Impact of Climate Change on the Distribution of Four Closely Related Orchis (Orchidaceae) Species

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled "Impact of Climate Change on the Distribution of Four Closely Related Orchis (Orchidaceae) Species" by Alexandra Evans, Sam Janssens and Hans Jacquemyn exposes an adaptation prediction study of four common Orchis species, due to climate changes.

The present research deals with a very current topic and focuses attention on a very complex issue. Climate change in fact requires living species to adapt considerably to new ecological niches.

In this work, the authors carried out a good predictive research using an established and scientifically valid method to predict some adaptive reactions of the species under study to the increase in temperature.

In my opinion the work is well organized in all its parts, the English language is good and simple, well understanding and fluid.

The abstract summarizes the content appropriately. The introduction exposes the state of the art and the objectives in a comprehensive way.

The methods used are valid and demonstrate preparation in the specific sector.

The results are also well exposed and of good quality, and are discussed in an exhaustive way.

On the final part odùf Discussione section, in the perspectives, it could be interesting to propose an extension of the study concerning the mycorrhizal species associated to the orchid species under study, to verify if and how the symbiotic fungi can positively (or negatively) influence the plant due to climatic variations, and / or if they too can be effected in some way.

Furthermore, always in perspectives, it would be interesting to evaluate the influence of climate change in plant metabolism by means of biochemical and biomolecular tools (e.g. transcriptomics studies or expression analysis on specific target genes), in particular in the species that show a greater early adaptive capacity, in order to understand the biological mechanisms of stress response.

Finally, it should be underlined that predictive studies can have limitations inherent in the methodology itself. 

Bibliographical references are updated and appropriate.

The work is acceptable in this form for publication.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a well written and interesting manuscript, which provides new knowledge on the impact of climate change on the distribution of several orchid species. Significant effort went into generating these data and the statistics and results seem solid and convincing and are appropiately discussed. I have no comments that I think will improve the manuscript.

Author Response

Reviewer 2 gave no suggestions for improvement.