A Study on the Suitable Areas for Growing Apricot Kernels in China Based on the MaxEnt Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript (sustainability-2387985) tries to use the MAXENT model and the spatial analysis technology of ArcGIS software to explore the dominant environmental factors that affect the distribution of Chinese kernel apricot and potential planting areas and to classify the suitable growth levels. Although the study fits the aim and scope of this journal and the amount of the work is enough, its novelty and contribution to species modeling distribution research needs to be highlighted throughout the manuscript. Another serious concern is that some related latest studies have been neglected. Also, the current results of this study can hardly be reviewed because of those problems about data and methodology. Therefore, a “Major Revision” is required. My detailed suggestions and comments are presented as follows:

- 1. The scientific question or research gap is totally missing in the Abstract. The novelty / originality should be clearly justified that the manuscript contains sufficient contributions to the new body of knowledge from the international perspective. The authors just mentioned what they have done in the study area, but without explaining why they have to do so in this way. In summary, the introduction section is weak because the authors failed to raise a fundamental scientific question or gap beyond this study area. Therefore, potential readers can hardly identify the need that the authors should have to provide a new solution from an international perspective.

- 2. It should be written as "apricot kernel", rather than "Kernel apricot".

- 3. In Line 35-37: the authors have mentioned that: "However, the degree of improved breeding in production of kernel apricot in China is low, the evaluation of varieties is not enough", which is not correct.

- 4. From Line 50, the reviewing format is not correct because only the last name of the authors should be mentioned in the text.

- 5. In addition, I doubt that whether just 168 distribution points were enough for the analysis in the entire China. What's worse, these points were mainly distributed in the Northern part of China.

- 6. The Section 2. Materials and Methods failed to provide the specific details of all the input data, such as the spatial resolution, dates in acquiring them, and accuracies. In particular, what are the years of the environmental variables? Are they consistent with the years of the other basic geographical data? What is the year of the distribution modeling result?

- 7. Figure 2 and Figure 3 were directly copied from the MAXENT software, which should be redesigned and enhanced by the authors themselves.

- 8. The authors failed to explain the detailed procedures of the MAXENT parameters. For example, what are the maximum iterations, max number of background points, convergence threshold, and prevalence (refer to the following research)?

Estimating potential illegal land development in conservation areas based on a presence-only model. Journal of Environmental Management, 2022, 321: 115994.

- 9. Actually, the default value of the prevalence in the MAXENT is 0.5. While the presence data in this study may still be biased due to the uncertainties of field investigation, MAXENT can handle this problem via a prevalence setting. It depends on how certain you are that your presence data is correct (refer to the following research).

Usability of one-class classification in mapping and detecting changes in bare peat surfaces in the tundra. International Journal of Remote Sensing 40: 4083-4103

In-depth comparisons of MaxEnt, biased SVM and one-class SVM for one-class classification of remote sensing data. Remote Sensing Letters 8: 290-299

- 10. In Section 3.2 Screening of potential environmental factors: the MAXENT model provides three methods for assessing the importance of the environmental variables, such as Percent contribution, Permutation importance, and Jackknife tests. How to combine these three methods with different assessment results? In particular, there are also several different jackknife maps.

- 11. In Section 3.3 Threshold value of environmental factors in suitable growth area of kernal apricot: the authors need to explain convincingly why they used the natural interruption point grading method? The Jenks Natural Breaks Classification should be better. Actually, the authors need to consider the threshold values obtained from the MAXENT software.

- 12. The authors also need to improve the Conclusion Section by mentioning the main shortages of your work.

- 13. The number of references (22) is limited for a scientific research paper, and most of which were more than one or two decades ago.

Extensive editing of English language required.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The Review ReportThis study is very important as it work to explore the dominant environmental factors that affect the distribution of Chinese kernel apricot and potential planting areas and to classify the suitable growth levels. It is very important to know the suitable areas and the optimum affecting factors for growing kernel apricots.Abstract:Give a brief of your results about the suitability of areas comparing the real current crowing areas.Lines 16 to 17: (The kernel apricot for kernel apricot has a wide range of suitable areas in China etc.) I could not understand what you want to say. Please revise.The introduction:Write a brief from the literatures about the effects of the factors that shown in table 1 on the yield and production of the kernel apricot showing the optimum value for any factor.Give a brief about the optimum conditions and optimum values for growing Kernel Apricot specially for the five factors that you studied in this paper.Add a paragraph show in it a comparison between planting area of Kernel Apricots including several factors (the total planting areas, the total annual production (ton), the yield ton/ha) giving a brief for every area for the distribution affecting factors such as (annual precipitation, frequency of frost days in April, altitude, soil pH and soil available water content) and the other important environmental factors that affecting the planting and distribution of kernel apricot that mentioned in Table 1.Materials and Methods:For your data, how many years did you study in this research? From when to when er from which year to which year? How many replications per every year?The result:Move the paragraph from line 119 to line 122 to Materials and Methods section as it research method not a result.Line 124: BIO12, FRS, and H are three different factors, cannot say both, please revise.Line 155: it should be (than other factors) not (that other factors) please revise.Figure 3, and line 166 and line 169, what is jacknife method? How it works? How could researcher use it? You did not mention anything about it in your method. Please show you answer in the materials and methods section.Lines 197, 200, and 202: Here in this part of tour research, it is better to write the annual precipitation instead of BIO12, because now reader want to know the effect of these five factors by their own name not by the abbreviation. The same thing could be said about FRS, H, and CLASS.Lines 216 to 217, 220 to 221, 238 to 239 etc.: you showed the suitability of areas as a percentage of the total areas in China OK no problem, but it is better to show it as a percentage of the total arable land in China, and as a percentage of the areas that always planted by Kernel Apricots.Did you classify the suitable areas based on the total area in China including the urban areas or just the arable land? If you classified it including the urban areas, please reclassify it because farmers could not use the urban areas, if you did not do that, present your work based on the arable land. Please just mention the areas that could be planted by kernel apricots.Line 223 you included Beijing as the high suitable areas for kernel apricot, is there any areas that could planted in Beijing by kernel apricot? How much these areas?You put many cities as a high suitable area, if these cities have no any areas to be planted by kernel apricot, so this data would be useless data.Discussions:Line 309: (the same as the climate suitable climate zones of...) please revise.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

English needs more revision there are some unclear sentences.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

File attached

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Needs Improvement

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The main question addressed by this research regards the possibility of establishing the best growing areas for kernel apricots, with the help of MaxEnt Model.

The topic of this manuscript is original, the authors used different environmental factors, compared to other authors, in order to define the more and less suitable area for growing kernel apricots. Unfortunately, the manuscript doesn’t address a specific gap in the field because the requirements necessary for the good growth of kernel apricots are known for a long time. As well as the climatic limits between which the kernel apricots can be grown.

Compared with other published material, this study, through many attempts, determined that the model was more accurate when using the frequency of frost days in April to represent the effect of spring frost damage on kernel apricot.

Research methodology relies on concrete facts and data-driven research. The authors first tested 14 potential environmental factors affecting the distribution of kernel apricot: annual average temperature, highest temperature in the hottest month, lowest temperature in the coldest month, Annual temperature difference, average temperature in the hottest quarter, average temperature in the coldest quarter, annual precipitation, altitude, soil available water content, soil bulk density, soil organic carbon content, soil pH, range of temperature difference between day and night, frost day frequency in April. Authors found out that only five environmental factors had a bigger influence on deciding on the cultivation area of kernel apricots, then they only ran the program with these variables for greater accuracy.

I believe that the most important controls have been used by the authors.

Conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and they address the main question posed. After running the model/program, the authors were able to determine the areas, from the favorable ones to the unfavorable ones, for growing kernel apricots in China.

The references are appropriate, the authors cited quite recent works and results of other authors. Authors cited similar results and different results (compared with those presented in the manuscript), obtained by other authors.

I found two small mistakes in the text, which I pointed out in the paper and a repetitive phrase that should be modified, also highlighted in the text.

I also have a requirement, if the authors can modify a little bit, rearrange a bit Table 4, so that the data presented in it, would be easier to read and follow.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for incorporating my comments and suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper now is fine