Ethnobotany and Ecosystem Services in a Tidal Forest in Thailand
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is a very interesting and important one to conduct an ethnobotanical investigation about the tidal forests. However, there is some weakness in carrying out ecosystem services research. To improve the manuscript, I provide some comments as follows:
- Ethnobotanical fieldwork in the manuscript was conducted during January–May 2020. Could you please detail how many times and how many days had authors spent during the whole research process? I also suggest conducting another fieldwork in another different season. It might be turned out different results.
- What are the ecosystem services of local people regarding wild plant collection? I don't think there are enough evidences to support the ecosystem services in the manuscript.
- Local traditional gathering methods and knowledge of wild plants may be important for sustainable use of plant resources. Could the author supplement these relevant data?
- I don't think there are enought data (evidence) to support the conclusion that one of the most effective ways to conserve traditional knowledge is to promote the economic value of the ecosystem.
- I also wonder why the author analyzed gender?
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript focuses on the ecosystem services in a Tidal Forest in Thailand which is interesting, the results were carefully analyzed and discussed. This manuscript is well written and easy to follow. Below I will express my comments and suggestions, which hopefully can further improve this manuscript.
(1) The first keyword beach forest could be changed to tidal forest.
(2) The research gap is not clear which needs to be improved after the literature review. Some sentences in discussion section could be used here.
(3) Figure 1 needs to be improved. The DEM can be included, as well as the labels of the locations, such as Rayong Botanical Garden, Gulf of Thailand etc.
(4) Is there any other ecosystem services provided by the Tidal Forest? Such as regulating services (reduced flooding and erosion, storm damage mitigation), supporting services (nutrient cycling and soil formation) and recreation?
(5) Suggestions regards to sustainable management of the ecosystem services would be interesting in the discussion section.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
This research paper describes the actual topic – Ethnobotany and Ecosystem Services in a Tidal Forest in Thailand. In their article authors notice, that the ecosystem services of the tidal forest in Thailand were investigated using ethnobotanical research method. Total of 101 informants living around tidal forest in Rayong province, Thailand was interviewed using free-listing technique. Totally, 48 species and 992 uses were recorded. Among these, the highest use value species included Cratoxylum cochinchinense, Garcinia cowa, Melientha suavis, and Nelumbo nucifera. As well authors notice, that sgnificantly, their result support that eco-nomic value as one of the most important factors to promote the recognition of traditional uses of local plants or on the other hand, the service from ecosystem..
And I would like to share with authors some doubts and remarks too: it seems important to notice, that it would be needed to concentrate on the discussion and conclusions of the study. Thus, when developing sections of "Discussion" and "Conclusions" it would be needed to include to the debate more future oriented theoretical implications, thus accessing deeper discussion and concluding insights.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Authors provided an interesting study that I would recommend for publishing after some clarifications from their side. I do not understand/I would appreciate further explanations on the following:
1) I would not put "gender quality" as a key word. There is really very little about this issue in the article itself, this is more (only) in the discussion part.
2) at the beginning you are emphasizing the minorities that live in Thailand. Is this connected with their different knowledge or attitude towards ecosystem services? In the article you are mentioning that in the study area, all people are local Thai, not the minority.
3) I would shorten or rephrase l. 54-77. To me, they are not important to the content and only confuse the reader about the locality.
4) There is no clear statement about (potential) restrictions of use of ecosystem services in the study area (only for purpose of fuelwood - l. 317). In the European conditions there would be a certain restriction to collect and use anything from the botanical garden. Could you explain this in the article? It might have an impact on the collection and consumption and/or attitude of locals.
5) there is no need to explain how snow ball sampling method works
6) it would be really beneficial to give a context to the number of informants (e.g. how big the village is? how many people are living in that area? etc.).
7) I would not include species that were collected only by 1 informant to the overall table. I would comment on it or give a separate table for those species that were rarely collected. Presentation in this way is too messy.
8) Why the authors use "average annual income" (l. 227) whereas in Figures it is displayed by months?
Erase statements and parts that sustained in the template but should not be a part of the final text (e.g. App. A and B).
Check if all references are really in accordance with MDPI requirements (esp. when stating DOI - e.g. 12, 14...). There are for sure needs to adjust the font size in some cases (5, 20 etc.). Official division of the ecosystem services (like MA or NWF would be beneficial).
Judgement of overall merit roots from the impact of the article as a whole, because it is based mostly on a "case-study" that covers only a certain part of a country. There is a space for improvement in this article, but I find it interesting.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author answered my question and modified the manuscript.
