Defective or Just Different? Observed Storm Failure in Four Urban Tree Growth Patterns
, Jason W. Miesbauer 5, Zachary Freeman 1, Christopher Harchick 2 and Brian Kane 6
Yamuna Giambastiani
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
The submitted manuscript titled „Defective or Just Different? Predicting Storm Failure in Four Urban Tree Growth Patterns” presents valuable results. Nevertheless, I have found some imperfections, which -in my opinion- should be corrected or at east clarified before an eventual publication.
Please, find them below:
1. In my opinion Abstract section should be rearanged according to main parts of manuscript: aims of investigations, methods, results and main conclusions.
2. Material and methods
· In my opinion short decription of observed tree species should be added.
· The short justification of choice of investigated traits should be added.
· Also, the short characteristics of study sites (localisation, vegetation) is necessary.
· The Figure presented study sites and layout of onvestigations would be very useful in understanding the field trial.
· Were the failed trees were compared with standing specimens? The statistical analysis of differences of studied traits (such as stem diameter, tree height etc.) would be very desirable.
3. Results
In my opinion the wide data set enables more comparisons, than presented.
Author Response
Please see attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is well written and very interesting. The authors analyze the consequences of an extreme meteorological event regarding tree damage, comparing the defects found by the visual analysis (VTA) with the failure modes.
The main result is that the defects and criticalities reported with the VTA do not prove to be decisive for the failure of trees.
The development of the paper is very simple and equally effective in demonstrating that we know little about trees, their repair mechanisms and stress resistance strategies.
Given the simplicity of the analysis, I have nothing to add that would not complicate the results.
The only thing I would suggest is to include in the analysis what are the innovative analysis techniques that could improve the forecasting capabilities. For example, the study of the mechanical behavior of the trunk and crown through dynamic analyses.
Author Response
Please see attached
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
I think that manuscript was sufficiently corrected. I do not have any further remarks.
