have discussed these and provide the following responses: Currently, the same methods are used for similar species distribution modeling studies, and the Maxent model is widely recognized and used in these studies. Regarding the issue of high correlation among variables that you raised, we have conducted a correlation analysis to screen the variables. We have also selected relevant environmental variables as much as possible based on the biological characteristics of the invasive plant.

       Concerning the references, we have made corrections by carefully reviewing more literature, and the changes have been highlighted in the text.

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I consider the question of the meaning of the article to be fundamental. What do the authors demonstrate in this article? Predicting the potential risk area of the invasive plant? Or, the results of MaxEnt modeling according to the parameters specified by the authors? My remarks were aimed at expanding the study and its discussion so that the manuscript would provide a more scientific basis for predicting changes in the plant's range. From the authors' responses, I conclude that they do not claim to be a multi-dimensional analysis, and want to present the results of MaxEnt modeling. In this case, this should be reflected in the title of the manuscript. Add a reference to MaxEnt in the title: “based on MaxEnt model”, or “with MaxEnt model”, or “through MaxEnt modeling”, or “using MaxEnt modeling”.

The authors removed reference [7] (Warwick and Sweet, 1983) from the list and did not replace it with any other reference. But its mention remains in the text (line 60): “subtropical regions, covering over 130 countries except Greenland [7].” How should this be interpreted?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,      First and foremost, we highly appreciate your comments on our manuscript. We have made revisions thoroughly based on your suggestions. The modified sections are highlighted in red throughout the document. Specifically, the title has been revised as per your opinion. Instead of deleting references, we have replaced reference “Warwick, S.; Sweet, R.D. The biology of Canadian weeds.:58. Galinsoga parviflora and G. quadriradiata (= G. ciliata).. Can. J. Plant Sci. 1983, 63, 695-709.” with the original reference “Moore R. The biology of Canadian weeds[J]. Can J Plant Sci,1991,70(3):885”. Moreover, the order of references has been adjusted slightly. The phrase "covering more than 130 countries except Greenland" is quoted directly from reference “Liu, H.Y.; Yang, R.; Jiang, Y.Y.; Liu, Q.R. Taxonomy and distribution of invasive GalinsogaRuiz & Pavón in China. Journal of Beijing Normal University (Natural Science) 2022, 58, 216-222.”.   Best regards, Wang Junwei