A Survey of the Knowledge of Truffles among Polish Foresters and Implications for Environmental Education

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is an interesting study based on surveys done to foresters. It is focused on the knowledge of truffles by forest managers (among others). The study is well conducted and the results seem to be interesting for a restricted audience than want to know about this interesting group of hypogeous fungi. There are some minor concerns that should be improved along the text and there are some methodological faults that should be re-conducted.

General remarks:

Title: The present title is a little ambitious because the rebuilding and enhancement of the knowledge of this species is carried on using surveys and not forest education. I propose an alternative one including the term ‘survey’ as the tool for improve the knowledge.

Material and Methods: It is well explained and the content is clear. Nevertheless, there is some missing information that is relevant for the study. How the data was collected? It was sent via mail to the stakeholders? Or it was based on an interview done by pollsters?  Was the data collected during one year or more?

Results: They can become a table to make the results more readable. In the present form are difficult to follow. The alternative is a table with all the results clearly expressed and a brief text with the most relevant issues.

Discussion: I am really surprise because table 1 (results about sources of information) is stated in the discussion section. It should be moved to results and commented in this section and then discussed in the corresponding section.

Specific comments:

-          Line 60. There are any reference for the estimation of 1000 sp. Of edible mushrooms in Polish?

-          Table 1. To avoid conflicts, the unit expressed in ac (acres) should be omitted as it is not considered in the International System of units.

-          Table 3. There are some mistakes in the quotation of questions 6 & 7.

-          Line 106. A full stop is missing before …. For our analysis….

-          Table 5. Quotation 8, in answer code it is stated: 2 – yes, sometimes. According to table 3 it should be 2 – yes, rarely.

-          Table 5. Quotation 28. The author of the occurring species is only expressed for Tuber excavatum. It should be homogeneous, all cited the first time along the text is the recommended structure.

 

Author Response

Responses to Reviewer 1

 

We are grateful for all remarks. In the text of revised manuscript the changes made according to Reviewer 1^st  are indicated in yellow. Below our answers are in red.

 

1. Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report
( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required
( ) Moderate English changes required
( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
(x) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

 

	Yes	Can be improved	Must be improved	Not applicable
Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all   relevant references?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Is the research design appropriate?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Are the methods adequately described?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the results clearly presented?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the conclusions supported by the results?	(x)	( )	( )	( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

It is an interesting study based on surveys done to foresters. It is focused on the knowledge of truffles by forest managers (among others). The study is well conducted and the results seem to be interesting for a restricted audience than want to know about this interesting group of hypogeous fungi. There are some minor concerns that should be improved along the text and there are some methodological faults that should be re-conducted.

Thank you very much for your appreciation of our work.

General remarks:

Title: The present title is a little ambitious because the rebuilding and enhancement of the knowledge of this species is carried on using surveys and not forest education. I propose an alternative one including the term ‘survey’ as the tool for improve the knowledge.

We fully agree with the remark. We changed the title.

Material and Methods: It is well explained and the content is clear. Nevertheless, there is some missing information that is relevant for the study. How the data was collected? It was sent via mail to the stakeholders? Or it was based on an interview done by pollsters?  Was the data collected during one year or more?

In line 108-110 we put the missing data.

Results: They can become a table to make the results more readable. In the present form are difficult to follow. The alternative is a table with all the results clearly expressed and a brief text with the most relevant issues.

We put the table with results.

Discussion: I am really surprise because table 1 (results about sources of information) is stated in the discussion section. It should be moved to results and commented in this section and then discussed in the corresponding section.

We have changed it according to the suggestion.

Specific comments:

-          Line 60. There are any reference for the estimation of 1000 sp. Of edible mushrooms in Polish?

We implemented the reference, now in line 61.

-          Table 1. To avoid conflicts, the unit expressed in ac (acres) should be omitted as it is not considered in the International System of units.

We removed the table and the unit is also removed from the text.

-          Table 3. There are some mistakes in the quotation of questions 6 & 7.

We corrected the mistakes.

-          Line 106. A full stop is missing before …. For our analysis….

Done.

-          Table 5. Quotation 8, in answer code it is stated: 2 – yes, sometimes. According to table 3 it should be 2 – yes, rarely.

We corrected the mistakes.

 

-          Table 5. Quotation 28. The author of the occurring species is only expressed for Tuber excavatum. It should be homogeneous, all cited the first time along the text is the recommended structure.

The Table is now in appendix and it has been changed as well.

Reviewer 2 Report

The study presents results of a questionnaire distributed among polish foresters about knowledge on truffles in polish forests. The study is interesting; however, I miss a clear reasoning and would appreciate a clearer presentation of results instead of only reading the numbers in the text.

 

My point concerning reasoning is that you state in the abstract that truffles receive more attention by the public recently (Line 18-19). In the first sentence of the conclusion you state the State forest holding wishes for a greater awareness about truffles (Line 222-223). You also state in the introduction that truffles gain attention because of research projects that have been started (Line 69-70). But from all these sentences, I cannot read the real motivation for starting this questionnaire. Why is it important to ask and to know about truffles? In the introduction, I would like to read a bit more on the historical use, on the extent of this use and also about the reasons why the use has declined. You mention historical reasons at two occasions (Line 17 and line 66) but you do not explicitly mention these reasons. In addition, I miss information on the potential role of truffles in the future what would explain research projects about this group. Is it for example the potential use in the kitchen or ecotourism that you mention in the conclusion? From my point of view such things should already be mentioned in the introduction. The same is true for a paragraph on ecology and ecological importance of such species or this organismic group. You give also no real reasons for establishing the research projects that you mention in lines 69 to 74. In line 78 you state that form your point of view truffles should be part of forestry education, but you give no reason why.

 

For presentation of results, I would appreciate more graphs of the percentages. Also a table with the results would be possible, better than to have to search for the numbers in the text. I do not really see the value of table 5 for understanding the results. This table could move to an appendix, instead the real percentage numbers for the questions should be shown. In general, I miss a number on how many responses you got in total. You could add two lines to table 1 indicating the total number of distributed questionnaires and the total number of returned questionnaires.  Furthermore, it is unclear where Figure 1 comes from. Was a question about source of information part of the questionnaire? If yes, why there are only 471 answers?

 

The discussion largely repeats results and should focus in more detail on potential measures to increase knowledge about truffles also focusing on the different respondent groups (e.g. male/female; foresters working outside/foresters working in the office etc.).   

Author Response

Responses to Reviewer 2

 

We are grateful for all remarks. In the text of revised manuscript the changes made according to Reviewer 2^nd  are indicated in green. Below our answers are in red.

 

2. Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report
( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required
(x) Moderate English changes required
( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

 

	Yes	Can be improved	Must be improved	Not applicable
Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all   relevant references?	( )	( )	(x)	( )
Is the research design appropriate?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Are the methods adequately described?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the results clearly presented?	( )	( )	(x)	( )
Are the conclusions supported by the results?	( )	(x)	( )	( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study presents results of a questionnaire distributed among polish foresters about knowledge on truffles in polish forests. The study is interesting; however, I miss a clear reasoning and would appreciate a clearer presentation of results instead of only reading the numbers in the text.

 Thank you very much for your appreciation of our work. We made changes according to the suggestions.

 

My point concerning reasoning is that you state in the abstract that truffles receive more attention by the public recently (Line 18-19). In the first sentence of the conclusion you state the State forest holding wishes for a greater awareness about truffles (Line 222-223). You also state in the introduction that truffles gain attention because of research projects that have been started (Line 69-70). But from all these sentences, I cannot read the real motivation for starting this questionnaire. Why is it important to ask and to know about truffles? In the introduction, I would like to read a bit more on the historical use, on the extent of this use and also about the reasons why the use has declined. You mention historical reasons at two occasions (Line 17 and line 66) but you do not explicitly mention these reasons. In addition, I miss information on the potential role of truffles in the future what would explain research projects about this group. Is it for example the potential use in the kitchen or ecotourism that you mention in the conclusion? From my point of view such things should already be mentioned in the introduction. The same is true for a paragraph on ecology and ecological importance of such species or this organismic group. You give also no real reasons for establishing the research projects that you mention in lines 69 to 74. In line 78 you state that form your point of view truffles should be part of forestry education, but you give no reason why.

The Introduction is implemented with suggested changes, they are in line 67-79 and 88-95, in the main text in green colour.

We agree with the remarks. We implemented the lacking information. They are indicated in green in the main text, lines: 67-79 and 88-95.

 

For presentation of results, I would appreciate more graphs of the percentages. Also a table with the results would be possible, better than to have to search for the numbers in the text. I do not really see the value of table 5 for understanding the results. This table could move to an appendix, instead the real percentage numbers for the questions should be shown. In general, I miss a number on how many responses you got in total. You could add two lines to table 1 indicating the total number of distributed questionnaires and the total number of returned questionnaires.  Furthermore, it is unclear where Figure 1 comes from. Was a question about source of information part of the questionnaire? If yes, why there are only 471 answers?

 We changed the Results according to suggestion: Table 5 with results is done and some added information in line 132, 145-146, all in green colour. We added second figure to the results.

The discussion largely repeats results and should focus in more detail on potential measures to increase knowledge about truffles also focusing on the different respondent groups (e.g. male/female; foresters working outside/foresters working in the office etc.).   

The discussion is rearranged and a fragment in line 219-225 added, all in green colour.

Thank you very much.

Reviewer 3 Report

Mainly remarks

In my opinion this paper should be consider as a first step to development a major, more representative, study about  the  truffle production and environmental education project related to in Poland (the object of the authors, I think).

First, the number of interviews is very low if we considered that only cover much less than 10 % of all forest employers. From total of 2002 questionnaires (7.8 % foresters employed in Poland, Line 87) only   1100 (line23) or 1404 (Table 5) were answered.

Second, the questions send to foresters doesn't seems to reflect, from a wide point of view, a social and scientific important sound, more than  an opinion about the forester knowledge about the truffle presence in Poland (grow, heard, found, eaten in the past...).

Third, Interviewing through semi-structured design would be more appropriate, e.g. there are a clear unbalanced women/men numbers. In this way a previous study about  age/gender distribution in the forest districts may be very useful in order to  send the questionnaires to a  more representative data population.

Specific remarks

Table 1 doesn't provide very valuable information in relationship with the aim of the study. Lines 69-74 are enough to remark the National initiative/interest about truffle production. ac, what´s mean?

Table  3. There is a problem with row/question numbered. e.g. rows 6 an 7. Number 8?

Table 5. The names of Regional Directorate of State forests and the names of Forest District are not relevant information. Perhaps a spatial distribution, area and other technical data from Districts may be more useful to complete the study, e.g. all studied Districts are located in different soil type? Or are representative to all biogeographical zones of Poland?...

Table 5. Row 4 to 30 doesn't show relevant information; all of this should be summary in some lines in the text, e.g. dichotomous variables code by 0-negative and 1-positive, and so on.

Results. An extensive a so much descriptive results, summary in a table should be a good option to show these results.

Line 192. Only 0.6 % of respondents indicate that they found truffles abroad. What this mean? 0.6% is the percentage of interviewed people who travelled abroad?

Line 195-196. Some reference should be support this affirmation about women and children, and the same to lines 198-200 affirmation.

Discussion

Line 177-178.  "The research and popularization..." Is this statement a conclusion from this study? If not (I think not, table 1: only 6 experimental orchards in Poland covering 5 ha), where are the reference to support this affirmation?

Conclusions are very poor, with a little relationship with the study aim.

Author Response

Responses to Reviewer 3

 

We are grateful for all remarks. In the text of revised manuscript the changes made according to Reviewer 1^rd  are indicated in blue colour. Below our answers are in red.

 

3. Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report
( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required
( ) Moderate English changes required
( ) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
(x) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

 

	Yes	Can be improved	Must be improved	Not applicable
Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all   relevant references?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Is the research design appropriate?	( )	( )	(x)	( )
Are the methods adequately described?	( )	(x)	( )	( )
Are the results clearly presented?	( )	( )	(x)	( )
Are the conclusions supported by the results?	( )	( )	(x)	( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Mainly remarks

In my opinion this paper should be consider as a first step to development a major, more representative, study about  the  truffle production and environmental education project related to in Poland (the object of the authors, I think).

First, the number of interviews is very low if we considered that only cover much less than 10 % of all forest employers. From total of 2002 questionnaires (7.8 % foresters employed in Poland, Line 87) only   1100 (line23) or 1404 (Table 5) were answered.

Second, the questions send to foresters doesn't seems to reflect, from a wide point of view, a social and scientific important sound, more than  an opinion about the forester knowledge about the truffle presence in Poland (grow, heard, found, eaten in the past...).

Third, Interviewing through semi-structured design would be more appropriate, e.g. there are a clear unbalanced women/men numbers. In this way a previous study about  age/gender distribution in the forest districts may be very useful in order to  send the questionnaires to a  more representative data population.

Thank you for the rigorous assessment.

Specific remarks

Table 1 doesn't provide very valuable information in relationship with the aim of the study. Lines 69-74 are enough to remark the National initiative/interest about truffle production. ac, what´s mean?

We agree with the remark. The table has been removed, and the unit from the main text as well.

Table  3. There is a problem with row/question numbered. e.g. rows 6 an 7. Number 8?

It has been corrected.

Table 5. The names of Regional Directorate of State forests and the names of Forest District are not relevant information. Perhaps a spatial distribution, area and other technical data from Districts may be more useful to complete the study, e.g. all studied Districts are located in different soil type? Or are representative to all biogeographical zones of Poland?...

Table 5. Row 4 to 30 doesn't show relevant information; all of this should be summary in some lines in the text, e.g. dichotomous variables code by 0-negative and 1-positive, and so on.

The Table is now in Appendix, a new one Table 5 with results is presented.

Results. An extensive a so much descriptive results, summary in a table should be a good option to show these results.

We added the Table.

Line 192. Only 0.6 % of respondents indicate that they found truffles abroad. What this mean? 0.6% is the percentage of interviewed people who travelled abroad?

The interpretation is not like that.

Line 195-196. Some reference should be support this affirmation about women and children, and the same to lines 198-200 affirmation.

It is supported now, indicated in blue colour,  and the Discussion is rearranged.

Discussion

Line 177-178.  "The research and popularization..." Is this statement a conclusion from this study? If not (I think not, table 1: only 6 experimental orchards in Poland covering 5 ha), where are the reference to support this affirmation?

Conclusions are very poor, with a little relationship with the study aim.

The Discussion has been rearranged , we hope that now it is clear.

Thank you for your assessment.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All the amendments and suggestions have been taken into account.

Reviewer 3 Report

Please note that in Table 5, Point 9. "Only 28.45"  % is missing