Effects of Land Cover and Land Use Change on Nature’s Contributions to People of the Shade-Grown Coffee Agroecosystem: An Analysis of Cumbres de Huicicila, Nayarit, Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A brief summary :-Climate change ,depletion of natural resources, reduction in biodiversity and change in economics of agricultural productivity in present world scenario. In recent years, pests and the decrease in coffee prices have caused producers to change their agricultural activities. These changes in land use have resulted in alterations of the vegetation cover that bring with them the loss of ES. The objective of this research was to analyze the effects of land cover and land use change on the ES. This article is based on lit. review and Meta data analysis and gives an in site of past changes to asses future strategies in agriculture ecosystem.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Minor revisions of grammar are suggested

Author Response

We addressed all the reviewer's recommendations.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article will be of interest to readers because it considers changes (including predicted ones) in land use types and their impact on extremely interesting types of agroecosystems - shade-grown coffee agroecosystem.

I have the following questions and comments:

1)      Since these types of agroecosystems are not ubiquitous, I recommend adding a brief overview of similar ecosystems in other regions in the Introduction. Authors can also add a phrase about how types of coffee plantations even exist.

2)      Lines 171-176: The authors should provide a more detailed description of satellite data, in particular, resolution, dates of access

3)      Lines 188-191. The M&M says: «Shade-grown coffee agroecosystems are not defined by a specific cover group, according to Soriano [19] shade coffee grown in Cumbres de Huicicila is found between forest, rainforest and secondary vegetation ecosystems. Therefore, the coffee agroecosystem is dispersed among these three cover types, mostly in the forest type cover (Figure 4)». It is not entirely clear how then, on the basis of the division of land use types, the authors singled out coffee agroecosystem there. Apparently, this was done not on the basis of satellite images, but "from the ground." It is better to prescribe it so that the reader does not have any questions.

4)      2.2.2. Identification of trends in change and projection of land cover and land use values for the year 2030: What software did the authors use? Apparently, it was some kind of GIS. What plugin was used? What algorithms were used to verify the forecast results?

5)      Line 284: ‘extensionof’

6)      In the results, I did not see a specific quantitative impact of changing land use types on the area of coffee ecosystems.

7)      Similar works are not considered in the discussion. I didn't see any examples of work on land use change modeling, agroecosystem change modeling. It would be especially interesting to see what variants of coffee ecosystem dynamics exist in different regions.

Thus, I believe that this manuscript is interesting and can be published, but after revision. in particular, it is necessary to refine the methodological part and to consider more widely the existing studies on this topic.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

General Feedback:

The manuscript provides a local case study of land-cover change and related implications for ecosystem services (ES) produced by coffee agroecosystems in Cumbres de Huicicila, Nayarit, Mexico. The manuscript presents a clear and welcome overview of recent local land-cover changes and the potential impacts of these changes on people and the environment through the loss of coffee agroecosystems. The review of ES related to coffee ecosystems and related outcomes under the framework of Nature’s Contributions to People are a useful addition to the literature and will help inform future studies given the widespread distribution of coffee agroecosystems worldwide. The main concern I have relates to the descriptions in the modified land-cover classification system using INGEI data as it appears there may be some inconsistency there. The other major concern I have is that the manuscript appears to equate local forest cover loss 1-1 with coffee agroecosystem loss, and based on the reported extent of local coffee agroecosystems that does not appear to be true. These issues should be pretty straightforward to address with more details and/or possible reclassification of the land-covers as well as providing more qualification of the implications of the local land-cover changes on ES due to potential conversion of coffee agroecosystems and the observed predominance of conversion to grasslands.

Specific Feedback:

Pg. 1-21 – Suggest you write out “Quintero and others (2017)” rather than just the reference number to improve sentence flow. Otherwise, the reader must pause to digest [1] as a reference. Likewise for reference “[3]” below. Especially as further down in the manuscript you do write out author names rather than use the reference numbers when used in a sentence.  

Pg. 1-37 – What area of research is this topic pressing? Seems debatable to claim for all research. Suggest more precision in describing which research agenda this topic is found on.

Pg. 1-42 – Should be “human beings” or perhaps “humanity”

Pg 2-54. I think you mean “ES” and not “SE”? And again on line 61? And line 518?

Pg 3-88. I think you can be more equivocal here. It is well known and demonstrated by many authors and organizations that agricultural production is partly, if not principally, responsible for biodiversity loss. I suggest you cite some of those references. In other words, this fact is not really a “proposal” at this point.

Pg 3-122. Should be “that coffee production is currently experiencing…”

Pg 4-137. Remove the preview of “As highlights, we found a trend towards the decline of shade coffee agro-ecosystems, and with it, the loss of NCP related to biodiversity.” Save this for results and after.

Pg 5-178. Might it also be possible that your secondary vegetation class also contains some areas of secondary oak and mesophyll forests? Or are all of these two forest types mature forest? If not, I suggest amending your classification system descriptive table to note that these two types may also be classified as secondary forests, not just rainforests. Or make two classes, “Secondary Rainforests” and “Secondary Dry Forests” though this would require a new change analysis so is less ideal. Similarly, “Forests” and “Rainforests” overlap conceptually. As such, I suggest refining your table from “Forests” to “Dry Forests” or something like that and “Rainforests” as “Rainforests.” Not sure of the best approach here, but I definitely see some potential gaps in your approach to classification based on what I am seeing in your descriptions and the actual land-cover present. I think this issue can probably be addressed with revised descriptions but I am not sure given that the local biogeographical distribution of the ecosystems is unknown to me.

Pg. 7-252. Which institutional repositories did you search?

Pg. 8-284. Need to add a space: “extensionof each”

Pg. 10-342. This reference to drivers of forest loss is specific to this region or a broader region? Be more specific in describing the area referenced. Also, I find it curious that this reference does not mention conversion for pastureland when your land-cover change analysis shows that this is the greatest rate of change. I suggest (1) note where this study is referring to, (2) note that your area also appears to be threatened by pasture expansion if not implied already... While pastures could be included under “commercial agricultural practices” that is imprecise and it should be made more precise (or noted in the least) if it also includes pasture/livestock expansion. If you agree, it might also be worth adding a second example or references to note the negative impacts of pasture expansion on local communities/environment as done for oil palm. Especially given the small recent expansion of agricultural lands in your study area and relatively small expected changes relative to the large changes due to grassland expansion.

Pg 11-375. It looks like the acronym for Nature’s Contribution to People (NCP) is flipped around in the description of the table title and description to CNP. Double-check this is not an issue in other locations as well.

Pg. 16-447. What is meant by “regulatory coverage”? I am not sure “regulatory” is the correct word to use in this instance. Maybe “natural land-cover…”? Define what is meant if “regulatory” is the correct word, as it is not widely used in my experience.

Pg. 17-467. I think you need a caveat somewhere in this paper noting that potential local coffee ecosystem losses are not 1-1 matched with forest cover loss because the coffee ecosystems are found in less than 25% of the current mature forest cover. It does not need to be said so directly, but without some acknowledgment of this fact your conclusions come across as forest loss = coffee ecosystem loss = coffee ecosystem ES losses and that does not appear to be true. Rather, it is “potential ES loss.”

Pg. 17-478-501. Suggest condensing these results into fewer paragraphs and perhaps reducing the extent of the main findings reviewed. Overall, the conclusion leans towards lengthy and would ideally be synthesized a bit more to focus on the main takeaways and implications.

See above specific suggestions above on English grammar/language. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf