Increased Production of Tara (Caesalpinia spinosa) by Edaphoclimatic Variation in the Altitudinal Gradient of the Peruvian Andes
, Francisco De Almeida Lobo 2, Ricardo Santos Silva Amorim 3, Luiz Fernandes Silva Dionisio 4,5, Ever Nuñez Bustamante 6, Fred William Chu-Koo 1, Luís Alberto Arévalo López 1, César Oswaldo Arévalo-Hernández 1 and Carlos Abanto-Rodriguez 7Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is devoted to the analysis of the impact of local environmental factors on the morphological parameters of Tara (Caesalpinia spinosa), which is of great economic importance. Communities of this plant exist in the form of natural forests and agricultural forest plantations. The authors consider the influence of many factors (biogenic and abiogenic) that affect the general indicators of plant bioproductivity (size and weight of pods, seed endosperms). The authors compare indicators of the local environment and parameters of bioproductivity obtained by monitoring 16 plots of agroforests and 15 plots of natural forest communities. Plant characteristics and environmental parameters are analyzed using multivariate statistics (analysis), correlation matrices are analyzed, and the reliability of correlations is assessed. The main conclusions of the work indicate a higher bioproductivity of agroforests. Bioproductivity increases with the increase in calcium carbonate, total phosphorus and iron in the soil. These compounds and chemical elements in this context increase soil fertility.
Thus, the study is aimed at solving a specific practical problem.
Note:
1.The section "Weight of pods, valves, seeds and Tara gum" ( 257 - 262) is an enumeration of the parameters. Such data is best presented in tabular form or in the form of graphs.
2. The authors do not discuss data on the content of tannins in plants from natural forests and agroforests.If such data are not available in the literature, this should also be reported.
3. The conclusions describe the general features of the dynamics of plants from two types of forests. However, in fig. 3, 4,6 clearly shows that natural forests and agroforests react differently to almost all environmental factors. However, this was not mentioned in the conclusions. It is important to include phrases about these differences in the conclusions.
Recommendation: Create a map showing areas of research.
Recommendation for the future: the collected data, supplemented by the geographical coordinates of the sites where the research was carried out, can be an excellent basis for a geographic information system. The GIS format allows you to visualize the dynamics of all indicators and relationships that are obtained during the study
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you for your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I kindly ask the authors to consider these notes:
Line 25: C. spinosa – write the full name of the genus; I do not find Ponce et al., 2020 in the list of references
Line 32: Duran et al., 2021 – Duran and Mancheno, 2021
Line 56: Palacios and Bokelmann, 2017 – Palacios Bucheli and Bokelmann, 2017
Line 88: space between the number 12 and degrees Celsius
Line 95: with Table 2, list the crops
Line 103: Embrapa (2002) - please list in the bibliography
Line 114: clarify the modification of the method or state it in the list of references
Line 120: clarify the modification of the method or indicate in the list of references
Line 139: I do not find a longitude label in the equations
Line 2016: specify all parameters found in Table 2
Line 256: Weight of Tara pods, valves, seeds and gum
Line 320: Medicago sativa
Line 321: D. intortum
Line 342: space between dm-3 and of
Line 355: ... weight of Tara pod, valve, seed and gum....
Line 389: 2016. bold
Line 390: 2016. without bold
Line 393: 2014. bold; in DOI year without bold
Line 400: I do not find this reference in the text
Line 403: I do not find this reference in the text
Line: 409: please list all authors
Line: 411: Is "Cienc Invest" the full name of the magazine? If not, please state the full name.
Line 415: I do not find this reference in the text
Line 428: please list all authors
Line 453: only the first letter of the surname is capitalized
Line 458: only the first letter of the surname is capitalized
Line 468: please list all authors
Line 508: I do not find this reference in the text
Line 521: I do not find this reference in the text
Line 545: please list all authors
Line: 549: I do not find this reference in the text
Line: 558: year 2014. bold
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you for your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
