Chitosan Oligosaccharide Addition to Buddhist Pine (Podocarpus macrophyllus (Thunb) Sweet) under Drought: Reponses in Ecophysiology and δ13C Abundance
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is very interesting and contains a lot of valuable information. The presented study consist of original research results.
The title accurately reflect the content of the article. Abstract fully reflects the essence of the work. The research problem and the purpose of the work have been formulated correctly, the methods adopted are correct and do not raise any objections. The results of the research were presented in a clear manner, supported by statistical analysis and correctly interpreted. The study results were confronted correctly and explained with the results of other authors. The references are properly selected. The article is grammatically and stylistically correct.
The work need only minor amendments. My comments and suggestions are in the manuscript.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
The manuscript is very interesting and contains a lot of valuable information. The presented study consists of original research results.
The title accurately reflects the content of the article. Abstract fully reflects the essence of the work. The research problem and the purpose of the work have been formulated correctly, the methods adopted are correct and do not raise any objections. The results of the research were presented in a clear manner, supported by statistical analysis and correctly interpreted. The study results were confronted correctly and explained with the results of other authors. The references are properly selected. The article is grammatically and stylistically correct.
The work need only minor amendments. My comments and suggestions are in the manuscript.
Author response: Many thanks for the positive comments for our manuscript. We will track the suggested comments in the manuscript file and make revisions accordingly. Our changes in the revised manuscript will be tracked by labelling in the renewal. The responses to specific comments were directly made in the PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall an interesting and well-designed study and one that may have implications for managed forests faced with increasing drought severity and frequency under a changing climate. I do have some suggestions about how to improve the presentation of the results. It would help the readers to have a short discussion in the introduction of drought impacts on starch similar to the one on drought impacts on delta 13C so the measurements of starches are in context and the same applies for the antioxidant enzymes. I understand that COS is an antioxidant but why were those enzymes measured and what did that explain about the seedling responses. I would also recommend revising the Conclusions section heavily. It should not be a summary of the discussion where the results are reviewed but rather a context. Given the effects of COS in this study what are the implications for further study and for management. Would aerial spraying of COS ever be economically feasible and if so what side effects ( on other organisms or the hydrology of the area) are of concern. In the introduction I was confused by the discussion of drought stress resulting in replacement of a tall canopy with wooded dwarves as well as the discussion about mortality not stopping (lines 41-42) it may be a language issue but in any case that needs to be much clearer as it sets the context for the study
Language is a significant issue with the paper and it will need a line by line review by a native English speaker/ copy editor. For example un-drought is just not idiomatically correct. I would suggest irrigated control vs drought treatment and in the figures use COS+ and COS- rather than yes and no as treatment indicators. I am always impressed by authors willing to tackle a professional paper in a language other than their native one and while there is a need for significant reworking here, the authors should be proud of the fact that they did write a paper in English that while not perfect was impressive.
Finally some smaller issues: In the methods the drought treatment is described as the addition of 310 mm of water over the July-August period. It is hard to compare that to the control as no value is given for the amount of water added to that treatment.
In Figure 4 the letters used for the significance on the root values are greek not roman.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
