Predicting Climate Change Impacts on the Rare and Endangered Horsfieldia tetratepala in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The idea of the paper was to present on the basis of a current habitat suitability map the prediction of future potential habitat distribution for Horsfieldia tetratepala in China. It was performed using species distribution modeling (SDM) with the maximum entropy model. The 19 bioclimatic variables from the current periods were extracted from the World-Clim database (http://www.worldclim.org) with a 2.5 arc-minutes resolution. MaxEnt v3.4.1 software (http://Biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/maxent/) was used to model the suitable habitat distributions of H. tetratepala based on occurrence records and climate variables. The ArcGIS 10.2 software (ESRI Inc., Redlands, CA, USA) with an add-in SDM toolbox was used to quantify the habitat suitability of H. tetratepala from the MaxEnt output results. The habitat suitability maps produced by the MaxEnt model varied from 0 to 1. Jenks' Natural Breaks method available in ArcGIS layer properties was used to reclassify the potential distribution area of the species based on the 10 percentile training presence Logistic threshold (marginal value) in the MaxEnt results.
The abstract of the paper should be improved to reflect the content of the studies. In the opinion of the reviewer, it is highly appreciated to add the methodological background of the research. The paper's abstract should then be in the logical associations to the conclusions.
The title, Predicting climate change impacts on the rare and endangered Horsfieldia tetratepala in China: conservation implications indicates that some practical information will be given in the paper on benefits strategies for conservation of this species under different climate scenarios models. In the introduction, I suppose we have some good wishes regarding the conservation of the species, but not any practical information, what is the optimum requirements in the biology of the species line 94 - 98 e.g. Locating or establishing new populations of H. tetratepala outside of extant habitats would constitute a critical action for improving the long-term conservation of this endangered species. These results could provide a robust and effective theoretical basis for conservation, management, development, and implementation of germplasm resources for H. tetratepala. I would expect, first of all, to know from the introduction what kind of climate condition is required by the species, then next what can happen under the different scenarios of climate change. So, it should be given information on the basic biology of the species in terms of optimal site conditions e.g. temperature and precipitation which is under study using modeling tools in the afterword part of the paper.
The paper seems to be written by bioinformaticians, not by a conservation biologist, while the title of the paper possesses practical content on how to protect the endangered species, which is Horsfieldia tetratepala.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall, this manuscripts presents data on species niche modelling of a highly endangered species in southern China and neigboring states including islands. English is sound, content including tables and graphics straight forward and well formatted. However, although a number of climate scenarios and models have been used, I miss still the focus on the species such as
- ecological data such as climatic conditions and soil conditions of the studies area
- basic biological data including modes of reproduction and dispersal
as this information is needed to better understand the threats and to evaluate the conservations needs
Keywords: some of the keywords appear already in the title? Why? For search engines this is redundancy
Line 37: "With the progress and development of human society and science and technology," Too broad statement, which must be really well justified - if used for the final version!!!. In (human) history there has been always "progress" and not all processes have lead to the loss of diversity nor have all processes have been completely against biodiversity!
Line 76-77: "bananas and rubbers cultivation" = ""banana and rubber cultivation""
Line 97: you may want to check the terms "conservation, management," as conservation (as opposite to preservation) implies also management of species/varieties/ecotypes/...
Line 169: "conducted in R-3.6.3.". Thus must be part of the Mat/Meth section! Not needed as a table footer
Line 190: "increase of 350.01%" = "increase of 350%"
Table 2: Really needed? Do the figures before not show everything already?
Figure 4-6: Better to delete the redundant x- and y-labels (coordinates) for the uper right figures, which alows to have larger fint sizes AND larger figures
Figure 7-8: same comments as for Figures 4-6
Discussion
Line 252-268: too general statements that are basically repetitions of the Introduction section and not addressing at all the particular species’ vulnerability Kindly skip this para and go directly to the investigates object/species
Line 290-291: "may be due to societies 290 with different development pathways in the future" needs to be more elaborated
Line 288 and 290: "is larger" or "was larger"
Line 309-320: all already known from the intro. Please revise/shorten
Line 326-329: "H. tetratepala, which is important" = "H. tetratepala is important"
Line 335: "cultivation due to it can potentially offer" wording!!
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Nothing to add, all information is well supported by research results and displayed clearly
