PCLM-D-24-00129

Coastal carbon sentinels: A decade of forest change along the eastern shore of the US signals complex climate change dynamics

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Ardon,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Hanna Landenmark

Staff Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The paper titled "Coastal carbon sentinels: A decade of forest change along the eastern shore of the US signals complex climate change dynamics" presents an interesting and thorough analysis of coastal forest change through a variety of different variables. The paper is well organized and I particularly appreciate weaving the hypotheses throughout the story. Overall, I think this paper was a pleasure to read and should be accepted with minor revisions. Below are a few thoughts I would like to see addressed:

1) Thank you for putting your data in an open repository. To increase reusability, I suggest you expand on the description of accessing the FIA data by including what parameters you used (years, locations, etc).

2) Also to aid reproducibility, I suggest you publish the R code used to produce your results and figures. This can be on github or within your data package already published.

3) The results section is very thorough but a lot of information that can be difficult to follow. I suggest focusing on key findings with the aid of your tables for the rest of the information and/or enhancing your figures to convey more information through visuals.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Coastal carbon sentinels: A decade of forest change along the eastern shore of the US signals complex climate change dynamics

PCLM-D-24-00129R1

Dear Marcelo Ardon,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Coastal carbon sentinels: A decade of forest change along the eastern shore of the US signals complex climate change dynamics' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

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Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Muhammad Irfan Ashraf, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The article examines the changes in forest structure and carbon stock in coastal areas under climate change scenarios. This topic is significant due to the limited available information on these forest dynamics, making it a challenging yet valuable area of study.

Overall, I found the introduction, methods, and results sections to be well-constructed and coherent. The introduction effectively locates the study within the existing scientific literature and clearly identifies the research gap being addressed. I enjoyed reading the article and found the research findings to be highly valuable and informative. They provide useful insights for readers and contribute meaningfully to scientific knowledge.

I recommend accepting the manuscript for publication.

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for adequately addressing the review comments. The manuscript is now clearer and the availability of data and code is clearer. I believe this paper should be accepted for publication - great job.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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