Adaptive Silviculture and Climate Change—A Forced Marriage of the 21st Century?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The review on adaptive silviculture and climate change is nice work. The manuscript addresses the critical issue of adapting forest management to changing environmental conditions caused by climate change. The manuscript is divided into thematic sections and sub-sections, which provide information on the role of CO2, temperature, water availability and precipitation, and forest ecosystem disturbance from an individual tree and stand perspective. An essential part of this overview is to point out opportunities for forests to adapt to these ongoing and projected changes and what opportunities and strategies forest management currently has to meet these challenges.

In general, the text is good to read.  

However, I suggest some corrections that might improve the manuscript. 

Line44-46: Some references are needed

Chapter II. In my opinion, it is a little bit too long. I propose to shorten this chapter by some 20-25%

Figure 1: This conceptual diagram seems to be the original output of the Authors. But I have some doubts and comments:

- What does colour mean?

- Why Insects & pathogens don't influence Physiology and vice versa?

- Why is Physiology not linked with Phenology?

- What are the differences between box Extremes &disturbances and box Fire Drought Wind?

Line 128: Most scientists and only one reference?

From line 382 and upwards (395-398): Please give Latin names of tree species.

Line 507-510: Some references are needed

Line 511: Should be 180 million m3 of wood

Line 663: Some references are needed

Figure 2: The figure is not necessary. The relationships can be described in two sentences in the text.

Line 773: I would add that also without disturbances

Line 778: I would add "...social need changes and observed environmental changes....."

Lines 846, 849, 852, 854, 858: What do dots in brackets mean? Should there be some references?

Section "Increase tree and stand stability": I suppose that more references can be proposed in that section, not only one [257]

Figure 6: The figure is unclear; not all information is visible in the graph.

Lines 932-937: Some references are needed

I would also expect more detailed information on the suggested silvicultural activities (section 6), giving information on how to adapt the forest and forest management to CC.

 

Author Response

Dear Editor,

first, we would like to thank very much to both Reviewers for their constructive and substantive comments on the text of the submitted manuscript. I attach below our position on the various comments made in the reviews.

Reviewer 1:

1. All comments regarding the reference to sources in various parts of the text have been included in the revised text.
2. Chapter 2 (Introduction) was carefully checked, and some parts of it (e.g. obvious sentences, repetitions) were removed from the manuscript.
3. Figure 1 - has been revised and improved.
4. Comment to the Line 128 – the sentence was rewritten.
5. Comments on tree species names - we agreed with the Reviewer. Latin names of tree species were added where a tree species appeared in the text for the first time. When the species appeared in the text for another time, common names were used.
6. Line 511 – corrected.
7. Comment on Figure 2 - we agree that this figure is not necessary - it has been removed from the revised text.
8. Comment on line 773 - we stand by our earlier statement "in the past." Disturbances have also occurred in the past, perhaps they were less intense, but this does not mean that foresters, forest owners, etc. did not have to deal with the effects of (less intense) disturbances than today.
9. Comment on line 778 - we changed "environmental changes" to "global changes". The use of "global" includes both environmental, social and economic changes resulting from climate change.
10. Dots in lines: 846, 849, 852, 854, 858 are removed. Instead of them, the corresponding references have been inserted.
11. Instead of Fig. 6, a table (Table 1) was created to indicate several silvicultural activities that promote the increase of structural diversity of the stand in various aspects.
12. In Section 6 (Silviculture - Possible Actions in the 21st Century), examples of various silvicultural actions can be found in each subsection. In fact, they are simply listed, without details, but our intention is to indicate what solution (relating to a specific aspect) can be chosen, while the details of a specific action can be found in the references indicated in the text.

Language proofreading was done by native speaker.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is of great reference value. It introduces in detail the impact of climate change on forest sustainable development in many aspects, and puts forward management measures and prospects. The structure of the article is rigorous and the logic is clear, but there are also some problems that need to be modified:

1. The language of the introduction is tedious, can be properly refined, and the cohesion between paragraphs is not coherent enough, this part of the content can be further deleted and modified.

2. There is a problem in figure 6, in which the text is not fully displayed.

3. Some chapters need to sort out the content again, such as the practical measures proposed in the sixth chapter, part of the cross-content can be combined to describe more clearly.

Generally speaking, this article is rich in content and perfect in structure, and it is suggested to be published after revision.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language of the introduction is tedious, can be properly refined, and the cohesion between paragraphs is not coherent enough, this part of the content can be further deleted and modified.

Author Response

We would like to thank very much for the constructive comments. I attach below our position on the comments made by Reviewer 2. 

1. Language proofreading was done by a native speaker.
2. The introductory section was slightly modified and shortened. Some obvious or repetitive statements, were removed from the text. 
3. Figure 6 has been removed and replaced with a table (Table 1) that better describe the principles and actionable activities possible under the CAS approach in silviculture and forest management.
4. Chapter 6 was checked and some subsections were rewritten. In our opinion, the structure of this chapter clearly indicates to the reader what silvicultural actions can be taken to achieve the goal indicated in the title of the subsections. For example, increasing genetic diversity (the title of the subsection) can be achieved by using natural regeneration, changing the criteria for selecting trees for removal in thinning treatments, etc.