1997–2016, Twenty Years of Pollen Monitoring Activity in Rome Tor Vergata (Rome South-East): Trends Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is well written and interesting to read, however I see some issues that should be resolved before publishing this paper.

- This study  aims to show how global climate changes affects  plant phenology, please add meteorological data and discuss this effect in discussionn section.

- Line 239-241: "Furthermore, trends do not depend only on CO2 levels and climate change, but also on other factors, including changes in land use  and in the design of urban green spaces" . Authors should provide information of land use and green spaces in the study area.

 

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewers for their careful analysis of the manuscript and valuable suggestions that helped to improve the paper. A section on land use and vegetation changes was included, also considering data and maps from the Corine Land Cover Copernicus service.

The introduction was revised based on the reviewers' suggestions.

In light of your comments, the authors thought it appropriate to modify the part on statistical analysis.

 

REVIEW 1

The paper is well written and interesting to read, however I see some issues that should be resolved before publishing this paper.

- This study aims to show how global climate changes affects  plant phenology, please add meteorological data and discuss this effect in discussionn section.

- Line 239-241: "Furthermore, trends do not depend only on CO2 levels and climate change, but also on other factors, including changes in land use and in the design of urban green spaces" . Authors should provide information of land use and green spaces in the study area.

R.: this part has been changed

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1997-2016, twenty years of pollen monitoring activity in Rome Tor Vergata (Rome South-East): trends analysis

 

General comments

 

This study was based on a trend analysis for an Italian city. Although the results of this analysis in a new station in Europe is interesting, this work should be better organised and written. In addition, language and style should be carefully checked. Several parts of the manuscript should be extended to improve understanding and interpretation. The analysis should be also extended as in the current way it does not represent well the relationship between pollen and climate parameters. Other interesting processes of the global change should be introduced in the analysis such as land-use and vegetation transformation.

 

- The statement "...climate change is influencing the phenology...with an increase in the level of pollen in the atmosphere leading to an increase of cases of pollinosis and asthma" indicated in the abstract and exposed along the complete manuscript is a generalisation which should be considered. It is right that in general lines, pollen seasons for most of the species are increasing duration and intensity, however there are examples showing no trends or the opposite past trends and forecasts. Therefore, the response to climate change should be species-dependent and should be studied case by case.

 

- The introduction is developed in too general terms and the issue of the effect of climate change on pollen patterns is not well explained and the background of the knowledge on this regard is not sufficiently presented. I think the authors should check relevant previous publications in this topic in order to establish the adequate hypotheses. In addition, the authors did not show adequately the objectives of this study.

 

- The authors should homogenise and standardise the aerobiological terminology along the text following the rules agreed by the main scientific societies. Explain a little more about the aerobiological methods (location of the pollen trap, surrounding vegetation and land-uses, height, time resolution, etc.). I recommend using the term "pollen type" instead "taxon" since the analysis is based on morphological types of pollen even belonging to different taxa, e.g. Carpinus/Ostrya or Cupressaceae/Taxaceae.

 

- In general, the captions of figures and tables should be extended to more informative.

 

- The analysis of data should be improved since the relationships between pollen and meteorological parameters are not well analysed. The authors have carried out a huge number of correlation and other statistical analysis such as Wilcoxon test which were not shown. Think about the relevance of these analysis and incorporate those of interest, or think a better representation of the results, e.g. graphical representation, supplementary materials, etc. There are a lot of previous works showing pollen trends for even numerous aerobiological stations, check and select the best representations to synthetise all the information to make it clear for the readers of this manuscript.

 

- In parallel to the climatic analysis, the authors could incorporate an analysis of land-use and vegetation changes using different years of the CORINE Land Cover available in the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. It would be interesting because changes in pollen patterns depend on different processes of the global change.

 

- Discussion section should be extended with interpretations and the findings of a more profound analysis of the data. The authors should discuss their results in the context of the previous findings. What do you think about your results mainly significant for herbaceous pollen types and non-significant for woody species? These are the opposite findings that those obtained in other studies (Ziello et al. 2012), and in general for most of the previous works in Europe.

 

Ziello, C., Sparks, T.H., Estrella, N., Belmonte, J., Bergmann, K.C., Bucher, E., Brighetti, M.A., Damialis, A., Detandt, M., Galán, C., Gehrig, R., Grewling, L., Gutiérrez Bustillo, A.M., Hallsdóttir, M., Kockhans-Bieda, M.-C., De Linares, C., Myszkowska, D., Pàldy, A., Sánchez, A., Smith, M., Thibaudon, M., Travaglini, A., Uruska, A., Valencia-Barrera, R.M., Vokou, D., Wachter, R., de Weger, L.A., Menzel, A., 2012. Changes to airborne pollen counts across Europe. PLoS ONE 7, e34076. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034076

 

Specific comments

 

- Introduction (lines 43-49):  It is not very clear these lines about uncertainties. Please rewrite and explain better in the context of this study.

 

- Introduction (lines 56-57): Explain better this statement. ¿What is the aspect little known of the climate processes in relation to the phenomenon of the climate change?

 

- Introduction (lines 58-60): Do not confound causes, indicators and effects of the climate change.

 

- Materials and methods (lines 85-90): Check the publication of Galán et al. (2017) and homogenise and standardise the aerobiological terminology in materials and methods and along the text following the rules agreed by the main scientific societies.

 

Galán, C., Ariatti, A., Bonini, M., Clot, B., Crouzy, B., Dahl, A., Fernandez-González, D., Frenguelli, G., Gehrig, R., Isard, S., Levetin, E., Li, D.W., Mandrioli, P., Rogers, C.A., Thibaudon, M., Sauliene, I., Skjoth, C., Smith, M., Sofiev, M., 2017. Recommended terminology for aerobiological studies. Aerobiologia 33, 293–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-017-9496-0.

 

- Materials and Methods (lines 105-107): The definition of the pollen season is a crucial point in a trend analysis of phenological parameters. How the definition of the pollen season could influence in the interpretation of the findings (Tasioulis et al., 2022). Numerous authors check their results using different method to ensure that their findings are robust:

 

Gehrig, R., Clot, B., 2021. 50 Years of Pollen Monitoring in Basel (Switzerland) Demonstrate the Influence of Climate Change on Airborne Pollen. Front.Allergy 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/falgy.2021.677159

 

Picornell, A., Maya-Manzano, J.M., Fernández-Ramos, M., Hidalgo-Barquero, J.J., Pecero-Casimiro, R., Ruiz-Mata, R., De Gálvez-Montañez, E., Del Mar Trigo, M., Recio, M., Fernández-Rodríguez, S., 2024. Effects of climate change on Platanus flowering in Western Mediterranean cities: Current trends and future projections. Science of The Total Environment 906, 167800. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167800

 

Tasioulis, T., Karatzas, K., Charalampopoulos, A., Damialis, A., Vokou, D., 2022. Five ways to define a pollen season: exploring congruence and disparity in its attributes and their long-term trends. Aerobiologia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-021-09735-2

 

- Materials and Methods (lines 122-124): Why this two periods J-A and A-A were considered? Usually seasonal periods SON-1, DJF, MAM and JJA are considered taking into account the autumn and December of the previous year as it is mainly relevant for the phenology of woody species. Which pollen types have been analysed associated to each meteorological period J-A or A-A?

 

- Materials and Methods (lines 131-132): What are the differences between linear regression analysis and RMA linear regression analysis? Why this type of regression has been selected in this study?

 

- Results (lines 140-141): It is difficult to think in pollen data following a Gaussian distribution based on the nature of data with a great proportion of low values.

 

- Results (tables and figures): "API" has not been defined in the materials and methods section. Units should be indicated.

 

- Results (lines 189-207): The authors have carried out a huge number of correlation and other statistical analysis such as Wilcoxon test which were not shown. Think about the relevance of these analysis and incorporate those of interest, or think a better representation of the results, e.g. graphical representation, supplementary materials, etc.

 

- Discussion (lines 213-215): This is a speculative statement. The authors could evaluate long-term land-use changes using analytical ways for comparing land-use and vegetation mapping.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Language and style should be carefully checked

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewers for their careful analysis of the manuscript and valuable suggestions that helped to improve the paper. A section on land use and vegetation changes was included, also considering data and maps from the Corine Land Cover Copernicus service.

The introduction was revised based on the reviewers' suggestions.

In light of your comments, the authors thought it appropriate to modify the part on statistical analysis.

REVIEW 2

1997-2016, twenty years of pollen monitoring activity in Rome Tor Vergata (Rome South-East): trends analysis

 

General comments

 This study was based on a trend analysis for an Italian city. Although the results of this analysis in a new station in Europe is interesting, this work should be better organised and written. In addition, language and style should be carefully checked. Several parts of the manuscript should be extended to improve understanding and interpretation. The analysis should be also extended as in the current way it does not represent well the relationship between pollen and climate parameters. Other interesting processes of the global change should be introduced in the analysis such as land-use and vegetation transformation.

 - The statement "...climate change is influencing the phenology...with an increase in the level of pollen in the atmosphere leading to an increase of cases of pollinosis and asthma" indicated in the abstract and exposed along the complete manuscript is a generalisation which should be considered. It is right that in general lines, pollen seasons for most of the species are increasing duration and intensity, however there are examples showing no trends or the opposite past trends and forecasts. Therefore, the response to climate change should be species-dependent and should be studied case by case.

 - The introduction is developed in too general terms and the issue of the effect of climate change on pollen patterns is not well explained and the background of the knowledge on this regard is not sufficiently presented. I think the authors should check relevant previous publications in this topic in order to establish the adequate hypotheses. In addition, the authors did not show adequately the objectives of this study.

 - The authors should homogenise and standardise the aerobiological terminology along the text following the rules agreed by the main scientific societies. Explain a little more about the aerobiological methods (location of the pollen trap, surrounding vegetation and land-uses, height, time resolution, etc.). I recommend using the term "pollen type" instead "taxon" since the analysis is based on morphological types of pollen even belonging to different taxa, e.g. Carpinus/Ostrya or Cupressaceae/Taxaceae.

R.: Authors prefer to use taxon (pl. taxa) as a grouping of taxonomic categories at the level of order, class, family, genus and species. Pollen type refers to groupings on the basis of particular morphological features, not necessarily belonging to the same taxon (example Cannabis and Corylus).

 - In general, the captions of figures and tables should be extended to more informative.

 - The analysis of data should be improved since the relationships between pollen and meteorological parameters are not well analysed. The authors have carried out a huge number of correlation and other statistical analysis such as Wilcoxon test which were not shown. Think about the relevance of these analysis and incorporate those of interest, or think a better representation of the results, e.g. graphical representation, supplementary materials, etc. There are a lot of previous works showing pollen trends for even numerous aerobiological stations, check and select the best representations to synthetise all the information to make it clear for the readers of this manuscript.

 - In parallel to the climatic analysis, the authors could incorporate an analysis of land-use and vegetation changes using different years of the CORINE Land Cover available in the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. It would be interesting because changes in pollen patterns depend on different processes of the global change.

 - Discussion section should be extended with interpretations and the findings of a more profound analysis of the data. The authors should discuss their results in the context of the previous findings. What do you think about your results mainly significant for herbaceous pollen types and non-significant for woody species? These are the opposite findings that those obtained in other studies (Ziello et al. 2012), and in general for most of the previous works in Europe.

 Ziello, C., Sparks, T.H., Estrella, N., Belmonte, J., Bergmann, K.C., Bucher, E., Brighetti, M.A., Damialis, A., Detandt, M., Galán, C., Gehrig, R., Grewling, L., Gutiérrez Bustillo, A.M., Hallsdóttir, M., Kockhans-Bieda, M.-C., De Linares, C., Myszkowska, D., Pàldy, A., Sánchez, A., Smith, M., Thibaudon, M., Travaglini, A., Uruska, A., Valencia-Barrera, R.M., Vokou, D., Wachter, R., de Weger, L.A., Menzel, A., 2012. Changes to airborne pollen counts across Europe. PLoS ONE 7, e34076. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034076

 

Specific comments

 - Introduction (lines 43-49):  It is not very clear these lines about uncertainties. Please rewrite and explain better in the context of this study.

R.: this part has been changed

- Introduction (lines 56-57): Explain better this statement. ¿What is the aspect little known of the climate processes in relation to the phenomenon of the climate change?

R.: this part has been changed

- Introduction (lines 58-60): Do not confound causes, indicators and effects of the climate change.

R.: this part has been changed

- Materials and methods (lines 85-90): Check the publication of Galán et al. (2017) and homogenise and standardise the aerobiological terminology in materials and methods and along the text following the rules agreed by the main scientific societies.

 Galán, C., Ariatti, A., Bonini, M., Clot, B., Crouzy, B., Dahl, A., Fernandez-González, D., Frenguelli, G., Gehrig, R., Isard, S., Levetin, E., Li, D.W., Mandrioli, P., Rogers, C.A., Thibaudon, M., Sauliene, I., Skjoth, C., Smith, M., Sofiev, M., 2017. Recommended terminology for aerobiological studies. Aerobiologia 33, 293–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-017-9496-0.

R.: aerobiological terminology has been corrected

 - Materials and Methods (lines 105-107): The definition of the pollen season is a crucial point in a trend analysis of phenological parameters. How the definition of the pollen season could influence in the interpretation of the findings (Tasioulis et al., 2022). Numerous authors check their results using different method to ensure that their findings are robust:

 Gehrig, R., Clot, B., 2021. 50 Years of Pollen Monitoring in Basel (Switzerland) Demonstrate the Influence of Climate Change on Airborne Pollen. Front.Allergy 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/falgy.2021.677159

 Picornell, A., Maya-Manzano, J.M., Fernández-Ramos, M., Hidalgo-Barquero, J.J., Pecero-Casimiro, R., Ruiz-Mata, R., De Gálvez-Montañez, E., Del Mar Trigo, M., Recio, M., Fernández-Rodríguez, S., 2024. Effects of climate change on Platanus flowering in Western Mediterranean cities: Current trends and future projections. Science of The Total Environment 906, 167800. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167800

 Tasioulis, T., Karatzas, K., Charalampopoulos, A., Damialis, A., Vokou, D., 2022. Five ways to define a pollen season: exploring congruence and disparity in its attributes and their long-term trends. Aerobiologia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-021-09735-2

 R.: In the course of our research activity we have had the opportunity to compare the various methods in the literature for calculating pollen season, and for studies in vegetation, the method proposed by Jager et al. (1996) is the most satisfactory and is also used by the two major Italian networks, ISPRA and SIAMA (formerly AIA). Other methods, such as the one proposed by EAACI, tend to consider the presence of pollen in relation to effects on allergic patients, and we believe are more suitable for clinical studies.

- Materials and Methods (lines 122-124): Why this two periods J-A and A-A were considered? Usually seasonal periods SON-1, DJF, MAM and JJA are considered taking into account the autumn and December of the previous year as it is mainly relevant for the phenology of woody species. Which pollen types have been analysed associated to each meteorological period J-A or A-A?

R.: among the various data processing, the periods considered best overlap with the presence of pollen in the air.

- Materials and Methods (lines 131-132): What are the differences between linear regression analysis and RMA linear regression analysis? Why this type of regression has been selected in this study?

R.: RMA linear regressionion is an analysis that accounts for errors in the measurements of both dependent and independent variables; by decreasing the sum of diagonal distances, this statistical analysis tends to minimize the error.

- Results (lines 140-141): It is difficult to think in pollen data following a Gaussian distribution based on the nature of data with a great proportion of low values.

R.: this part has been corrected

- Results (tables and figures): "API" has not been defined in the materials and methods section. Units should be indicated.

R.: this part has been corrected

- Results (lines 189-207): The authors have carried out a huge number of correlation and other statistical analysis such as Wilcoxon test which were not shown. Think about the relevance of these analysis and incorporate those of interest, or think a better representation of the results, e.g. graphical representation, supplementary materials, etc.

 R.: this part has been implemented

- Discussion (lines 213-215): This is a speculative statement. The authors could evaluate long-term land-use changes using analytical ways for comparing land-use and vegetation mapping.

R.: this part has been changed

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a very clear written manuscript and the reviewer has no one question (minor)

 

Minor

 

1.       „Pollen season limits were calculated by using the method Jäger [19] according to which the season starts when 5 percent of the total catch is reached and ends 106 when 95% is reached.“

 

Q: This is an old method and you may think about using the saison definition by the EAACI which may be more appropriate today. 

Author Response

REVIEW 3

1.      „Pollen season limits were calculated by using the method Jäger [19] according to which the season starts when 5 percent of the total catch is reached and ends 106 when 95% is reached.“

 Q: This is an old method and you may think about using the saison definition by the EAACI which may be more appropriate today. 

R.: In the course of our research activity we have had the opportunity to compare the various methods in the literature for calculating pollen season, and for studies in vegetation, the method proposed by Jager et al. (1996) is the most satisfactory and is also used by the two major Italian networks, ISPRA and SIAMA (formerly AIA). Other methods, such as the one proposed by EAACI, tend to consider the presence of pollen in relation to effects on allergic patients, and we believe are more suitable for clinical studies. 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My recommendation is accepting this manuscript.

Author Response

For review article
Summary
Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find detailed responses below and the corresponding corrections highlighted in the re-submitted files.
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Comments 1: The paper is well written and interesting to read, however I see some issues that should be resolved before publishing this paper. - This study aims to show how global climate changes affects  plant phenology, please add meteorological data and discuss this effect in discussionn section.
Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Meteorological data and related statistical analyses were implemented both in Materials and Methods and in the Discussion section. Therefore, we have change the manuscript in page 11, paragraph 3.3, and line 318-322 + page 13, paragraph 4, and line 371-372. Comments 2: Line 239-241: "Furthermore, trends do not depend only on CO2 levels and climate change, but also on other factors, including changes in land use and in the design of urban green spaces". Authors should provide information of land use and green spaces in the study area. Response 2: The section on land use was added to the manuscript (page 3-4, paragraph 2.2, and line 134-150 + page 6-7, paragraph 3, and line 240-247). The lines 239-241 have been modified (page 13, paragraph 4, and line 364-365).
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
General comments: This study was based on a trend analysis for an Italian city. Although the results of this analysis in a new station in Europe is interesting, this work should be better organised and written. In addition, language and style should be carefully checked. Several parts of the manuscript should be extended to improve understanding and interpretation. The analysis should be also extended as in the current way it does not represent well the relationship between pollen and climate parameters. Other interesting processes of the global change should be introduced in the analysis such as land-use and vegetation transformation. Response: The authors, thanks to comments from the Editor and Reviewers, have made changes to the manuscript, giving more attention to trend analysis rather than reflections on climate change. The text of the paper has been reorganised, with some paragraphs expanded or added and irrelevant statements removed; additional data and results have been included, including on the analysis of land-use change and vegetation. The language was checked by a native speaker expert.  - The statement "...climate change is influencing the phenology...with an increase in the level of pollen in the atmosphere leading to an increase of cases of pollinosis and asthma" indicated in the abstract and exposed along the complete manuscript is a generalisation which should be considered. It is right that in general lines, pollen seasons for most of the species are increasing duration and intensity, however there are examples showing no trends or the opposite past trends and forecasts. Therefore, the response to climate change should be species-dependent and should be studied case by case. Response: This part has been removed both in the abstract and in the text of the paper, as the study is not inherent to the effects of pollen on human health (page 1, paragraph Abstract, and line 12-14 + page 2, paragraph 1, and line 72-74).  - The introduction is developed in too general terms and the issue of the effect of climate change on pollen patterns is not well explained and the background of the knowledge on this regard is not sufficiently presented. I think the authors should check relevant previous publications in this topic in order to establish the adequate hypotheses. In addition, the authors did not show adequately the objectives of this study. Response: The introduction was expanded, and the objectives of the study were made more explicit (page 3, paragraph 1, and line 111-119).  - The authors should homogenise and standardise the aerobiological terminology along the text following the rules agreed by the main scientific societies. Explain a little more about the aerobiological methods (location of the pollen trap, surrounding vegetation and land-uses, height, time resolution, etc.). I recommend using the term "pollen type" instead "taxon" since the analysis is based on morphological types of pollen even belonging to different taxa, e.g. Carpinus/Ostrya or Cupressaceae/Taxaceae. Response: Authors prefer to use taxon (pl. taxa) as a grouping of taxonomic categories at the level of order, class, family, genus and species. Pollen type refers to groupings on the basis of particular morphological features, not necessarily belonging to the same taxon (example Cannabis and Corylus).  - In general, the captions of figures and tables should be extended to more informative.  - The analysis of data should be improved since the relationships between pollen and meteorological parameters are not well analysed. The authors have carried out a huge number of correlation and other statistical analysis such as Wilcoxon test which were not shown. Think about the relevance of these analysis and incorporate those of interest, or think a better representation of the results, e.g. graphical representation, supplementary materials, etc. There are a lot of previous works showing pollen trends for even numerous aerobiological stations, check and select the best representations to synthetise all the information to make it clear for the readers of this manuscript. Response: In light of your comments, the authors deemed it appropriate to modify the part on statistical analysis, implementing the data and results (page 11-12, paragraph 3, and line 318-324) .  - In parallel to the climatic analysis, the authors could incorporate an analysis of land-use and vegetation changes using different years of the CORINE Land Cover available in the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. It would be interesting because changes in pollen patterns depend on different processes of the global change. Response: The authors included a section on the processing of data available from the Copernicus CORINE Land Cover Service (page 4, paragraph 2.2, and line 134-150 + page 6-7, paragraph 3, and line 240-247).  - Discussion section should be extended with interpretations and the findings of a more profound analysis of the data. The authors should discuss their results in the context of the previous findings. What do you think about your results mainly significant for herbaceous pollen types and non-significant for woody species? These are the opposite findings that those obtained in other studies (Ziello et al. 2012), and in general for most of the previous works in Europe. Ziello, C., Sparks, T.H., Estrella, N., Belmonte, J., Bergmann, K.C., Bucher, E., Brighetti, M.A., Damialis, A., Detandt, M., Galán, C., Gehrig, R., Grewling, L., Gutiérrez Bustillo, A.M., Hallsdóttir, M., Kockhans-Bieda, M.-C., De Linares, C., Myszkowska, D., Pàldy, A., Sánchez, A., Smith, M., Thibaudon, M., Travaglini, A., Uruska, A., Valencia-Barrera, R.M., Vokou, D., Wachter, R., de Weger, L.A., Menzel, A., 2012. Changes to airborne pollen counts across Europe. PLoS ONE 7, e34076. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034076 Response: The changes in the Materials and Methods section made it possible to discuss the results in a broader context.   Specific comments Comments 1: Introduction (lines 43-49): It is not very clear these lines about uncertainties. Please rewrite and explain better in the context of this study.
Response 1: we prefer not to modify this part.

Comments 2: Introduction (lines 56-57): Explain better this statement. ¿What is the aspect little   known of the climate processes in relation to the phenomenon of the climate change?

Response 2: We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have changed the manuscript in page 2, paragraph 1, and line 64-65.

 Comments 3: Introduction (lines 58-60): Do not confound causes, indicators and effects of the climate change.

 Response 3: We agree with this comment. Therefore, we have changed the manuscript in page 2, paragraph 1, and line 64-65.

Comments 4: Materials and methods (lines 85-90): Check the publication of Galán et al. (2017) and homogenise and standardise the aerobiological terminology in materials and methods and along the text following the rules agreed by the main scientific societies.

Galán, C., Ariatti, A., Bonini, M., Clot, B., Crouzy, B., Dahl, A., Fernandez-González, D., Frenguelli, G., Gehrig, R., Isard, S., Levetin, E., Li, D.W., Mandrioli, P., Rogers, C.A., Thibaudon, M., Sauliene, I., Skjoth, C., Smith, M., Sofiev, M., 2017. Recommended terminology for aerobiological studies. Aerobiologia 33, 293–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-017-9496-0.

Response 4: We agree with this comment. Aerobiological terminology has been corrected throughout the manuscript.

Comments 5: Materials and Methods (lines 105-107): The definition of the pollen season is a crucial point in a trend analysis of phenological parameters. How the definition of the pollen season could influence in the interpretation of the findings (Tasioulis et al., 2022). Numerous authors check their results using different method to ensure that their findings are robust:

Gehrig, R., Clot, B., 2021. 50 Years of Pollen Monitoring in Basel (Switzerland) Demonstrate the Influence of Climate Change on Airborne Pollen. Front.Allergy 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/falgy.2021.677159

Picornell, A., Maya-Manzano, J.M., Fernández-Ramos, M., Hidalgo-Barquero, J.J., Pecero-Casimiro, R., Ruiz-Mata, R., De Gálvez-Montañez, E., Del Mar Trigo, M., Recio, M., Fernández-Rodríguez, S., 2024. Effects of climate change on Platanus flowering in Western Mediterranean cities: Current trends and future projections. Science of The Total Environment 906, 167800. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167800

Tasioulis, T., Karatzas, K., Charalampopoulos, A., Damialis, A., Vokou, D., 2022. Five ways to define a pollen season: exploring congruence and disparity in its attributes and their long-term trends. Aerobiologia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-021-09735-2

Response 5: In the course of our research activity we have had the opportunity to compare the various methods in the literature for calculating pollen season, and for studies in vegetation, the method proposed by Jager et al. (1996) is the most satisfactory and is also used by the two major Italian networks, ISPRA and SIAMA (formerly AIA). Other methods, such as the one proposed by EAACI, tend to consider the presence of pollen in relation to effects on allergic patients, and we believe are more suitable for clinical studies.

 Comments 6: Materials and Methods (lines 122-124): Why this two periods J-A and A-A were considered? Usually seasonal periods SON-1, DJF, MAM and JJA are considered taking into account the autumn and December of the previous year as it is mainly relevant for the phenology of woody species. Which pollen types have been analysed associated to each meteorological period J-A or A-A?

Response 6: among the various data processing, the periods considered best overlap with the presence of pollen in the air.

Comments 7: Materials and Methods (lines 131-132): What are the differences between linear regression analysis and RMA linear regression analysis? Why this type of regression has been selected in this study?

 Response 7: RMA linear regressionion is an analysis that accounts for errors in the measurements of both dependent and independent variables; by decreasing the sum of diagonal distances, this statistical analysis tends to minimize the error.

 Comments 8: Results (lines 140-141): It is difficult to think in pollen data following a Gaussian distribution based on the nature of data with a great proportion of low values.

 Response 8: We agree with this comment. This part has been corrected. We have changed the manuscript in page 7, paragraph 3, and line 248

Comments 9: Results (tables and figures): "API" has not been defined in the materials and methods section. Units should be indicated.

Response 9: We agree with this comment. This part has been corrected. We have changed API in the tables and figures.

Comments 10: Results (lines 189-207): The authors have carried out a huge number of correlation and other statistical analysis such as Wilcoxon test which were not shown. Think about the relevance of these analysis and incorporate those of interest, or think a better representation of the results, e.g. graphical representation, supplementary materials, etc.

Response 10: We agree with this comment. In this part has been implemented the text and we has been insert the Table 6. We have changed the manuscript in page 11-12, paragraph 3.3, and line 318-324.

Comments 11: Discussion (lines 213-215): This is a speculative statement. The authors could evaluate long-term land-use changes using analytical ways for comparing land-use and vegetation mapping.

Response 11: We agree with this comment. This part has been implemented. We have changed the manuscript in page 13, paragraph 4, and line 353-357.

Comments 12: Comments on the Quality of English Language.

Language and style should be carefully checked

Response 12: The language was checked by a native speaker expert.

 

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments Comments 1: „Pollen season limits were calculated by using the method Jäger [19] according to which the season starts when 5 percent of the total catch is reached and ends 106 when 95% is reached.“ Q: This is an old method and you may think about using the saison definition by the EAACI which may be more appropriate today.  Response 1: In the course of our research activity we have had the opportunity to compare the various methods in the literature for calculating pollen season, and for studies in vegetation, the method proposed by Jager et al. (1996) is the most satisfactory and is also used by the two major Italian networks, ISPRA and SIAMA (formerly AIA). Other methods, such as the one proposed by EAACI, tend to consider the presence of pollen in relation to effects on allergic patients, and we believe are more suitable for clinical studies.