Variability in Carbon Stocks across a Chronosequence of Masson Pine Plantations and the Trade-Off between Plant and Soil Systems
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study used a chronosequence stands to evaluate the variability of carbon stock between the plant and soil systems. The manuscript is well-written, and discussions were comprehensively done. While it was well-thought-of, I would still love to see the novelty of this study that should be highlighted in the paper. I also have a few comments below:
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Line/s |
Comments |
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9 |
‘sequestrate’ into ‘sequester’ |
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11 |
Scientific name. Genus and species must be in italics |
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16 |
‘with 0 - 20 cm’ into ‘within 0 – 20 cm’ |
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|
Put a space between a number and the percentage sign |
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29-30 |
‘Global’ into ‘global’. To many (,) in this sentence. Please simplify. |
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59 |
‘year’ into ‘years’ |
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73 |
‘large scales[21], there are carbon stocks…’ into… ‘large scales[21]. There are carbon stocks…’ |
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74 |
‘ecosystems had been..’ into ‘ecosystems that had been…’ |
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82-88 |
The specific objectives were repetitive. Please do not repeat these goals twice. |
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93 |
Please write the proper way of writing the unit (e.g. km2) |
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99 |
Please write the proper way of writing a scientific name |
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Table 1 |
On Soil Type column. IS this the proper classification of the soil in the area? Are there any standard classifications available? Please correctly write the units. What is the unit tree/hm2 in stand density? |
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Methods 2.1 |
What is the distance between each plantation? |
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183-186 |
Cut this sentence into two separate sentences. |
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Fig 1 |
I suggest you convert the unit from Mg C/quadrat into Mg C/ha basis to be easier to imagine and for comparison purposes with other works of literature. Indicate in Figure 1 a letter for each panel. In the x-axis label e.g. 7a, what is (a)? |
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Figure 2 |
Reduce the font size of the numbers written inside the barplot. It tends to overlap or be written outside the plot borderline. |
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Figures 3-4 |
Are the boxplots not statistically different across the chronosequence? |
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Figure 6 |
I love how this was presented |
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270-273 |
Is there really a need to include this paragraph in the manuscript? |
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286-292 |
Has the young plantation undergone a disturbance such as harvesting/clearcutting before it was planted with pine? Harvest residues often contribute to a large amount of woody detritus that are subject for massive decomposition over the years. |
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306 |
‘There was an decreasing trend’ into ‘There was a decreasing trend’ |
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316-317 |
Care for a reference about this sentence? |
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359-366 |
You may find more age-plant productivity insights in this paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192320301246 |
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Conclusion |
‘The plant-to-soil ecosystem carbon ratio cannot remain constant, the plant system C stock will decrease when plantations begin to decline’ What does it mean plantations will begin to decline? Please dig more into the implications of your study. Leave a brief but striking take-home message this manuscript would like to be imprinted in the readers' minds. |
Author Response
Response to reviewer’s comments
Dear Forests editors:
We are very grateful to your and the reviewer’s critical comments for our manuscript (forests-1291698). Based on those comments and suggestions, we have made careful modification on the original manuscript. Some of your questions were answered below.
A revised manuscript with the correction sections red marked highlight the changes we make in the manuscript for easy check/editing purpose. Once again, thank you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
Jie He et al.
Responses to Reviewers
Reviewer 1:
General comments
This study used a chronosequence stands to evaluate the variability of carbon stock between the plant and soil systems. The manuscript is well-written, and discussions were comprehensively done. While it was well-thought-of, I would still love to see the novelty of this study that should be highlighted in the paper. I also have a few comments below.
Response: Thank you very much for the confirmation of our work and your nice suggestions. Based on your suggestions, we revised the manuscript carefully. Our responses to your specific suggestions are provided below.
Specific comments
9 ‘sequestrate’ into ‘sequester’
Response: Thank you for your nice advice! We have revised the ‘sequestrate’ as ‘sequester’.
11 Scientific name. Genus and species must be in italics
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
16 ‘with 0 - 20 cm’ into ‘within 0 – 20 cm’
Put a space between a number and the percentage sign
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
29-30 ‘Global’ into ‘global’. To many (,) in this sentence. Please simplify.
Response: Thank you for your advice! We have revised the related description.
59 ‘year’ into ‘years’
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
73 ‘large scales[21], there are carbon stocks…’ into… ‘large scales[21]. There are carbon stocks…’
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
74 ‘ecosystems had been..’ into ‘ecosystems that had been…’
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
82-88 The specific objectives were repetitive. Please do not repeat these goals twice.
Response: Thank you for your critical suggestions. The repeated sentence has been deleted.
93 Please write the proper way of writing the unit (e.g. km2)
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
99 Please write the proper way of writing a scientific name
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
Table 1 On Soil Type column. Is this the proper classification of the soil in the area? Are there any standard classifications available? Please correctly write the units. What is the unit tree/hm2 in stand density?
Response: We are grateful for your helpful advices! Yellow soil is the main zonal soil in Guizhou province, and the classification is based on the unified soil classification system of the second national soil census. The unit tree/hm2 in stand density, we mean the number of trees per hectare. We have revised the ‘Stand density (trees/hm2)’ as ‘Tree density (individual/hm2)’, and we hope it is much clearer now.
Methods 2.1 What is the distance between each plantation?
Response: Thank you for your advice. There is at least 25 meters between sample plots to prevent interaction.
183-186 Cut this sentence into two separate sentences.
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
Fig 1 I suggest you convert the unit from Mg C/quadrat into Mg C/ha basis to be easier to imagine and for comparison purposes with other works of literature. Indicate in Figure 1 a letter for each panel. In the x-axis label e.g. 7a, what is (a)?
Response: We thank you very much for your nice suggestions. The unit of carbon density is Mg C/ha and the unit of carbon stock is Mg C, we have deleted the ‘quadrat’. In Figure 1, ‘a’ means ‘year’, we have replaced the related descriptions.
Figure 2 Reduce the font size of the numbers written inside the barplot. It tends to overlap or be written outside the plot borderline.
Response: Thanks for your nice advice! We revised the figure carefully.
Figures 3-4 Are the boxplots not statistically different across the chronosequence?
Response: Thanks for your nice advice! There are statistical differences in carbon density across the chronosequence. However, the bar chart can not reflect the data very well, so we changed it to the boxplots.
Figure 6 I love how this was presented
Response: We thank you very much for the confirmation of our work!
270-273 Is there really a need to include this paragraph in the manuscript?
Response: Thanks for your nice advice! We have deleted this paragraph in our manuscript.
286-292 Has the young plantation undergone a disturbance such as harvesting/clearcutting before it was planted with pine? Harvest residues often contribute to a large amount of woody detritus that are subject for massive decomposition over the years.
Response: Thank you for your critical suggestions. Yes, harvest residues could affect carbon content through decomposition, but there were no harvesting before young plantation was planted with pine. The national forest farm is responsible for the protection and cultivation of national forest resources, biodiversity and wildlife protection.
306 ‘There was an decreasing trend’ into ‘There was a decreasing trend’
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
316-317 Care for a reference about this sentence?
Response: Thanks for your nice advice! We have added a reference to the sentence.
359-366 You may find more age-plant productivity insights in this paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192320301246
Response: We are grateful for your helpful advices!
Conclusion ‘The plant-to-soil ecosystem carbon ratio cannot remain constant, the plant system C stock will decrease when plantations begin to decline’ What does it mean plantations will begin to decline? Please dig more into the implications of your study. Leave a brief but striking take-home message this manuscript would like to be imprinted in the readers' minds.
Response: Thanks for your nice advice! The ‘plantations begin to decline’ means forest degradation occurs with the increase of forest age. And, we have supplemented the related descriptions about implications of the study.
Thanks again!
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall I think this is a very good dataset which clearly demonstrates that with increasing the stand age, the plant biomass is increasing but soil C is declining. This is of great importance since the policy until now is considering that higher plant biomass should accelerate soil C sequestration. The paper shows that this is not always the case.
Specific comments;
- I would, however, add to the discussion section several sentences about priming of SOM.
- Spell out in the conclusion that the major take home message is that higher productivity of trees results in losses of soil C.
- Line 9 : positively affecting the global climate.
- Line 32 : after dioxide add “from the atmosphere”
- Lines 270-273: Delete the whole sentence.
- Line: 420-422: delete the paragraph.
Author Response
Response to reviewer’s comments
Dear Forests editors:
We are very grateful to your and the reviewer’s critical comments for our manuscript (forests-1291698). Based on those comments and suggestions, we have made careful modification on the original manuscript. Some of your questions were answered below.
A revised manuscript with the correction sections red marked highlight the changes we make in the manuscript for easy check/editing purpose. Once again, thank you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
Jie He et al.
Responses to Reviewers
Reviewer 2:
General comments
Overall I think this is a very good dataset which clearly demonstrates that with increasing the stand age, the plant biomass is increasing but soil C is declining. This is of great importance since the policy until now is considering that higher plant biomass should accelerate soil C sequestration. The paper shows that this is not always the case.
Response: Thank you very much for your affirmation and nice suggestions which are helpful for our future work. The follows are the responses to your specific suggestions.
Specific comments
I would, however, add to the discussion section several sentences about priming of SOM.
Response: Thank you for your nice advice! We have added related description in revised manuscript.
Spell out in the conclusion that the major take home message is that higher productivity of trees results in losses of soil C.
Response: We are grateful for your helpful advices! According to your advices, we amended the relevant part in manuscript.
Line 9 : positively affecting the global climate.
Response: Thank you for your critical suggestions! We have revised the related description.
Line 32 : after dioxide add “from the atmosphere”
Response: Done accordingly, thank you for your critical suggestions!
Lines 270-273: Delete the whole sentence.
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
Line: 420-422: delete the paragraph.
Response: Done accordingly, thanks. We have deleted the related content.
Thanks again!
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I am satisfied with the responses. Well done!
Author Response
Response to Academic Editor’s comments
- For the units “Mg C”.
Response: Thank you for your nice advice! The unit for the carbon stock is ‘Mg C’.
The units for the carbon density of plant and soil are ‘Mg C/ha’ and ‘kg/m2’, respectively.
- For the ‘8 Pg CO2 e yr-1’.
Response: Thank you for your nice advice! The ‘23.8 Pg CO2 e yr-1’ means 23.8 petagrams of CO2 equivalent in each year.
- You have addressed all the comments raised by the referees and the manuscript is now much better, reads well and makes a relevant contribution. I agree with them in that the paper presents a complete dataset of carbon stocks in a pine chronosequence. I, however, think that you should still make more effort to highlight the main contribution of the study and the novelty of the findings. I believe that the fact that ecosystem carbon stocks increased over time, specially in plant biomass as trees grow is expected. The real novelty is that this increase in the vegetation was not accompanied by an increase in soil carbon stocks. This could have relevant consequences for our estimates of the potential of carbon sequestration of forests. Meanwhile, a clear take home message as a conclusion should also be emphasised.
Response: Thank you for your nice advice! We have revised and supplemented the related description in the abstract and 5. Conclusions, and we hope the revised is satisfactory to you.
- Besides, there are still some improvements in the English needed, particularly in the abstract and Intro. I have tried to highlight some of them in the text for your consideration.
Response: Done accordingly, thanks.
