Grazing as a Management Tool in Mediterranean Pastures: A Meta-Analysis Based on A Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is focused on a very important environmental problem: the  grazing management. An literature review is useful anytime, in this case for understanding the effects of animal husbandry on the natural landscape (mosaic of  habitats). The analyze of literature used in this study was carefully conducted in order to be discussed the more relevant results. 

Author Response

Thank you for your welcome of our MS. We hope the revised MS we upload now has been significantly improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors of this article used literature sources to analyze how different management practices followed by grazing activities correspond to the basic characteristics of the vegetation. Pasture management is one of the most important activities in the Mediterranean and therefore all studies regarding better understanding this process are worth of efforts. However, I consider that the manuscript needs of some improvement and you can find my comments below.

The title “Grazing as a meta-disturbance management tool in Mediterranean pastures: a literature review” could be revised as “Grazing as a management tool in Mediterranean pastures: a meta-analysis based on literature review”

In the Introduction (lines 67-68) is stated that fires, various types of cutting and “treatments for improvement” are the most important for the Mediterranean region, but further on the text concerns mostly the fires. I would suggest to shorten the text about fires moreover in the methods is mentioned that pastoral fires have not been considered. It would be better to enlarge the part about vegetation clearance together with a necessary description of the clearing practices because they are commented in the results and discussion. And please, split the paragraphs according to management practices.  Considering the aim (c) of this study, I would recommend to include a short paragraph about the shrub encroachment and why it is a problem in the Mediterranean. It is not quite clear whether the pastures considered are only for domestic animals or also for wild ones, because in the methods are included also deers.

Please, include in the methods the time period of the searched studies.

In the Results and discussion: Why in the fig. 2 only ten out of 26 references are shown? I do not think that it is necessary to retell the studies included in the meta analysis. Please, unify the measurements in Line 194 preferably in hectares (ha). It is not clear how the area (fig. 3) relates to the expected results. I would suggest to include some comparison about the regions difference or identity in the first section (3.1) of the results.

I do not know well some of the treatments like thinning, pruning, mastication. Probably other readers have same problem, therefore it would be fine if they become formulated somewhere.

The text in 3.2.1 relates to vegetation structure expressed by vegetation cover and vegetation height. There is no need to mention how many studies concern particular action. I would suggest to rearrange the text in 3.2.1 emphasizing the causal relationships between type of pre-treatment and subsequent grazing according to the result. This is applicable also for 3.2.2. Motivation for this suggestion is to answer the first aim of the study to find out the reasons and techniques used for shrubs removal. Intensity of grazing is important factor for vegetation structure. In the results this factor is rarely discussed, but to answer the second aim grazing intensity should be commented separately. Such information is included in the paragraph 4, but it must be a part of the results.

The paragraph 4 could be shortened and restrict to major findings which are important for future management. The inclusion of alien invasive species problem (lines 487-497) is redundant and does not fit to the results.

I would suggest to revise the conclusions. It is important here to  emphasize on the novelty of this synthesis, its practical value and knowledge gaps, rather than repeating some of the mentions in the text above.

Minor corrections

Please, change hectares from Ha to ha

Line 225-228 The sentence is not quite clear and should be edited.

Line 321 change neither with none

Line 449 vegetation richness or species diversity?

Throughout the text there is no need to duplicate the number of references by text and digit.

Reference [4] Line 596 Groves RH, di Castri F.(eds)

Reference [5] Line 598 – In di Castri F., etc

Reference [33] change to Arévalo

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The authors of this article used literature sources to analyze how different management practices followed by grazing activities correspond to the basic characteristics of the vegetation. Pasture management is one of the most important activities in the Mediterranean and therefore all studies regarding better understanding this process are worth of efforts. However, I consider that the manuscript needs of some improvement and you can find my comments below.

Thank you for your comments! Thanks to them we believe our MS has been significantly improved. Please find attached the original MS with track changes.

The title “Grazing as a meta-disturbance management tool in Mediterranean pastures: a literature review” could be revised as “Grazing as a management tool in Mediterranean pastures: a meta-analysis based on literature review” - Done

In the Introduction (lines 67-68) is stated that fires, various types of cutting and “treatments for improvement” are the most important for the Mediterranean region, but further on the text concerns mostly the fires. I would suggest to shorten the text about fires moreover in the methods is mentioned that pastoral fires have not been considered. It would be better to enlarge the part about vegetation clearance together with a necessary description of the clearing practices because they are commented in the results and discussion. And please, split the paragraphs according to management practices. Considering the aim (c) of this study, I would recommend to include a short paragraph about the shrub encroachment and why it is a problem in the Mediterranean. It is not quite clear whether the pastures considered are only for domestic animals or also for wild ones, because in the methods are included also deer. - Done. The text on fires has been shortened. The part about vegetation clearance has been enlarged. A description of the clearing practices is given. The paragraphs according to management practices are split. A new paragraph for shrub encroachment is included.

Please, include in the methods the time period of the searched studies. - Done. It is included.

In the Results and discussion: Why in the fig. 2 only ten out of 26 references are shown? – It is because we represented the growth rate of publishing in 5-year time interval and not the annual rate. I do not think that it is necessary to retell the studies included in the meta analysis. - Done. Please, unify the measurements in Line 194 preferably in hectares (ha). - Done. It is not clear how the area (fig. 3) relates to the expected results. - We decided to delete figure 3 since it does not contribute to the aims of the review. I would suggest to include some comparison about the regions difference or identity in the first section (3.1) of the results – Done. We added the last paragraph in section 3.1

I do not know well some of the treatments like thinning, pruning, mastication. Probably other readers have same problem; therefore, it would be fine if they become formulated somewhere. - Done. A description of the clearing practices is given in the 5^th paragraph of Introduction.

The text in 3.2.1 relates to vegetation structure expressed by vegetation cover and vegetation height. There is no need to mention how many studies concern particular action. I would suggest to rearrange the text in 3.2.1 emphasizing the causal relationships between type of pre-treatment and subsequent grazing according to the result. This is applicable also for 3.2.2. Motivation for this suggestion is to answer the first aim of the study to find out the reasons and techniques used for shrubs removal. Intensity of grazing is important factor for vegetation structure. In the results this factor is rarely discussed, but to answer the second aim grazing intensity should be commented separately. Such information is included in the paragraph 4, but it must be a part of the results. – We added the last paragraph of section 3.2, a text before the text of the last paragraph in section 3.3 and two sentences in the last paragraph of 3.4.

The paragraph 4 could be shortened and restrict to major findings which are important for future management. The inclusion of alien invasive species problem (lines 487-497) is redundant and does not fit to the results. – Done. Paragraph 4 has been shortened to those findings that are important for future management. Also, the references to alien invasive species were deleted though the whole text.  

I would suggest to revise the conclusions. It is important here to emphasize on the novelty of this synthesis, its practical value and knowledge gaps, rather than repeating some of the mentions in the text above. – Done. Conclusions has been revised according to your suggestions.

Minor corrections

Please, change hectares from Ha to ha: - Done

Line 225-228 The sentence is not quite clear and should be edited.: - Done

Line 321 change neither with none: - Done

Line 449 vegetation richness or species diversity? - In the original text is mentioned (in French) “richesse floristique”. We changed it to floristic richness.

Throughout the text there is no need to duplicate the number of references by text and digit. - Done.

Reference [4] Line 596 Groves RH, di Castri F.(eds), Reference [5] Line 598 – In di Castri F., etc – We properly modified all references.

Reference [33] change to Arévalo: - Done. All references were reformatted to be more consistent with the guidelines given by the journal.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The present study is reviewing the impact of anthropogenic interventions, like mechanical or manual shrub cutting and controlled burning combined with grazing in the MCRs. My recommendations are as follows:

1．What are (18), (16) and (12) in “These 26 publications have focused on the effects of combined grazing with other management tools on vegetation structure (18), biomass productivity (16) and floristic diversity (12)”? In addition, the abstract has a higher word count.

2．Detail issues: (1) Figure 1 lacks a north arrow and legend. (2)“Draining (D)” (3) The title of section 3.2 was missing. (4)Why write (18) and (3) repeatedly? Such as “in three (3) studies”,“in a total of eighteen (18) studies” and so on.

3．There were many sentences in the manuscript that were too long, such as one sentence occupying four lines, which greatly affects readability.

4．References in the past five years accounted for 1/4 of the total. In addition, 26 articles are a bit short and further enrichment is recommended.

5．The manuscript mentioned that 26 articles focus on three areas: vegetation structure, productivity, and floristic diversity. But when writing, the author often list the views of other literature. The paragraphs did not revolve around the arguments, and there was a lack of an overall summary of the conclusions and opinions of the literature.

6．The authors also need to further analyze the contributions of previous research, the differences of opinion, the problems to be solved, and the future direction.

7．The introduction also needs to further enrich the progress of the research field and lead to the need for a literature review.

There were many sentences in the manuscript that were too long.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Thank you for your comments! We have incorporated all of them. We believe that our MS has been significantly improved. Please find attached the original MS with track changes.

The present study is reviewing the impact of anthropogenic interventions, like mechanical or manual shrub cutting and controlled burning combined with grazing in the MCRs. My recommendations are as follows:

1．What are (18), (16) and (12) in “These 26 publications have focused on the effects of combined grazing with other management tools on vegetation structure (18), biomass productivity (16) and floristic diversity (12)”? In addition, the abstract has a higher word count. – Done. The word “publications” added after the numbers. We reduced the number of words to less than 200 (according to the instructions for authors).

2．Detail issues: (1) Figure 1 lacks a north arrow and legend. – Done (2)“Draining (D)” – Sorry but we could not find it. (3) The title of section 3.2 was missing – We rearranged the numbering. (4) Why write (18) and (3) repeatedly? Such as “in three (3) studies”,“in a total of eighteen (18) studies” and so on – Done. We changed it uniformly in the whole text.

3．There were many sentences in the manuscript that were too long, such as one sentence occupying four lines, which greatly affects readability. – Done, all long sentences were shortened.

4．References in the past five years accounted for 1/4 of the total. In addition, 26 articles are a bit short and further enrichment is recommended. - Yes, almost 1/4 of the total number of studies included in this review were published in the past 5 years (7 out of 26). We agreed that the number of 26 articles is short, but these were the only ones we found using the WOS searching engine (the keywords we used are listed in the Material and Methods), the references therein, and our database that included papers in hard copy formats. 

5．The manuscript mentioned that 26 articles focus on three areas: vegetation structure, productivity, and floristic diversity. But when writing, the author often list the views of other literature. - Our main focus of this review was to concentrate on the effects of management interventions on the major characteristics of the vegetation. We consider such characteristics as those related to vegetation structure, diversity, and productivity. Of course, in reviewing these documents we use other supporting documents of our arguments. The paragraphs did not revolve around the arguments, and there was a lack of an overall summary of the conclusions and opinions of the literature. - We believe that the new form of our article deals with this comment.

6．The authors also need to further analyze the contributions of previous research, the differences of opinion, the problems to be solved, and the future direction. - We believe the new form of our MS adequately addresses this comment. For example, future direction is addressed in the text of Conclusions.  

7．The introduction also needs to further enrich the progress of the research field and lead to the need for a literature review. – Done. The updated text of Introduction responds to the necessity for this literature review. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language: There were many sentences in the manuscript that were too long. – Done. All long sentences were shortened.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have considered all point in my review comments. The manuscript has been corrected accordingly. I have no more suggestions and think that the paper could be published in present form.

Reviewer 3 Report

The revised manuscript is significantly improved. Authors have responded my concerns. I think it is acceptable for publication.