Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I've been reviewing manuscripts for journals for about 35 years now. By far, this is the most catchy title I've ever seen! Tree-ring science, murder, cannibalism? Wow!

It is a bit difficult to evaluate the potential interest of the work for the journal as it is unlike anything I've ever encountered. However, it tells a unique story that involves trees and a little bit of tree-ring science. Just from the title and abstract, I think the manuscript is worthy of consideration. If Forests is looking for more readers, a manuscript this unique in terms of the subject is a good idea. If published, I think Forests could and should find multiple outlets in the mainstream media to promote the manuscript. Again, a title this intriguing would likely be of interest to various media outlets and, in turn, a unique vehicle for promoting the use of tree-ring science.

Technically, I think the intro is a little boring. I think the intro could and should expand just beyond some background about the particular species under investigation and include some paragraphs highlighting other unique aspects of dendro-based projects. Things that come to mind are Grissino-Mayers work verifying the authenticity of a Stradivarius violin based on the tree rings, and there are hundreds of dendro-archeological studies that provide illustrations of how tree-rings can be used to date historically important structures. I think adding a couple of paragraphs to the intro delving into other unique uses of tree-rings would improve the manuscript.  

 

I found a couple of minor things that a technical editor should pick up on. Other than that, the manuscript is clean. 

Author Response

MDPI Forests                                                                                                          Szczecin, 26.05.2023

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

I am grateful for the insightful analysis of my manuscript, and all the comments and suggestions provided. I did my best to take into account all the remarks.

I hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 1

All suggestions of Reviewer 1 have been incorporated.

I added background information on the use of dendrochronology in forensics.

Thank you so much for deeming the title catchy. I hope that not only the title, but also the content of the article will draw the interest of the readers :)

Reviewer 2

All suggestions of Reviewer 2 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. I added new references to research - Thank you very much for submitting suggestions for new literature items.
2. This information was added in Conclusions.
3. This information was added in part: 3.1. Dendrochronological analysis of the birch. Unfortunately, I do not have permission from the District Attorney for Szczecin to show individual sequences of tree-ring width of the birch L

Reviewer 3

All suggestions of Reviewer 3 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. Line 13 – it was corrected.
2. The introduction was changed according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. Section 2.1.has been approved by the District Attorney for Szczecin and I cannot make changes here.In addition, the cited sources are only in Polish and their content may be difficult to understand to readers from outside Poland.
4. It was changed according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

 

The language accuracy was re-checked, and corrected where required.

I hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,

Anna Cedro

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author,

First, I would like to thank you for presenting your results. Overall, I found the paper very interesting.

In your work, you presented in a very interesting way that dendrochronological analysis can provide forensic evidence in criminal cases and can become a source of information in circumstantial processes regarding past events. Your dendrochronological analysis of the tree (birch) that grew near the site of the alleged murder helped to explain the crime from years ago.

However, it would be advisable to supplement the paper  with the following elements:

 1.      Unfortunately, the paper does not provide any information/works on the use of dendrochronology in forensics. In my opinion, such information should be included in the work, both in the introduction and in the summary/conclusions.

 

Please see, for example, the articles:

Chris Balouet, Joel Burken, Jacques Martelain, Jonathan Lageard, Frank Karg & David Megson. 2021 Dendrochemical forensics as material evidence in courts: How could trees lie?

James Pokins. 2018. Two cases of dendrochronology used to corroborate a forensic postmortem interval. Journal of Forensic Identification 68(4):457-465

 

2.      As far as I know, this is the first work of this type in Polish dendrochronology. It seems that both this fact and the possibility of using dendrochronology in forensics should be emphasized in the conclusions.

 

 3.      Section: Dendrochronological analysis of birch.

In my opinion, this section should be supplemented with information on the measurement methodology:

·        measurement accuracy;

·        measurement method: whether by stereomicroscope e.g Lintab or  CooRecorder software

 

Maybe it would be worth posting a graph showing the width of the rings and marking, for example, the year of the murder. 

 Best regards, and good luck with the publication, 

 

Author Response

MDPI Forests                                                                                                          Szczecin, 26.05.2023

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

I am grateful for the insightful analysis of my manuscript, and all the comments and suggestions provided. I did my best to take into account all the remarks.

I hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 1

All suggestions of Reviewer 1 have been incorporated.

I added background information on the use of dendrochronology in forensics.

Thank you so much for deeming the title catchy. I hope that not only the title, but also the content of the article will draw the interest of the readers :)

Reviewer 2

All suggestions of Reviewer 2 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. I added new references to research - Thank you very much for submitting suggestions for new literature items.
2. This information was added in Conclusions.
3. This information was added in part: 3.1. Dendrochronological analysis of the birch. Unfortunately, I do not have permission from the District Attorney for Szczecin to show individual sequences of tree-ring width of the birch L

Reviewer 3

All suggestions of Reviewer 3 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. Line 13 – it was corrected.
2. The introduction was changed according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. Section 2.1.has been approved by the District Attorney for Szczecin and I cannot make changes here.In addition, the cited sources are only in Polish and their content may be difficult to understand to readers from outside Poland.
4. It was changed according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

 

The language accuracy was re-checked, and corrected where required.

I hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,

Anna Cedro

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank the author for the submission of the manuscript entitled “A birch tree as witness in a murder and cannibalism case”.

The study aimed to estimate the age and size of the birch tree in the 1998-2002 period and investigate whether the tree can be a distinctive feature of the landscape through the period in question. Although some novel ideas are presented, I have some comments for the author to improve the manuscript.

(1) In Line 13 of the Abstract: It should be “The aim of this study was to”. Please correct that.

(2) The introduction section lists many studies related to birch trees but could you please provide some topic sentences to point out the key ideas in every one or two paragraphs, in order to give readers a more clear understanding of how these studies are related to or support “A birch tree as witness in a murder and cannibalism case”.

(3) Section 2.1: Could you please shorten “The event description” by only keeping some important details related to this study since you already put several sources for readers to explore more information?  

 

(4) The conclusion section does not clearly show the novelty of this study in terms of the method used or the results obtained. Also, this section does not clearly reveal what are the implications of this study and how this study could contribute to the literature and real life.  

This paper shows a good quality of English and it is easily understandable but needs some minor editing.

Author Response

MDPI Forests                                                                                                          Szczecin, 26.05.2023

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

I am grateful for the insightful analysis of my manuscript, and all the comments and suggestions provided. I did my best to take into account all the remarks.

I hope that the enclosed revised manuscript meets the requirements of the Editors and Reviewers, and is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 1

All suggestions of Reviewer 1 have been incorporated.

I added background information on the use of dendrochronology in forensics.

Thank you so much for deeming the title catchy. I hope that not only the title, but also the content of the article will draw the interest of the readers :)

Reviewer 2

All suggestions of Reviewer 2 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. I added new references to research - Thank you very much for submitting suggestions for new literature items.
2. This information was added in Conclusions.
3. This information was added in part: 3.1. Dendrochronological analysis of the birch. Unfortunately, I do not have permission from the District Attorney for Szczecin to show individual sequences of tree-ring width of the birch L

Reviewer 3

All suggestions of Reviewer 3 have been incorporated. Specifically, these are:

1. Line 13 – it was corrected.
2. The introduction was changed according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. Section 2.1.has been approved by the District Attorney for Szczecin and I cannot make changes here.In addition, the cited sources are only in Polish and their content may be difficult to understand to readers from outside Poland.
4. It was changed according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

 

The language accuracy was re-checked, and corrected where required.

I hope that the Reviewers and Editors find the current form of the article  acceptable for publication in this journal.

Sincerely,

Anna Cedro

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank the author for submitting the revised manuscript. I don't have any more comments and believe the current version of the manuscript is ready to be published.