Climate Change Threatens Barringtonia racemosa: Conservation Insights from a MaxEnt Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I have carefully read your manuscript entitled: 'Climate Change Threatens Barringtonia racemosa: Conservation Insights from a Maxent Model'. I found it interesting and very timely, full of many insights.

However, I found the manuscript in its entirety very weak. The scientific nomenclature leaves a lot to be desired, and the capacity for expression and clarity in sentences is compromised by several writing and punctuation errors: I have corrected some, but others need to be carefully reviewed by you.

As for the methodology used, it is very up-to-date and I believe it has been followed correctly.

The bibliography consulted is sometimes insufficient to justify certain statements in the Introduction and Discussion sections. I have suggested plenty, but more should be considered and added by you. Above all, the Discussion section needs to be better articulated by relating the results obtained to your work and the bibliography cited. 

Please take note of all my comments below and in the attached file.

INTRODUCTION

- Lines 42-43: This sentence needs at leat 1-2 references. I suggest the following:

1) Linhares, Y.; Kaganski, A.; Agyare, C.; Kurnaz, I.A.; Neergheen, V.; Kolodziejczyk, B.; Kędra, M.; Wahajuddin, M.; El-Youssf, L.; de la Cruz, T.E.; et al. Biodiversity: The overlooked source of human health. Trends Mol. Med. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molmed.2022.12.002

2) Tavilla, G., Crisafulli, A., Ranno, V., Picone, R. M., Redouan, F. Z., & Giusso del Galdo, G. (2022). First contribution to the ethnobotanical knowledge in the Peloritani Mounts (NE Sicily). Research Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 2(3), 1–34. DOI: 10.31586/rjees.2022.201

- Lines 46-48: Please, add more references on these factors affecting mangrove ecosystems. I suggest the following:

1) Numbere, M.M.A.O. Mangrove Habitat Loss and the Need for the Establishment of Conservation and Protected Areas in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. In Habitats of the World—Biodiversity and Threats; IntechOpen: Rijeka, Croatia, 2019; p. 13. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.89623

2) Cano, E.; Cano-Ortiz, A.; Veloz, A.; Alatorre, J.; Otero, R. Comparative analysis between the mangrove swamps of the Caribbean and those of the State of Guerrero (Mexico). Plant Biosyst.-Int. J. Deal. All Asp. Plant Biol. 2012, 146, 112–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/11263504.2012.704885

- Lines 57-62: The concept of distribution of potential habitat suitability has not been dealt with so far and therefore the word 'hence' cannot be used as a conclusion to the previous sentence and to start a new one. It is recommended to add this short sentence first: "Predicting the potential habitats for a species in response to climate change is important for sevral issues [n1,n2]".

n1: Thakur, S.; Rai, I.D.; Singh, B.; Dutt, H.C.; Musarella, C.M. Predicting the suitable habitats of Elwendia persica (Boiss.) in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR). Plant Biosyst. 2023, 157, 769–778. https://doi.org/10.1080/11263504.2023.2204090

n2: Nan, Q.; Li, C.; Li, X.; Zheng, D.; Li, Z.; Zhao, L. Modeling the Potential Distribution Patterns of the Invasive Plant Species Phytolacca americana in China in Response to Climate Change. Plants 2024, 13, 1082. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants1308

- Line 82 (and following)

- The first time you mention a taxon in the main text (apart from the title, abstract, figures and tables), report it in full, complete with its authorship. After that, you can always report it in its standard abbreviated form. E.g.: at the first mention in the main text "Barringtonia racemosa (L.) Spreng. (Lecythidaceae)" and then "B. racemosa". However, at the beginning of a sentence "Barringtonia racemosa".

- Lines 99-103: Please, rewrite and clearly state the aim(s) of your work. The used methods should be mentioned in the next section.

- Line 105: When the rest of the sentence is in italics (as in this subheading and following) the scientific name should be written in normal font.

Lines 106-107: Please, report here and in the References list the proper citations.

- Pag. 7, Fig. 2: I think the caption of this figure has slipped out of its place. Please check it.

- Lines 160-163: Please check if you have to correlate the second sentence with the first: in this form it seems to make no sense.

- Line 227. Table 2 caption. Since figures and tables are intended to be self-explanatory, please include full scientific names with authorship in each figure and table caption.

- Line 229. Fig. 4 caption. Since figures and tables are intended to be self-explanatory, please include full scientific names with authorship in each figure and table caption. Please, check it in all the captions in the manuscript.

- Line 230. Scientific name not in italics.

- Line 416. This sentence needs at least 1 reference. I suggest the following:

1) Morgan, J. B. & Connolly, E. L. (2013) Plant-Soil Interactions: Nutrient Uptake. Nature Education Knowledge 4(8):2

- Lines 418-419: This sentence needs at least 1 reference. I suggest the following:

1) Friess, D.A.; Chua, S.C.; Jaafar, Z.; Krauss, K.W.; Yando, E.S. Mangroves and people: Impacts and interactions. Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 2021, 248, 107155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2020.107155

RESULTS

The Results section is well organised and contains a lot of information: perhaps readability and comprehensibility could be improved.

DISCUSSION

On the other hand, the Discussion section, due to the large amount of data presented in the Results, is somewhat poor and, therefore, should be improved.

CONCLUSIONS

In the Conclusions section, the take-home message must be clearer and more concrete. Try to formulate some proposals.

 

In general, improve the quality and clarity of the figures.

Other notes, comments and corrections are reported in the attached revised file.

Best regards.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English language is good, but I noticed grammatical, punctuation and stylistic errors. A revision by a native speaker might help to improve it.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Figure 6 (Page 14) - legend colour is not clearly visible with the current size of the map. May be consider to enlarge the map?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The utilization of the Maxent model has been instrumental in predicting potential suitable regions based on global distribution points and environmental variables under current and future climates conditions. However, all species distribution models need to be optimized, including MaxEnt. The authors studied the threat of climate change to Barringtonia racemose, which is very meaningful. But there is an unacceptable drawback here, that is the model has not been optimized. The default parameters of the MaxEnt model are not suitable for predicting the distribution of all species. The author needs to update the parameters of MaxEnt to ensure the effectiveness of the model in predicting the distribution of target species. As we know, slight changes in the model parameters result in significant changes in the model's results. In addition, this paper also has the following unacceptable aspects. The use of Euclidean distance in MaxEnt to avoid duplication and overfitting is unsupported by literature (without evidence). Many experimental methods in this paper are not labeled with references and there are no data sources. The layout of Figure 2 needs to be modified. Overall, I think this paper is not accepted. Based on the author's research, it still has some significance. I suggest that the author optimize the model before resubmitting it.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Suggest minor revisions to the language of the paper to improve reader fluency.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I have reviewed your submitted manuscript entitled “Climate Change Threatens Barringtonia racemosa: Conservation Insights from a Maxent Model”. Below you may find comments and suggestions.

Line 23: Please define AUC (this acronym may not be clear for readers that area not familiar with MaxEnt).

Line 106: Please define GBIF and include a link for it and China Digital Plant 106 Museum, and Royal Garden Society as well.

Line 114: Is B. racemosa also distributed in Florida?

Line 116: “(D) The detail map of B. racemosa flower”. Why do you use “map” for this photograph? That word is more frequently used in cartography.

Line 119: What do you mean for “his”. No reference was mentioned.

Line 137: Why did you use “Fructus Polygoni” as an example? There is no further information besides mentioning the emission scenarios.

Line 162:  “With a large sample size and relevant environmental variables for B. racemosa”. This sentence seems to be incomplete.

Line 171: please define the meaning of *** symbol in the chart of correlation.

Line 181: Please define “AUC”. This is the first reference to this acronym (it was defined later in line 192).

Line 263: “Cation exchange of the topsoil” was defined previously as “Total Cation Exchange Capacity” (line 254). Also, it was defined in line 360 and Table 1. Please use the same definition.

Figures 6, 7: it is quite difficult to notice the colors, even zooming the figure. Please improve all panels for these figures.

Line 291: There is a typo (in is in cursives)

This manuscript should include and discuss recent publications about the limitations of Worldclim database. These are some references, please feel free to support your discussion with those or other references.

Merkenschlager C, Bangelesa F, Paeth H, Hertig E. Blessing and curse of bioclimatic variables: A comparison of different calculation schemes and datasets for species distribution modeling within the extended Mediterranean area. Ecol Evol. 2023 Sep 28;13(10):e10553. doi: 10.1002/ece3.10553. PMID: 37780091; PMCID: PMC1053419

Cerasoli F, D'Alessandro P, Biondi M. Worldclim 2.1 versus Worldclim 1.4: Climatic niche and grid resolution affect between-version mismatches in Habitat Suitability Models predictions across Europe. Ecol Evol. 2022 Feb 14;12(2):e8430. doi: 10.1002/ece3.8430. PMID: 35222942; PMCID: PMC8844118

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the trust you have shown in me. I think your manuscript has now improved considerably as far as I'm concerned. Please, let your always consider those aspects that I explained to you in the first round of review that concern the correct presentation of scientific nomenclature. I have again made some corrections to the text that you should consider.

Congratulations for the good work done.

Best wishes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English Language is quite good and only needs a minimal review.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author's paper has been carefully revised and is now acceptable. I have the following minor suggestions. The map boundaries made in Figures 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 are not clear, and the color resolution is not sufficient. I suggest the author to make modifications. Figures 8, 9, 10 and 11 should be merged into one figure. The language requires the author to make subtle modifications.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language requires the author to make subtle modifications.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Please find below comments and suggestions for your revised manuscript "Climate Change Threatens Barringtonia racemosa: Conservation Insights from a MaxEnt Model".

Line 69: a period is missed after [10].

Line 66: there is a typo ("sev ral")

Line 85: please change "Coastal" for "coastal" (capital letter is not necessary here).

Line 117: Could you provide a reference name for jingweidu.bmcx.com website please? This website is available in chinese only.

Line 236: a period is missed after “Figure 3”.

Line 114: I consider that including the distribution points in Florida are quite confusing. Those records in GBIF are preserved specimens as mentioned in that database. Please clarify this, I insist that is quite confusing for readers, did you include those records in MaxEnt? If this study focused on Asia, Oceania and Africa, what is the meaning of showing preserved specimens in Figure 1?

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx