Plant Trait Assembly in Species-Rich Forests at Varying Elevations in the Northwest Andes of Colombia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript of Ochoa et al. “Plant trait assembly in species-rich forest along elevation…” is a descriptive study that search for relationships between plant functional types, richness and environmental conditions. The manuscript is a description of these relationships in a restricted data set, however they offer interesting results base on the supported data. The manuscript is clear, the language is well edited and easy to follow, but as I commented before, my main concern is related with the descriptive character of the manuscript as well as the restricted sampling provided. Also, one of the most interesting sources of information, species richness, although they account with that information, is poorly analyzed.

More specific comments about the manuscript:

• The edition of the manuscript is required, i.e. some adjectives are not appropriated for a scientific journal (“astonishing”), also scientific names should go in italics (page 7), and some typos should be corrected (Tuckey should be Tukey in page 8, foot of figure 3). The acronyms should be fully spelled the first time use (DA, RQL…)… the superscript of units should appears correctly (figure foot)…
• Study area: How the plots were stablished? Randomly, systematically, subjectively…
• Although the manuscript is analyzing environmental conditions related with altitude and temperature, there is nothing related with climate change in this study, and the relationships are highly speculative, remove any comment about that (abstract or conclusions).
• Introduction: It should be reduced in a 50%, centering the frame of the study in the main characteristics that will be analyzed in this study. Being a descriptive study it doesn´t need more deeply justification.
• The last paragraph of the introduction is very important. I will suggest the authors to transform this paragraph in a set of hypotheses to test. Although the manuscript is descriptive, it is possible to stablish hypotheses and confirm these ones with the proposed analyses. i.e. Tree functional traits change along the altitudinal gradient; relationships; size of the trees determined plant functional traits as an indicator of resource availability… It will increase the interest for an intentional readership.
• Page 5, second paragraph: It is very important to know the sampling effort on these studies, but it is difficult to follow. Maybe to clarify this aspect it will be good to provide a table indicating the number of samples taken for each functional type.
• Figure 3 needs more information… the axes of all figures should have a title (abscissa and ordinated), and a head title… it is also necessary for figure 3b and c…
• Discussion length should be reduced in a 50%, centering the comments in the most important results obtained and avoiding some further speculations of a descriptive study difficult to extrapolated to some other areas (i.e. is difficult to related your results with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, or it is difficult to know how is happening symbiotic root association with plant adaptation plasticity… obviously they can be related, but are difficult to extrapolated form your study.

Base of the obtained results I will recommend a reduction of the manuscript length as indicated, and a more restricted and conservative discussion about these results. Also a better graphs presentation and better explanation of the sampling is required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The study deals with the assembly of functional traits in tropical forests. The research questions investigated are interesting and the data collected, as well as the methods employed adequate for addressing these questions. The results produced are very interesting and the discussion is written in a clear way. Although I am not English native speaker, I could say that the language suffers from some mistakes that should be corrected. Below I give few more detailed comments that may contribute to the clarification or correction of few issues.

Line 29: I would suggest omitting the last sentence of the abstract. Climate change and species response to this change are not directly discussed in this study and there is no need to involve this “popular” scientific subject in the abstract. Just a suggestion.

Lines 49-51: Please, specify the type of ecosystem or climate in which these studies are referring. I do not think that this pattern is true in certain ecosystems or climate types (e.g., in the Mediterranean ecosystems).

Line 118: “and the colors of the squares represent the change”. Please correct; the shapes of the symbols are changed according to elevation. Also, the background color of the map is changed according to altitude. Please, explain this in the figure’s caption.

Line 122: Please clarify what it was measured for each tree.

Line 133: Please, clarify what it was used as a metric of species/morphospecies abundance (e.g. number of individuals, DBH?)

Line 181: in other plots?

Trait sampling (Q matrix): I strongly suggest to include citations in this section about the methods you used to measure the specific traits or to shortly describe these methods in the appendix. Please, include in the description the type of instruments and software used for these measurements.

Line 194: Please, explain how species abundance was treated for the calculation of CWMs.

Line 202: The RLQ assigns scores to each species, sample, trait, and environmental variable ??

Line 210: Please, justify your choice of this specific model.

Line 214: The relevant information included in the appendix concerns mostly theory about these methods. I do not understand the need to include in the appendix that information about the RLQ and the fourth corner analysis. I would suggest to omit this part, except the case that you can justify its usefulness.

Line 228: “the permutation procedure describe above” This is not clear. Please, describe in short.

Line 252: I think that the number of groups was determined by the elbow method and the groups were determined by the k-means method. RLQ does not provide grouping. Please, correct.  

Line 256 and elsewhere: Please, write botanical names in italics. Also, add in the material and methods something about the nomenclature you applied.

Lines 294-296: I do not understand it. Probably it needs rephrasing.

Lines 316-318: I am not sure that the text is understandable. Please, check.

Line 376: “that in an environments” Please, check.

Line 392: “P was not a limiting for trait development” Please, check.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised manuscript of Ochoa et al. has improved significatively from the last version...  Now it fits much better the format The figures have been improved and also the reduction of much of the text with poor relation with the subject of the study. Still some minor suggestions are made:
-Still the authors do not indicate how they established the permanent plots: Subjectively following the interest of the researchers? if so, it should be indicated...- Remove on line 50: To our knowledge... till the end of the paragraph. To speculative- Remove conclusions, after all it just repeats the same information of the discussion.
I consider the manuscript acceptable now...
Un saludo
regards

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

"Please see the attachment." 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx