Negative Density Restricts the Coexistence and Spatial Distribution of Dominant Species in Subtropical Evergreen Broad-Leaved Forests in China
, Bo Jiang 1,2, Zhigao Wang 1,2, Weigao Yuan 1,2, Jinru Zhu 1,2, Tingting Li 1,2, Shaozong Yang 1,2 and Liangjin Yao 1,2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper is aimed at identifying effects of habitat heterogeneity and density on the spatial distribution of populations of dominant woody species in a secondary evergreen broad-leaved forests.
The case study has a great ecological and conservational importance. It uses a very detailed dataset, and describe well the current scientific knowledge of this topic in the Discussion.
Line 21 Different (change in lowercase letter)
Line 115-118 Please rephrase, it is confusing.
Line 140-141 Subscripts
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Plants in nature are often patchily distributed. Such aggregated distribution of plant species has excellent implications for species coexistence because it can directly affect species interaction and resource use. Many processes have been hypothesised to explain the spatial distribution of species, yet the ecological mechanisms invoking spatial aggregation remain poorly understood. Some studies have tried to estimate the relative importance of habitat heterogeneity and non-habitat clustering processes by decomposing the variance of a particular community-level summary statistic into fractions explained by environmental and geographical distances between sites. However, this community-level approach cannot distinguish the potential effects of the two types of clustering mechanisms, especially their separated effects on the spatial distribution of individual species. The problem has not been unequivocally explained and investigated so far. Therefore, I confirm the authors' opinion that “it is necessary to exclude or directly measure the effects of habitat heterogeneity when studying the effects of plant interactions on the spatial distribution of plant populations”.
The manuscript submitted for review is generally well written, logically structured, well-illustrated and easy to understand. It also addresses a subject of great interest in the scientific community. The title clearly describes the contents of the paper. The abstract is well written. The introduction is well written as it gives a good background of the research in question. I believe that the Materials and Methods section is well structured and scientifically sound. The results are well presented, figures are correct. However, the final part of the discussion needs to be supplemented with additional citations. The topic is popular among scientists, which is why I am surprised by such a small number of cited scientific articles. This will greatly improve the quality of this article.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
