Biomass Equations and Carbon Stock Estimates for the Southeastern Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

I enjoyed reading this manuscript. The research presented in this manuscript is well designed and the presentation of the results is very clear. I also think the summary and comparison of previous studies for southeastern Brazil is excellent. The study's emphasis on locally developed allometric equations represents a significant contribution to the field of forest carbon estimation, especially in regions with diverse vegetation types and significant anthropogenic pressures. I had only a few questions and no serious comments for this manuscript. Therefore, I have decided to give it a 'minor revision'. My comments are as follows:

 

1.    The font size changes frequently throughout the submission. Please review the entire manuscript to adjust the font size.

2.    The RMSE value is expressed as a %. Is this correct? Please confirm.

3.    Is the expression of + and - in Figure 2 c) appropriate? What about high and low?

4.    Figure 3 is too small to see the legend and axis titles.

5.    Add an explanation for a and b in Figure 4 (a).

6.    You've used commas and periods interchangeably for numbers in Tables 3-5; please unify your notation.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript contains few spelling or grammatical errors, but careful proofreading is recommended to catch any minor issues.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The style of Line185-191 seems to be incorrect. The entire text should be unified.

2. Please rewrite Line230-233 according to the format of other papers in Forests journal and carefully check the formula writing.

3. It is necessary to display the statistical results of the survey samples (Tables or Figures are available), which directly determines the accuracy of your estimation.

4. What are the differences among the three types of vegetation in Figure 2? It looks like they only have different colors.

5. Figure 3 needs to be remade and the text is completely unclear.

6. Why not consider using remote sensing images to further obtain the local distribution of AGB? This is already a widely used method. At least this should be mentioned in the outlook section.

7. The limitations of the research should be discussed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reviewer’s Report on

Biomass equations and carbon stock estimates for the southeastern Brazilian Atlantic Forest

T, Dias Gaui, Vinicius Costa Cysneiros, Fernanda Coelho de Souza, Hallefy Junio de Souza, Telmo Borges Silveira Filho, Daniel Costa de Carvalho, José Henrique Camargo Pace, Graziela Baptista Vidaurre and Eder Miguel Pereira

Submitted to

forests, 3099631

 

GENERAL COMMENTS

The manuscript draws attention to the need for reliable estimates of forest carbon stocks on a regional and global scale that falls within the scope of the journal “forest”.

The absence of reliable estimates based on sampling of forest carbon stocks, especially in the Atlantic Forest Domain (AFD), requires adjusted biomass equations. The authors of this study fitted biomass equations for the three main types of AFD forests and accurately estimated the amount of carbon stored in these forests, in the state of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The conclusions obtained are of interest and worthy of publication, and the results obtained are contrasted with previous research through an even-handed discourse.

In my opinion, this is an example to follow in other forestry domains to know the carbon stocks that different ecosystems harbor, and the divergences that different evaluation methods can cause.

Overall, the text is well-arranged and it is written clearly and correctly. Some improvements should be included in the final text to correct errors and strengthen the results obtained.

 

 

MAIN CONCERNS AND QUESTIONS

1-L101.The authors should clarify the soil classification system used and its year. The reader assumes that this classification was made by the author of reference [24].

 

2-Ls105 and 109. Are the sampling unities a wider concept than sites? If so, the number should be inverse (Ner of unities<Ner of sites). Please, check.

 

3-There is, at first sight, confusion with the type of equation obtained: do these equations come from correlations (L207,269,273,326,337) or regressions (Ls195,198,205,210,212,221,282,289,293,298,314,336,351,358,431)? Please, revise and clarify. I remember that “Correlation measures the degree of relationship between two variables” and “Regression is about how one variable affects the other”.

 

4- Please, specify that (GLS) means “generalised least squares”

 

5-The authors frequently write the acronym “SI”, generally associated with a figure or a table (Ls340,344,353,357,424,437,444). I want to understand that they refer to “supplementary material”. This must be indicated at some point in the text. I must express that I have not been able to access that material for consultation.

 

6-Ls353,357. The authors refer to Figure 3, but this figure is complex, and it would be appreciated if they could better specify. Please, improve.

 

7-L541. Please, write: “... and soil organic matter.” This mention is correct because this carbon is pivotal: it can be several times greater than the carbon stored in vegetation.

 

8-The authors have omitted section “5. Conclusions”. This section is important: authors can briefly highlight the most relevant findings of their work. It is one of the most important researchers' sections in their exploratory phase. Therefore, is mandatory.

The authors have inserted some concluding points throughout their manuscript whose ideas can be transferred to this section. For example, an abstract of Ls421-429 (among others) can be placed in this new section.

 

 

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

In general, I advise writing numbers with a single decimal, except for parameters.

 

Title

Ok.

 

Abstract

I propose to the authors to divide this section into three parts (simply with separate points):

1^st. “Tropical forest … in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil.”

2^nd. “Using non-destructive methods … 35.38 ± 2.7 Mg ha-1.”

3^rd. “Notably, our estimates … carbon stock estimations.”

 

1.Introduction

Please, change the word “more” to “greater”

 

2.Material and Methods

Ok.

 

3.Results

Ok.

 

4.Discussion

Ok.

 

5.Conclusions

Please, complete this section: it is mandatory.

 

Author contributions.

L582. The authors must delete the word “and” before “designed”. Please, revise.

L584. The surname “Filho, …” must be preceded by “and”. Please, revise.

 

References

Please, follow the style of the Journal: in the case of several references, the authors must write them in a condensed form, using a hyphen, as follows: L56 [13-16], L557 [57-60], L573 [62-64].

 

Tables

Table 1

The authors Husch, Spurr and Schumacher & Hall should be included in the final list of references.

 

Table 2

Please, explain why some values are underlined.

 

Tables 3,4 and 5

Please, highlight the words “specific/generic/pantropical allometric equations” to see the differences between similar tables. Please, check whether the word “equations” is plural.

 

Table 5:

This table does not include “TOTALS” and repeating DF twice seems an oversight. Please, revise

 

Figures

Figure 1

The authors indicate “orange triangles” that should be “yellow triangles”. Please, improve.

 

Figure 2

Ok.

 

Figure 3

Please, improve:

The size of the labels is small and prevents a fluid reading.

I advise a new box distribution, similar to that in Figure 4, to get more space.

 

Figure 4

To facilitate reading, I suggest writing in the legend box (a): “Treatments:” (writing two points).

Please, revise.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The objective of this study was to estimate the amount of carbon stored in the aboveground biomass of forest stands in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. The calculations were made using data on the total volume and density of wood for the most common tree species. Three types of allometric equations were used to calculate biomass and carbon stocks based on tree-level data. Since the equations only estimated biomass and carbon stocks for the aboveground part of trees and did not take into account the root biomass, the estimates obtained are approximately 15-20% less than the actual total biomass stocks. Obviously, the biomass stock will strongly depend on the age of the trees and stands, but I did not find any estimates of the age of the stands in the study. It is unclear whether the parameters of the allometric equations of trees will depend on age. If such a relationship exists, this may significantly change the estimates presented. Perhaps the authors should at least discuss these issues.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf