The Effect of Hot Wind on Needle and Stem Water Status: Response Strategies in Resprouting and Non-Resprouting Pine Species

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor,

This manuscript has been very well written, clear, precise, and easy to understand.

I have only highlighted a few minor changes in the attached pdf file. One point I would like to mentioned here is to  "kindly make sure the scientific name of each species in the figure should be Italic".

Regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments

We have changed all figures and now all scientific names are written in italics.

We have addressed all the suggestions you made in the pdf file. We are uploading the pdf file revised. Please, note that we have made all these changes in the reviewed word document, where line numbering may be different, due to changes made following other reviewer’s suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review Report

Title: The effect of hot wind on needle and stem water status: Strategies of response in resprouting and non-resprouting pine species

 

This manuscript shows well design and data and merits publication in forest. However, there are still some minor issues that need to be revised prior to publication. Some descriptions need to be concise and clarify.

 

Comments:
1. The language of the article is generally assured, but some grammar usage should be checked
again.

2. Add the solid conclusion at the end of the abstract section according to study hypothesis
3. Add the results in the abstract in percentile like how much percent increase; how much percent decrease. 

4. Hypothesis of the study is missing; add the study gap (what is new in this study?). Authors should provide a clear research question and explain clearly what is new about your work and provide a clear hypothesis.

5. Results and discussion section of the article is weak, authors mainly focused on their results but they did not discuss them according to international standards. Moreover the writing style of results and discussion section is also ambiguous, with long and weak sentences and in a repetitive way. I am not convinced with the way of discussion of the authors, in its current form it cannot be accepted in forests. I will recommend a thorough revision of this section.

6. Quality of figures should be improved. They must be uniform in format, letter font and size should be the same as the remaining manuscript body. 

7. The conclusions should answer the hypothesis of your study and should focus on the implication of your findings. Please, avoid using abbreviations and acronyms in this section

8. Please add these latest references in the manuscript:

1.        Qiu, D., Zhu, G., Bhat, M. A., Wang, L., Liu, Y., Sang, L., Sun, N. (2023). Water use strategy of nitraria tangutorum shrubs in ecological water delivery area of the lower inland river: Based on stable isotope data. Journal of Hydrology, 624, 129918. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.129918

2.        Qiu, D., Zhu, G., Lin, X., Jiao, Y., Lu, S., Liu, J., Chen, L. (2023). Dissipation and movement of soil water in artificial forest in arid oasis areas: Cognition based on stable isotopes. CATENA, 228, 107178. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2023.107178

3.        Nie, S., Mo, S., Gao, T., Yan, B., Shen, P., Kashif, M., Jiang, C. (2023). Coupling effects of nitrate reduction and sulfur oxidation in a subtropical marine mangrove ecosystem with Spartina alterniflora invasion. Science of The Total Environment, 862, 160930. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160930

4.        Xue, Y., Bai, X., Zhao, C., Tan, Q., Li, Y., Luo, G., Long, M. (2023). Spring photosynthetic phenology of Chinese vegetation in response to climate change and its impact on net primary productivity. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 342, 109734. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109734

5. The reference of the article needs to be checked, revised and formatted.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Language, wording and paraphrasing should be carefully reviewed and improved. A native English-speaking scientist or professional English editing service must edit your manuscript.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript deals with a relevant subject to forests related with the effects of hot wind on water relations of four resprouting and non-resprouting pine species. The ms is very interesting, well written, with an interesting set of data and supported by deep and up-to-date literature. I recommend that the manuscript should be accepted after minor revision.

Specific comments:

 

1.     Line 75: angiosperms instead of Angiosperms.

2.     Line 144: PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density) instead of PAR (photosynthetically active radiation).

3.     Authors should present the main plant characteristics: plant height, plant biomass, number of needles per plant, needles biomass. Could the results have been influenced by possible differences in these characteristics? Readers want to know.

4.     Authors should write something about the choice of hot wind treatments. Why 39ºC and 70ºC?

5.     Line 150: lack of units.

1.     Authors should provide more information about the RWC methodology, namely the environmental conditions (temperature) during rehydration. Twenty hours were sufficient?

6.   Authors should use the same terminology as Paula and Pausas (2006). Saturated leaf dry matter content.

7.     Line 475: remove "In a recent study".

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx