In Which Way Do the Flower Properties of the Specialist Orchid Goodyera repens Meet the Requirements of Its Generalist Pollinators?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Good job. However, it appears that the data contains more information than is presented in the manuscript. I can recommend to continue the analysis using statistical methods for reducing the dimensionality of a dataset  (for example, principal component analysis). This will help to establish the relationship of correlating factors in their influence on the components of reproductive success and to more clearly represent the difference between populations.

 

Minor remarks

Materials and Methods

L618-619 Please provide a photo or drawing of a flower indicating the scheme of measurement of the morphological variables.

K614-616 From which part of the inflorescence were flowers selected for nectar analysis?

L623-630 Please indicate how the flowers previously selected for analysis were taken into account in these calculations. Specify at what stages PR was taken into account.

L628-629 "The efficiency of pollina-628 tion in particular populations was calculated as the ratio of PR to FRS: the higher the index 629 value, the lower the pollination efficiency." Explain why the ratio of PR to FRS and not on the contrary, which would be more logical.

4.3.1. Nectar Isolation. How we took into account the dependence of the amount of nectar on the age of the flower and visits by the pollinator.

K174-176 It is better to give a percentage with fewer decimal places.

L199 Reduce the number of decimal places to 1 at 5.25%.

  Figure S1. If in Tables 1 and 3 there are replicates for calculating rs, indicate this.

Author Response

Comments are attached in the pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The reviewed paper is devoted to parameters defining potential attractiveness of an orchid species for its pollinators and the resulting fruit set. In general, this work is intriguing and, what it important, well written. No doubts authors are very experienced in research like this as evidenced from their previous papers on this topic. Due to fine style and language, it was possible to get deeper into the scientific part of this paper. I have some comments and concerns about this paper listed below.
1. In my opinion, both Introduction and especially Discussion can be shortened. Some of issues discussed by authors (and corresponding references) seem excessive, such as topics of ornitophyly or mycorrhiza. It is of utmost importance to reduce the Discussion which is at the moment unexpectedly long, with huge paragraphs. A key goal is to focus more on own results without providing too many unnecessary details from previously published papers, both own and other authors'.
2. Similarly, I suggest to shorten the Conclusions section. In my opinion, on concluding stage no comparison with other papers' results can be done, only a brief description of key findings is appropriate here.
3. As all quantitative data are acccurately presented in figures, tables, and supplement, I suggest authors to shorten the Results section via removing all (or most of) quantitative data from the text where they are very difficult to read. It is enough to reference table or figure without providing data themselves.
4. It is commonly recommended to provide SDs rather than SEs describing variation of a trait.
5. More generally, I would recommend authors to discuss their data with more caution. Firstly, correlations do not (always) mean causations. Secondly, authors made all records for only one season, so we cannot conclude how stable and reproducible both reported values and correlations are. Thirdly, visitation rate and fruit set can be influenced by parameters authors did not score, such as climatic conditions, shading, precipitation etc. Authors discussed all studied parameters exclusively in connection with attractiveness for pollinators but did not make any scores of pollinators' activity, so all suggested hypotheses are relevant but somewhat shaky.
6. Some minor comments and suggestions are available in a manuscript file (see attached).
No doubts this paper can be published provided that all suggestions are considered in the course of revision. I wish authors a good luck.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

This paper's language and style are fine. I have made some corrections in a file (see attached) mostly connected with proper usage of scientific (Latin) name and some other minor concerns. In my opinion, some language correction can be done especially regarding the punctuation but, after this manuscript is accepted for publication, these changes will be undoubtedly made by the Editorial office.

Author Response

Comments are attached in the pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf