Analysis of Associated Woody and Semi-Woody Local Wild Species in Entre Ríos, Argentina: Exploring the Agricultural Potential of Hexachlamys edulis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The current status of this manuscript is not proper to accept to be published. The discussion did not go very further. The conclusion cannot be well supported by the results, or not in the current way. In general, the manuscript did not meet the criteria for publication in Sustainability, when considering the scientific significance, the display of results and figures, the discussion, and the conclusion.

1.      Introduction. The significance of this study was not well introduced. In addition, the introduction is tedious to repeat.

2.      Lines 108-111. A summarized table and figure should be attached to display the geolocation and basic plot information of the three sites.

3.      Line 115, Figure 2. To replace the dashed line shown by the author in the figure, I propose adding a horizontal axis at the top of the figure to record the variation degree of the annual mean temperature in three sites during the period from 1991 to 2021. And a similar suggestion for Figure 2.

4.      Line 132, Table 1. The indicator the author used in this table should be reordered, for example, set “Shannon_H” indicator before those that relied on it, so that the readers can easily understand the other indicators. Furthermore, this IS a table, not a figure. A similar situation also occurred in Table 3.

5.      Is there a mistake in spelling “Allophyllus edulis”?

6.      Lines 179-218. The presentation on the value (including medicinal, etc.) of the 5 important companion plants recommended for agroforestry/agriculture systems should be further simplified, or combined into one paragraph.

7.      Why not show the range of variation (mean ± stand deviation) of the biodiversity index for each site in Figure 5?

8.      Lines 159-163. The principle of the Principal Coordinates analysis (PCoA) and how to perform it in this study should be introduced in detail in Materials and Methods.

9.      Line 258, Figure 7. What did the principal coordinate 1 and 2 refer to? Which indicators did the author use to perform the Principal Coordinates analysis? What did the numbers mean in this figure, and so on, the author should specify in detail?

10.  Also, the discriminant analysis should be introduced well in the Materials and Methods.

11.  All figures and tables in this manuscript should be beautified.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript mainly discusses the potential of Hexachlamys edulis in related species Hexachlamys edulis in Argentina by methods such as biodiversity index analysis, human impact, and cluster analysis. Therefore, the potential of ecological innovation and its value in agricultural systems is studied. However, there are still some problems and minor revisions in the manuscript. The specific problems are as follows:

Line 21: How does human activity affect?

Line 105: In the Materials and methods, it is recommended to visualize the study area.

Line 106: It is recommended to add a human disturbance background in the study area. What is the approximate area of ​​this area?

Lines 179-222: It is recommended that these species that can be incorporated into the agricultural system be visualized in the article. In other words, each species should have a sample or real situation.

Lines 180, 188, 193, 201, and 205: It is recommended to increase the adaptability and tolerance of these native species. The agricultural potential depends on multiple factors, such as environmental adaptability, biodiversity, and sustainability, and it is best to introduce a multi-dimensional perspective, while only introducing economically valuable native species is not comprehensive enough.

Lines 318-325: The Discussion section does not provide an in-depth analysis of the results in the context of human disturbance. In addition, the study is limited to woody and semi-woody species and may have ignored herbs or other types of plants.

Finally, the authors need to revise the overall structure of the article, which needs subheadings, and they are lacking in research methods and results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript's topic is interesting and in the journal's scope, but it is not prepared according to the manuscript guidelines of the journal. The selection of literature is appropriate. However, I believe that some revisions and improvements could strengthen the manuscript

The introduction section should clearly state the objective of the research explain how it contributes to advancing existing knowledge in the field, and explain how the results can be applied to other species.

In the Materials and Methods section, an insufficient number of plants were monitored per location, with only 40 plants observed in total. Smaller plants and those within 5 meters of each other were excluded from the study. Including these plant groups would offer a more comprehensive analysis, providing better insight into how surrounding plant species are influenced by the growth of the test species at each site, and how the proximity of the test species affects the diversity and composition of plant species around the monitored trees. It should be explain why meteorological data are used in the manuscript

The figures are generally well done, but Figures 6 and Tables 1 and 3 needs to be provided in higher resolution, as they appear blurry in their current form.

The result section should be improved and it should avoid description of species 

 

In the discussion section, the findings of this study should be expanded and more thoroughly compared with the results of previous research

I believe that the manuscript, in its current form, is not ready for publication

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The text of the manuscript is fairly well-organized but there are some areas that require revision for clarity. I hope my comments are helpful to the authors in revising their manuscript.

Line36-38： The sentence structure is too lengthy, suggest splitting it.

Line48 ： The sentence structure is too lengthy, suggest splitting it.

Table 2: Formatting issue: The table title does not match the content. Suggestion: Ensure the table title accurately reflects the content.

Figure 1: Formatting issue: Low resolution of the figure, unclear labels. Suggestion: Increase the resolution of the figure, ensure all labels and legends are clearly visible.

Figure 2: Formatting issue: Axis labels in the figure are unclear. Suggestion: Ensure axis labels are clear, use bold or larger fonts.

Table 5: Formatting issue: Incomplete data display in the table. Suggestion: Complete all missing data to ensure the integrity of the table information.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made good revisions, and it can be accepted in this journal.

Author Response

Reply to Academic Editor
1. Summary
Thank you for your email and for the reviewers valuable feedback on our manuscript. We appreciate your time and effort and are grateful for their insightful comments, which helped us improve the quality of our work. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.
2. Questions for General Evaluation	Reviewer’s Evaluation	Response and Revisions
Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?	Yes/Can be improved/Must be improved/Not applicable
Are all the cited references relevant to the research?	Yes/Can be improved/Must be improved/Not applicable
Is the research design appropriate?	Yes/Can be improved/Must be improved/Not applicable
Are the methods adequately described?	Yes/Can be improved/Must be improved/Not applicable
Are the results clearly presented?	Yes/Can be improved/Must be improved/Not applicable
Are the conclusions supported by the results?	Yes/Can be improved/Must be improved/Not applicable
3. Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

L 71: The following paragraph:  However, despite this situation, there are still areas with low anthropogenic impact, as is the case with the riparian forest along the Uruguay River in the province of Entre Ríos.
It should start in L 77 before.” These areas….

The suggestion was accepted.

L 85: Hexachlamys edulis (O. Berg) Kausel & D. Legrand . Please delete  (H. edulis)
L 85: This native species

 

“(H. edulis)” was eliminated.

L99-108: This new paragraph should be placed in L88. Please review how it reads and polish if needed after.I suggest to delete the present L88-89….

L191-192: “This method allows for the ordering of sampling units according to a measure of similarity that reflects the relationships within the data”
Perhaps change to: “This method allows for the ordering of sampling units according to a measure of similarity of the data obtained from the different variables studied” (cite the variables in parenthesis)

Thank you for your suggestion regarding lines 191-192. In this case, however, I would like to clarify that our Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) does not examine distinct variables, but rather explores the relationships between sampling units (censuses) and species abundance through a Bray-Curtis similarity matrix. This approach allows us to capture the similarity relationships among sampling units without considering individual variables, as would be the case in a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). We hope this clarification is helpful and we are open to further adjustments if needed.

 

L 190 was modified as follows: “To conduct the Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA), we constructed a similarity matrix based on the abundance of species across different censuses, using the Bray-Curtis index.”

 

L 214: Clemantis montevidensis, replace by Clematis montevidensis

Clemantis montevidensis was replaced with Clematis montevidensis.

L 243: Figure 6, I agree with one of the reviewers that should show bars of the standard deviation (or standard error) of the mean values.

Thank you for your valuable suggestion. We have added error bars representing the standard deviation of the mean values to Figure 6, as requested.

L 268: Figure 8: the percentage of variance in the axes should be removed : it is already explained in the figure caption, where it should be. On another note, either in the text or in the caption the main variables that express each of the variations should be indicated, this is the principal coordinates. This comment was also mentioned by another reviewer. 

 

The percentage of variance in the axes was removed.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx