The Impacts of Sunlight on the Lichen Scots Pine Forest Community

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Your paper is interesting and I believe very important to the field of forest.

However, there are several things that needs to be corrected.

First, the recommendation is not convincing to the reader,

you need provide with more comprehensive reasons for conducting this research.

Plants names must be in italic.

The P-value in the text should also be in italics (Line 152 and so on)

A detailed introduction should be provided to the research area. What are the characteristics of choosing this area? (Line 82)

What is the basis for selecting time in the four seasons? It should be explained in the article. (Line120-131)

The discussion section can be appropriately modified to make it more logical. In addition, the language should be polished.

The conclusion should be more concise and provide practical significance for this study.

References needs to be edited - now are they in the form as the reference management software output them.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Your paper is interesting and I believe very important to the field of forest. 

However, there are several things that needs to be corrected.

RE: Thank you very much for your feedback. This is very important research for us summarizing several years of project in Tuchola Forest.

First, the recommendation is not convincing to the reader, you need provide with more comprehensive reasons for conducting this research.

RE: We have detailed the reasons for doing this research based on the results of the findings to date. Line: 60-67.

Plants names must be in italic.

RE: Of course, thank you for paying attention. We always try but sometimes we miss something.

The P-value in the text should also be in italics (Line 152 and so on)

RE: As with the species names. All records have been corrected.

A detailed introduction should be provided to the research area. What are the characteristics of choosing this area? (Line 82)

RE: Introduction was completed with a whole paragraph talking about the chosen study area. Line 54-58.

What is the basis for selecting time in the four seasons? It should be explained in the article. (Line120-131)

RE: In addition, we explained the choice of days for field research. We wanted the study to be carried out in a period of 3 days in which weather conditions do not deviate from the average weather parameters characteristic of the period. For example, in the period of spring we waited a long time for the actual onset of spring, because the period with winter weather despite the calendar spring was prolonged. Line 143-146

The discussion section can be appropriately modified to make it more logical. In addition, the language should be polished.

RE: the chapter Discussion has been improved. It has been divided according to the results presented in the earlier chapter.

The conclusion should be more concise and provide practical significance for this study.

RE: the conclusion have been completely revised and improved. We think they are now more specific and refined.

References needs to be edited - now are they in the form as the reference management software output them.

RE: The references were prepared in accordance with the journals guidelines.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required

RE: English in the hole manuscript has been improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

I like the paper. it is a nice interdisciplinary approach of methods of geography, ecophysiology and vegetation ecology to study the balance of lichens and bryophytes in Clad-Pine.

It is good to have citable proof, that lichen prefer the parts of the forest floor with more light.

The paper is well written, methods, results, discussion are logic and understandable. The list of references is rather complete. There are more papers about lichen-rich pine forest, but for the papers topic of light it is good.

Some minor comments & typos

Keywords: maybe add: habitat restoration, bryophytes instead of bryophyte?

Introduction: wording of sentence in lines 35-7 (In the case of 35 the community of the lichen Scots pine forest, its most important elements are a specifically developed, on a poor, sandy base, a strongly deformed Scots pine stand and the lichen-rich ground layer.) Something wrong with the sentence wording: maybe: "are a specifically developed strongly deformed Scots pine stand on a poor, sandy base with a lichen-rich ground layer"

Methods: Except for the first 4 species mentioned in the text, no authors are given for the species and no source of species nomenclature. One consequence is: The use of Cladonia degenerans, which to my knowledge is still synonym to Cl. phyllophora. Merging the two species would change the position of the species in the CCA.

Results Fig. 5: First CCA axis seems determined by TH, strongly influenced by outlier Cetraria aculeata at low TH (makes sense as Cet acu prefers open habitats, tolerates disturbance as grazing). Plesch, Hylspl, Dicpol on the side with higher TH (older forests) as they are supposed to be. The arrows of TH and LI in right angle of axes 1-2 suggest, that TH and LI are not related. Suggest 1-2 additions to results explaining first axis. Preferable give the Eigenvalues of the axes.

Title of Fig. 5: Cl. vericillata to Cl. verticillata, merge Cl. degenerans with Cl. phyllophora, Cl. zophii to Cl zopfii, Cl. chlorophea to Cl. chlorophaea, Politrichum piliferum to Polytrichum piliferum, Pleurosium to Pleurozium

p. 10. line 271: Cl. degenerans to Cl. phyllophora (merge)

p. 10. line 278: Cl. rangiferin add a

p. 10. line 279: Cl. zopphi to Cl. zopfii

References p. 18 line 563: naöhrstoffarmer to nährstoffarmer

p. 20 line 653: lichtverhältnisse in laubflechten to Lichtverhältnisse in Laubflechten

Author Response

I like the paper. it is a nice interdisciplinary approach of methods of geography, ecophysiology and vegetation ecology to study the balance of lichens and bryophytes in Clad-Pine.

It is good to have citable proof, that lichen prefer the parts of the forest floor with more light. 

The paper is well written, methods, results, discussion are logic and understandable. The list of references is rather complete. There are more papers about lichen-rich pine forest, but for the papers topic of light it is good. 

Keywords: maybe add: habitat restoration, bryophytes instead of bryophyte?

RE: As far as I can remember, we've been grappling with this because some argue that the correct form is "bryophyte" without an "s" at the end. I've asked bryologists, and they assert that this is indeed correct.

Introduction: wording of sentence in lines 35-7 (In the case of 35 the community of the lichen Scots pine forest, its most important elements are a specifically developed, on a poor, sandy base, a strongly deformed Scots pine stand and the lichen-rich ground layer.) Something wrong with the sentence wording: maybe: "are a specifically developed strongly deformed Scots pine stand on a poor, sandy base with a lichen-rich ground layer"

RE: Thank you actually this is simpler and more readable.

Methods: Except for the first 4 species mentioned in the text, no authors are given for the species and no source of species nomenclature.

RE: Thank you for your remark. All species' authors have been added.

One consequence is: The use of Cladonia degenerans, which to my knowledge is still synonym to Cl. phyllophora. Merging the two species would change the position of the species in the CCA. 

RE: In fact, we checked what happens when we combine the two species. And Cl. phyllophora occurred in 115 plots and Cl. degenerans in only 3 plots. Combining the two species in the database did not significantly change the position of the species in the CCA. Cladonia degenerans has been removed everywhere in the manuscript.

Results Fig. 5: First CCA axis seems determined by TH, strongly influenced by outlier Cetraria aculeata at low TH (makes sense as Cet acu prefers open habitats, tolerates disturbance as grazing). Plesch, Hylspl, Dicpol on the side with higher TH (older forests) as they are supposed to be. The arrows of TH and LI in right angle of axes 1-2 suggest, that TH and LI are not related. Suggest 1-2 additions to results explaining first axis. Preferable give the Eigenvalues of the axes. 

RE: In the results, I have incorporated your interpretations of the graph that I had not noticed. Indeed, Cetraria aculeata is a lichen characteristic of sandy grasslands.

In Table 3, by providing the factors Lambda A and the F factor, I have ranked the strength of influence of the identified axes. Lambda A which refers to the eigenvalues that represent the amount of variance explained by each axis in a CCA analysis. The larger the value of Lambda A, the greater the influence an axis has on the data structure. And the TH value is the highest.

Title of Fig. 5: Cl. vericillata to Cl. verticillata, merge Cl. degenerans with Cl. phyllophora, Cl. zophii to Cl zopfii, Cl. chlorophea to Cl. chlorophaea, Politrichum piliferum to Polytrichum piliferum, Pleurosium to Pleurozium

RE: Thank you. The names has been improved.

10. 10. line 271: Cl. degenerans to Cl. phyllophora (merge)
11. 10. line 278: Cl. rangiferin add a
12. 10. line 279: Cl. zopphi to Cl. zopfii

References p. 18 line 563: naöhrstoffarmer to nährstoffarmer

1. 20 line 653: lichtverhältnisse in laubflechten to Lichtverhältnisse in Laubflechten

RE: all remarks have been corrected thank you very much for pointing them out.

Reviewer 3 Report

The presented study is a continuation of a study conducted in the same territory in previous years and confirms the conclusions made by the authors about the dependence between the height of the trees and the cover of terrestrial lichens (see referred paper [7]). The presented data are interesting and provide new information both for the overall forest ecosystem and for 4 individual species - two types of lichens and two types of mosses.  However, here are some recommendations and comments to it that would help improve the text.

I would suggest to add a list of all identified lichen and bryophyte species on the study area that will complete the understanding this forest ecosystem. The conclusion would benefit of a comment about the conservation measures instead of repeating the applied methodology. The trees height is related to the age of the trees, but there is no comment on this. In old forest there are gaps bringing openings with more light undergrowth. Adding a parameter of age in some future study will probably bring some interesting results.

Line51: In the referred paper [7] there is no method for assessment photosynthetic activity.

Line 57: RAR photosynthetic energy = Photosynthetic Active Radiation?

Line 76: I did not find green dots.

Lines 78-79: This sentence is superfluous as it is not connected to the text before and after.

Suggest to move the figure 1 between lines 85 and 86. On this figure the violet dots are 20 but not 25

2.1. Here it should be added details of the groundwork manipulations. Otherwise this chapter is simply location of the study area.

Line 89: Omit the phrase “of tree crowns”.

Line 94: ArcGis software (ESRI, 2020).

Line 95: The phrase “where the fleece was raked” is not clear, please edit.

Line 98: How did you located the frame in the field practically?

Line 102: zero value was not observed but rated

Line 129: ml instead of mL

Lines 139, 352, 382, 385, 406, 413, 414 and further: pay attention that once is right Fv/Fm and than is Fm/Fv

Lines 143-146: Why you didn’t investigate relationships between Dicranum scoparium percentage cover and tree height?

Line 330: omit the bracket after citation

Lines 407; 425: Please unify the abbreviation of Cladonia throughout the text.

Author Response

The presented study is a continuation of a study conducted in the same territory in previous years and confirms the conclusions made by the authors about the dependence between the height of the trees and the cover of terrestrial lichens (see referred paper [7]). The presented data are interesting and provide new information both for the overall forest ecosystem and for 4 individual species - two types of lichens and two types of mosses.  However, here are some recommendations and comments to it that would help improve the text.

I would suggest to add a list of all identified lichen and bryophyte species on the study area that will complete the understanding this forest ecosystem. The conclusion would benefit of a comment about the conservation measures instead of repeating the applied methodology. The trees height is related to the age of the trees, but there is no comment on this. In old forest there are gaps bringing openings with more light undergrowth. Adding a parameter of age in some future study will probably bring some interesting results.

RE: the list of recorded species is given at the description of Figure 5. Thank you for these valuable remarks, during the study we analyzed them very carefully. That's why we have explicitly included in the discussion the information regarding the influence of tree age on its height depending on the habitat site index value. Trees of the same age have different heights depending on the site index. It is not the age that affects the disappearance of lichen undergrowth, but the height of the tree as a derivative of the habitat's site index.

Line51: In the referred paper [7] there is no method for assessment photosynthetic activity.

RE: There is supposed to be a citation for an article [9]. Thank you for finding the wrong citation.

Line 57: RAR photosynthetic energy = Photosynthetic Active Radiation?

RE: That was a very bad mental shortcut. Thank you very much for pointing it out. The correct name has been inserted into the text.

Line 76: I did not find green dots.

RE: During the preparation of the map, we made different variations of it to make it as readable as possible. The description of the green dots remained for the old color scheme. The color was changed to pink. What's cool is that as soon as I sent the manuscript to the journal I saw this error right away, but I waited patiently for the reviews and wondered if anyone would find it. I am very grateful.

Lines 78-79: This sentence is superfluous as it is not connected to the text before and after.

RE: I have removed this sentence. Thank you for pointing it out.

Suggest to move the figure 1 between lines 85 and 86. On this figure the violet dots are 20 but not 25

RE: You are right, thank you very much. The map has been moved and the number of posts has been changed to the correct 20.

2.1. Here it should be added details of the groundwork manipulations. Otherwise this chapter is simply location of the study area. 

RE: In fact, the title of the subsection was inadequate to its content. We were concerned with the study area so I simplified the chapter title itself.

Line 89: Omit the phrase “of tree crowns”.

RE: thank you. You have right.

Line 94: ArcGis software (ESRI, 2020).

RE: Thank you. The text has been corrected and completed.

Line 95: The phrase “where the fleece was raked” is not clear, please edit.

RE: Thank you. The sentence has been improved. Line 116 – 119.

Line 98: How did you located the frame in the field practically?

RE: Valid point. It was too general. We added information about the device and the installed application that we used to determine the positions of previously designated sites. Line 119 - 121

Line 102: zero value was not observed but rated.

RE: Thank you. The word has been improved.

Line 129: ml instead of mL

RE: Thank you. The symbol has been improved.

Lines 139, 352, 382, 385, 406, 413, 414 and further: pay attention that once is right Fv/Fm and than is Fm/Fv

RE: RE: Thank you. The Fv/Fm has been improved.

Lines 143-146: Why you didn’t investigate relationships between Dicranum scoparium percentage cover and tree height?

RE: Since Dicranum scoparium does not show such significant expansiveness as Pleurozium schreberi we did not take it into account in the analysis. Besides, in our analysis the idea was to show the influence of tree height on strictly lichens, so two of them were selected that are characteristic of the Cladonio-Pinetum community. With regard to them, the most expansive bryophyte species Pleurozium schreberi was chosen. Since you brought this to our attention so in fact the manuscript lacks the corresponding notation. We have improved it. Line 191-196.

Line 330: omit the bracket after citation

RE: Thank you. The manuscript has been improved.

Lines 407; 425: Please unify the abbreviation of Cladonia throughout the text.

RE: Thank you. The manuscript has been improved.