Varying Levels of Genetic Control and Phenotypic Plasticity in Timing of Bud Burst, Flower Opening, Leaf Senescence and Leaf Fall in Two Common Gardens of Prunus padus L.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript ''Reproductive phenology is less sensitive to environmental variation than vegetative phenology in an insect pollinated shrub species'' deals with a very important issue considering the current climate change. However, to better appreciate the research carried out and its results, I think the manuscript needs to be improved. In general, the manuscript is not straightforward, it is hard to follow. The introduction lacks references, while the first part of the discussion is too general and could be used to extend the introduction. There are hanging phrases that are unnecessary and make you lose your thread.

Title: Here you emphasize the fact that the shrub is insect-pollinated (here there should be a hyphen), but in the discussion was not deeply explored. I suggest indicating in the title only the specie name.

Material And methods

L111-116: This part would be better in the introduction.

L117: How did you perform the cut? What did you cut? The method is not clear, it is written you follow standard nursery methods, but there are no references.

L146: If you conducted the experiment in 2017, why you report climatic data only till 2014? It is also not clear how did you use the climatic data.

L154: Does this protocol have a reference?

L157-159: This part doesn't fit here, I suggest to move in the discussion.

L164-214: This paragraph is not clear. Try to simplify.

L179,197: These two formulas are hanging.

Discussion: I would move the first part of the discussion in the introduction. Try to emphasize more your results, conclusions and the importance of this research. In its present form, the importance of this research is not highlighted.

References: The journal titles journal are sometimes abbreviated and sometimes not.

 

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

The title of this paper suggests that phenology was measured in response to environmental variation, however that was not included in the experimental design. Rather the main result of this paper was lower intra-genotypic variability in flowering time, which the authors suggest may indicate lower sensitivity to environmental variation, however this link has not been tested. Thus the title and take home messages of this paper need to change to accurately reflect the study and it's results. 

In addition, I am confused about why certain decisions were made in the statistical models. For example, in line 190, you state, "Location in the models accounted for the deviating responses of the ramets of the same genotypes at the two different planting sites." If this was your intention, Location should  be included as a random rather than fixed effect. Then in table 3 you have the extimates of the effect of location and day on the timing of measured phenophases, however this does not seem to be addressing any proposed question of this study? What is the relevance of how location (common garden) and day of measurement (which I also think should be a random effect) influence phenology to the broader objectives of this study?  

I find the variance partitioning interesting, but the models need to be restructured in order to accurately partition the variance among genetic and spatiotemporal (location, day of measurement) factors. 

Because of the broad issues I see with the overall pitch of the manuscript and modeling structure, I suggest major revisions. 

Minor comments

Line 20: what do you mean by "even though bud burst
21 and flower opening concurred"?

Line 78: The timing of bud burst and flowering are often not correlated, please cite additional studies here. 

Figs 3 and 4, please make lablel on y axis more succinct and explain necessary information further in the figure legend. 

Line 102: please clarify 'variable levels of genetic control' 

Location, 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the authors efforts to address previous issues and concerns. I believe the title is much more appropriate. 

In terms of modeling structure, thank you for clarifying the purpose of the location variable (eg line 220).

I still don't understand why the day of sampling isn't a random effect or what it is supposed to signify in the models. Line 221 in the methods also does not make it clear. Your reasoning that it can't be used because of too few levels seems incorrect because there are 6 days of sampling as I understand. This really needs to be explained and clarified in the text and in the legend for Table 3. 

I find the response of lower within ramet variability for flowering versus bud break interesting, however I think the authors claiming that this suggests less environmental variability for reproductive versus vegetative phenology is too large a generalization. You only considered one reproductive phenophase (flowering) and there are many other phases, some of which have been shown to strongly respond to environmental variation (eg seed dispersal). So I would suggest that where you propose this hypothesis (abstract, discussion, conclusion), you say 'a lesser impact of changing environment on flowering than bud break" instead of "on reproductive than vegetative phenology". Also I may have missed this but it would be good to clarify that "bud burst" is "leaf bud burst", as flowers also have buds. 

And finally, I still find the labels on figs 3 and 4 too long. Perhaps this is my personal preference, but I think labels should refer to the numeric component only, so for example just saying "Proportion" and "Day (standardized)" and then explaining what these refer to specifically in the figure legends. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx