Towards the Conservation of Monumental Taxus baccata L. Trees of Thasos Island: Genetic Insights

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In my opinion the article is of very little value. The sample is insufficient. The whole study is based on the results of one method. There is no comparison between different populations, so it is not very correct to talk about the value of diversity high, in other populations it may be even higher. And it is not clear how the results are related to the conclusions, why these data helped to outline ways of yew conservation - everything that the authors list is a standard set for conservation of any species. And the authors did not show how to store seeds and how to introduce them into culture. I believe that this study can be considered only a preliminary one, and not an independent study that requires either scaling up to other populations or in-depth research within a given population. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments, which significantly improve our manuscript. 

Indeed, the sample is small, but we have compared our results also with international literature. Furthermore, this is the reason that the article is changed to communication. In our opinion, the article is of particular importance, because the study was carried out on isolated populations of yew growing on an island. It is reasonable that the sample size is small, because the area is limited and isolated due to the sea, but at the same time this is what gives them their specificity and uniqueness. A comparison was made between the two populations growing on the island to observe any differences between them. Our aim was to show the importance of isolated populations both to their species and to the ecosystem in which they grow. We believe that this study is crucial because it presents how necessary it is to study isolated populations no matter how small are in size are because they maintain important genetic pool.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for considering me to revise the manuscript titled “Towards conservation of monumental Taxus baccata L. trees of Thasos Island, a genetic approach”. The manuscript provides a fairly robust dataset and is well-written and well-structured. 

Suggestions 

The manuscript needs major English editing.

The title needs to be improved and reflects the obtained results

The objective of the applied experiment should be highlighted in the abstract

More details on the applied methodology are needed in the abstract

The introduction is well-written but needs more improvement and organization. Moreover, the knowledge gap, rationale, hypothesis, and objectives need more clarification.

The section of materials and methods is poorly structured and written. It should be divided into subtitles as plant materials, molecular analysis, statistical analysis, …… and should be improved.

The discussion should be improved, the obtained results should be discussed better and the importance of the results should be clarified 

The reference should be carefully revised and the format should be unified following instructions. There are many journals are abbreviated (such as “J Anim Plant Sci” in line 337) while some are not abbreviated (such as “Biological Conservation” in line 308).

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper concerns the problem of the conservation of yew in Greece (Thasos Island). It is an interesting paper because it also investigates unique tree species. The article is well-designed and done. The used literature is suitable for this paper, and it is sufficient. Report fit to the cope of Forest journal. I have a few comments, and they are below:

Please remove in abstract climate changes (because you did not investigate this element)

Keywords: don’t use the exact words as in the title

Line 38: form, not shape

Line 53: better biogeographical barrier 

Line 52-71: It is information about the site study (not introduction), so remove it to Material and methods. Adding a new subsection named Study Area, and next will be a material collection (Lines: 109-114) and following data analyses (lines 115 to the end of chapter)

In this section, please add a map of the range of T. baccata in Greece in the background of Europe,

Concerning climate: give a climate diagram for this region, which facilitates understanding the influence of climate on species.

Give some photos concerning the research area,

the genetic differentiation between populations was high; explain in more detail

Line: 188-189 – it is a repeated sentence; rewrite it

Line 194-199 – remove it and insert to the conclusion

Line 232-234 - it is a repeated sentence; rewrite it                 

Could You explain the influence of human and climate change in the development and functioning of yew? Everywhere are you writing about these elements, but you have no evidence, and you have not investigated these elements. I propose that, in conclusion, remove these elements. 

Please give in points your conclusion. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a very interesting manuscript concerning the conservation of monumental Taxus baccata L. trees of Thasos Island-Greece, with potential theoretical and  practical aspects. The manuscript is well written and the aim of this work was clearly expressed. Although the population size was small (14 individuals per population), the results showed moderate to high genetic diversity parameters, and this fact ad value to the specific manuscript.

In my opinion the second and third paragraph of the introduction section is rather extended and should be reduced.

In the material and methods section: "Sample collection was carried out from 28 trees". Please be more analytical about the selection of the sample material, the way that these samples were treated till the genetic analysis etc. Also, about the criteria, if there are, by which the selection of the 28 trees was made. These was the only trees in the island?

The results and the discussion section was well written and the conclusion highlights the results and propose future  protection and conservation measures for the Taxus baccata plants.

Thus, in my opinion, the manuscript should be minor revised

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have not changed my opinion about the insignificance of the article. However, it cannot be denied that the work was carried out using reliable methods and contains a number of new data. Any new knowledge is worthy of becoming part of world science. Therefore, probably, in the form of a short message such manuscript takes place. However, I hope that you will not stop at this stage of research and that truly large-scale comparisons will be made between isolated and more panmixos populations, which will show differences in their genotypes and possible ways to maintain the overall genetic diversity of the species.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we continue our research on this important forest species and we will make large-scale comparisons between isolated and more panmixos populations. Thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions.

With kind regards

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Ok

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you very much for your valuable comments in our manuscript.

With kind regards 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for considering me to revise the manuscript entitled “Towards conservation of monumental Taxus baccata L. trees of Thasos Island, a genetic approach”.

The manuscript needs major English editing.

The abstract lacks more details on the methodology and obtained results.

The introduction needs to be improved, the knowledge gap, and rationale, need more clarification.

Line 104: The collected 28 trees should be clarified how many belong to each population.

The applied Simple Sequence Repeats were just 8 markers which are very low numbers for assessing the level of genetic diversity of monumental Taxus baccata trees. Furthermore, the reason for selecting these 8 markers should be clarified in the materials and methods.

Exploring the degree of inbreeding of each population and the effective population size should be clarified in the results section as proposed in the objectives.

 

The discussion needs more improvement with additional literature assessing the level of genetic diversity of monumental Taxus baccata trees. The contributions of this study to conserve the species need more discussion.

 

Line 333 scientific name is wrongly written, the first letter in the genus name should be uppercase and all scientific names in the reference list should be in italics.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work of the authors is devoted to a very urgent problem, the conservation of relict yew, occupying a unique systematic in view of the presence of "fruit" in the gymnosperm.
However, the work was carried out by only one method and not very extensively. The authors distinguish on the basis of genotyping several populations with the highest diversity. It is not clear whether there were any external manifestations of the observed variations? How is the phenotype of trees related to their lower or higher genotypic diversity?
The authors only declare that trees should be preserved both in situ and in vitro. What is known about the introduction of yew into culture? How easy is it to grow on artificial media? How can the authors' study help in directed cultivation of yew?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed all the previous comments and the manuscript has been considerably improved after the revision.