Forest Conservation and Restoration Using the Emberger Index: Cork Oak as Study Case
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Forest conservation and restoration using the Emberger Index: cork oak as study case
Federico Vessella and Bartolomeo Schirone
The manuscript is clear, interesting and well-written. Authors used a relatively simple approach (an improved Emberger index) to understand the ecological amplitude and vulnerability of Q.suber to climate change as a case study. I think that the manuscript is suitable for Forests. However, I have some concerns that should be considered prior to acceptance.
Major concerns
Please, review carefully the layout of the figures and the corresponding legends because it is very confusing and with errors. Figure 4 is split in two non-consecutive pages (8 and 10, not a good idea), but the second part of figure 4 (page 10) shows the legend of the figure 5. Figure 6 (which should be figure 5) has likely the wrong legend (lines 269-271 is likely the correct) and the same with the next figure. I have no idea to which figure corresponds lines 291-294.
To be honest, I do not really like how the authors have approach the ‘Conclusions’ section and can be improved to be more interesting for potential readers. In particular:
- Lines 300-320 should be deleted because they are redundant with the ‘Introduction’ section, do not add (or conclude) anything relevant, and distract readers from the object of the manuscript.
- Lines 346-354: we haven’t maps of the detailed occurrence of Q. suber forests in the early 20th century (although, due to the economic importance of the tree it is very feasible to track Quercus suber distribution through historical records), but probably are very similar to early 21th century. It is a long-life tree, so the current distribution of mature forest is likely the same as 100 years ago. But the critical point is if there is published evidence of dieback or changes in the recruiting dynamics of this species in recent works (due to increased drought and temperatures) to support your interesting work. Tree dieback and changes (failures or increases) in tree regeneration precede changes in species distributions and are the key issues to understand tree responses to variation in climate. I’ve missed many published works about regeneration dynamics of Q.suber in recent years that are very interesting and relevant to discuss in this section in relation to your results. To cite three remarkable ones:
Acácio, V., Dias, F.S., Catry, F.X. et al. Canopy Cover Loss of Mediterranean Oak Woodlands: Long-term Effects of Management and Climate. Ecosystems 24, 1775–1791 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-021-00617-9
Montero-Muñoz, J.L., Ureña, C., Navarro, D. et al. Regeneration dynamics in fragmented landscapes at the leading edge of distribution: Quercus suber woodlands as a study case. Plant Soil 467, 311–327 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-021-05077-7
Rossetti I, Bagella S (2014) Mediterranean Quercus suber wooded grasslands risk disappearance: new evidences from Sardinia (Italy). For Ecol Manag 329:148–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2014.06.010
And of course, you know your own works, so I think it is interesting to comment on what this manuscript adds to previous models forescasted with more sophisticated tools (Vessella F, López-Tirado J, Simeone MC, Schirone B, Hidalgo PJ (2017) A tree species range in the face of climate change: cork oak as a study case for the Mediterranean biome. Eur J Forest Res 136:555–569. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-017-1055-2).
Minos concerns:
Table 2 does not add any relevant information that is not previously showed in figures. You can move it to supplementary material.
Line 284: droughtiness, not draughtiness
In the ‘References’ section, please, put the scientific names in italics.
Author Response
Dear reviewer #1,
please see enclosed our comments about your concerns. We agree to change the manuscript according to your suggestions. Thank you for your efforts in improving the paper.
Your sincerely
Bartolomeo Schirone
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Paper by Federico Vessella and Bartolomeo Schirone entitled “Forest conservation and restoration using the Emberger Index: cork oak as study case” presents a very interesting issue which is the use of Emberger Index in the projection of phytoecological conditions, here optimal for Quercus suber. The authors focused not only on the current distribution of the studied species in the Mediterranean region on the background of a climatogram created using Emberger’s index, but also based on future climatic scenarios, they were able to project the distribution of the cork oak in 2050 and 2070. Their results showed that most of the refugia of the cork oak may become significantly depleted or even disappear because of their location outside the area with optimal climatic conditions.
I found this paper very interesting. I appreciate that the authors gave the new quality to the already known Emberger’s index, but also went further and used it for the projection of future changes in the distribution of this crucial species. As such this paper and described method should be of high interest to scientists exploring changes in species ranges as well as foresters who are mainly responsible for wood production.
However, the paper still needs minor revision. First of all there is some confusion with the figures. The captions to the figures (starting from the Figure 4) do not correspond to their content and it seems to me that one of the figures was not included in the paper at all. Second, in two places authors cite online sources. I suppose they meant Supplementary material. There is only one file which is described as Supplementary material 1. But if we look into it, there are only some diagrams without any description and explanation. There is no reference to this paper as well. Therefore, I suggest improving supplementary materials and making them more informative. I also strongly encourage authors to adapt the article to the requirements of the journal especially in reference to the citation of literature sources.
Although the paper is generally well-written, there are some linguistic ambiguities. Therefore, it should be revised by a native speaker.
I would like to note that all others comments were included in the file I attached.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer #2,
please see enclosed our comments about your concerns. We agree to change the manuscript according to your suggestions. Thank you for your efforts in improving the paper.
Your sincerely
Bartolomeo Schirone
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I have no comments. Interesting work.
