Climate Change Impact on the Habitat Suitability of Pseudotsuga menziesii Mirb. Franco in Mexico: An Approach for Its Conservation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the article entitled "Climate change impact on the habitat suitability of (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in Mexico: an approach for its conservation"  authors use MaxEnt to generate suitability models and future projections. Altough the general topic could be interesting, I have several concerns about this work. First, the introduction is poor and with a patched structure. Authors should expand it and improve the flow. I'm nor a native English speaker but it is obvious that the language should be improved (a revision by a native). In the methodology authors provide AUC and z-value in order to validate models, but it is recommended to provide the two components of AUC (sensitivity and specificity) (Lobo et al.). I provide and article in which authors can see how to calculate both components (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al.). Finally I want to point out a minor issue. In methods, results and discussion variables should be named by their name (annuam mean temperature, precipitation of the driest quarter, etc) and not by the codes (BIO1, BIO2 etc). The codes can be used for figures per example (but always with their name in the caption)

 

 

Lobo JM, Jiménez-Valverde A, Real R (2008) AUC: a misleading measure of the performance of predictive distribution models. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 17(2):145–151

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42452-020-2002-2

Author Response

Climate change impact on the habitat suitability of Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in Mexico: an approach for its conservation

Manuscript ID: sustainability-1765338

 

Editor: Dear Authors, The manuscript titled "Climate change impact on the habitat suitability of (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in Mexico: an approach for its conservation" seems to be very interesting for considering in its publication in Sustainability journal. However, before starting with the peer-review process, you must report properly the scientific names in the whole text. For example, the authorships must not be reported in italics. Delete the parenthesis before Pseudotsuga in the title. Moreover, "Pseudotsuga macroplepis Flous", "P. rehdery Flous" are not correct: please, check properly them and all the scientific names in the whole text. To avoid misunderstandings, confusions and synonyms in scientific names, it is advisable to carefully consult www.ipni.org or https://powo.science.kew.org/. Please, consider correct to report the scientific name complete with its authorship also in each figure, table and their caption, because they must be self-explanatory. Best regards.

Authors: The errors in the species names were corrected and the comments were taken into consideration and addressed

 

Reviewer: In the article entitled "Climate change impact on the habitat suitability of (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in Mexico: an approach for its conservation"  authors use MaxEnt to generate suitability models and future projections. Altough the general topic could be interesting, I have several concerns about this work. First, the introduction is poor and with a patched structure. Authors should expand it and improve the flow. I'm nor a native English speaker but it is obvious that the language should be improved (a revision by a native). In the methodology authors provide AUC and z-value in order to validate models, but it is recommended to provide the two components of AUC (sensitivity and specificity) (Lobo et al.). I provide and article in which authors can see how to calculate both components (Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al.). Finally I want to point out a minor issue. In methods, results and discussion variables should be named by their name (annuam mean temperature, precipitation of the driest quarter, etc) and not by the codes (BIO1, BIO2 etc). The codes can be used for figures per example (but always with their name in the caption).

 

Authors: Part of the introduction was rewritten to give coherence, some paragraphs were restructured and importance was given to previous studies. The English language was improved. The TSS statistic was included, which includes sensitivity and specificity. The bioclimatic codes were changed to their names in the necessary sections (except in the tables, which take up too much space).

 

 

"Please see the attachment"

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript addresses a relevant topic for Mexican Douglas-fir forests in the face of challenges pose by climate change. The authors made an interesting work in modelling habitat suitability and futures changes for the species at the nation-wide level. Besides the manuscript is well structured and show a good methodological framework.

The following are specific comments to help improvement of the manuscript:

Considering the objectives of the manuscript, taxonomic description (lines 63-68) is unnecessary, instead the authors could focus on some issues on future conservation of the species in the Mexican context both at nation and regional-local level, thus making this section more consistent.

A main questioning for the study is the modelling habitat suitability for protected areas. Are there any reasons to expect that federal or state protected areas would be better places for the species future conservation? Protected areas are political designations, and they will likely undergo changes under any climate change scenarios too. The paper contribution should focus more on natural areas with suitable habitats for the species regardless these areas are currently protected or not.

Another questioning refers to variables used for modelling habitat suitability. The authors mentioned the use of topographic variables in addition to the bioclimatic variables, however in the discussion section no mentions are on the role of those variables for the outputs. Considering the local relevance of topographic variables for the occurrence of Douglas-fir forests in Mexico, the authors should dedicate some paragraph to discuss on possible influence on these kind of variables on their results. This would be a good contribution of their research to current knowledge on climate change impacts on future distribution of the species in Mexico. Moreover, thus they could find a way to explain a few differences with previous research on climate modelling on Douglas-fir climate niche (Rehfeldt et al., 2014: Douglas-fir_Realizaed climate niches) with their findings in this study.

Following up on the variables used for modelling, it is noticeable that current habitat suitability model did not capture all, or most, areas where the species is currently found in Mexico, a short comment on this matter is useful for the manuscript purposes, considering the good statistical performance of the models. 

Author Response

Climate change impact on the habitat suitability of Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in Mexico: an approach for its conservation

Manuscript ID: sustainability-1765338

 

 

Editor: Dear Authors, The manuscript titled "Climate change impact on the habitat suitability of (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in Mexico: an approach for its conservation" seems to be very interesting for considering in its publication in Sustainability journal. However, before starting with the peer-review process, you must report properly the scientific names in the whole text. For example, the authorships must not be reported in italics. Delete the parenthesis before Pseudotsuga in the title. Moreover, "Pseudotsuga macroplepis Flous", "P. rehdery Flous" are not correct: please, check properly them and all the scientific names in the whole text. To avoid misunderstandings, confusions and synonyms in scientific names, it is advisable to carefully consult www.ipni.org or https://powo.science.kew.org/. Please, consider correct to report the scientific name complete with its authorship also in each figure, table and their caption, because they must be self-explanatory. Best regards.

Authors: The errors in the species names were corrected and the comments were taken into consideration and addressed

 

Reviewer: Considering the objectives of the manuscript, taxonomic description (lines 63-68) is unnecessary, instead the authors could focus on some issues on future conservation of the species in the Mexican context both at nation and regional-local level, thus making this section more consistent.

Authors: We considered deleting the taxonomic description of the species (lines 63-68) and in its place we included a paragraph on the conservation of the species in Mexico (lines 67-75).

 

Reviewer: A main questioning for the study is the modelling habitat suitability for protected areas. Are there any reasons to expect that federal or state protected areas would be better places for the species future conservation? Protected areas are political designations, and they will likely undergo changes under any climate change scenarios too. The paper contribution should focus more on natural areas with suitable habitats for the species regardless these areas are currently protected or not.

Authors: Figure 6 represents the natural areas with suitable habitats for the species, where it is described from line 352 to 362, and discussed from lines 485 to 508. the analysis doesn't contemplate natural protected areas, it was developed with all the distribution in Mexico, as areas of resilience facing two scenarios of climate change.

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewer: Another questioning refers to variables used for modelling habitat suitability. The authors mentioned the use of topographic variables in addition to the bioclimatic variables, however in the discussion section no mentions are on the role of those variables for the outputs. Considering the local relevance of topographic variables for the occurrence of Douglas-fir forests in Mexico, the authors should dedicate some paragraph to discuss on possible influence on these kind of variables on their results. This would be a good contribution of their research to current knowledge on climate change impacts on future distribution of the species in Mexico. Moreover, thus they could find a way to explain a few differences with previous research on climate modelling on Douglas-fir climate niche (Rehfeldt et al., 2014: Douglas-fir_Realizaed climate niches) with their findings in this study.

Authors: A new paragraph was included about the importance of topographic variables in conifer species modeling (lines 450-458).

 

 

Reviewer: Following up on the variables used for modelling, it is noticeable that current habitat suitability model did not capture all, or most, areas where the species is currently found in Mexico, a short comment on this matter is useful for the manuscript purposes, considering the good statistical performance of the models.

Authors: The reviewer's suggestion was considered and a new paragraph was added mentioning that despite the good performance of the model, a few areas were missing, as in the case of the state of Querétaro (lines 395-399).

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has imprved but I still have some concerns. I detect some minor issues that must be solved. Per example, Table 4 has not caption. In addition the variables codes (BIO1, BIO2...) have not a description in the caption. Readers must know and easily find what is each variable. I detect also a lack of relevant references in introduction and discussion, related with SDM that must be solved. I suggest authors to revise bibliography and improve the mentioned issues.

Author Response

Climate change impact on the habitat suitability of Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco in Mexico: an approach for its conservation

Manuscript ID: sustainability-1765338

Reviewer: The manuscript has imprved but I still have some concerns. I detect some minor issues that must be solved. Per example, Table 4 has not caption. In addition the variables codes (BIO1, BIO2...) have not a description in the caption. Readers must know and easily find what is each variable. I detect also a lack of relevant references in introduction and discussion, related with SDM that must be solved. I suggest authors to revise bibliography and improve the mentioned issues.

Authors: Included the name of table 4 (line 270-271). Variable names have been included for readers' convenience. Included references of importance in the SDMs, as well as paragraphs in the introduction and discussion sections to improve and give coherence to these models.