Phenological cycles in the Pantanal woody communities: Responses to climate and soil moisture seasonality

Julia Arieira; Karl-L. Schuchmann; Arnildo Pott; Michelle D. Lanssanova; Ana Silvia O. Tissiani; Osvaldo Borges Pinto Junior; Marinêz Isaac Marques

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0316011

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 4, 2024
5 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Angelina Martínez-Yrízar, Editor PONE-D-24-13579Phenological patterns and climate influences on vegetation communities in the northern PantanalPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Arieira, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’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. Two experts have recommended accepting your manuscript for publication. Please note that one of the reviewers raised relevant concerns regarding the lack of detail in the Methods section and other specific comments. I agree with his assessment and recommend some additional changes to improve the presentation of your manuscript, as indicated below. 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Please ensure that each Supporting Information file has a legend listed in the manuscript after the references list. 6. Please upload a copy of Supporting Information Figure/Table/etc. Table which you refer to in your text on page 48. Additional Editor Comments: I find the title unclear, not accurate: “Phenological patterns and climate influences on vegetation communities in the northern Pantanal”…phenological patterns influence vegetation communities? My suggestion is to draft the title correctly, aligned with the aims of your study (lines 27-29 and lines 99-101). Line 73, “Pantanal mato-grossense” For clarity to readers, provide in brackets a definition of this Pantanal type. Line 145, indicate what is the total extension of your study area. Line 149-150, make clear that you are referring here to species numbers. Line 153, “invaded by trees” exotic or native? Make this point clear. Line 245, as I understand, all your climatic analysis is based on data provided by a single meteorological station, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso (OMM: 83361). Are these data representative of the climate for the whole area? Explain. Lines 261-264, indicate how these temperature and precipitation values differ/depart from long-term (30 yrs or available historical data) mean values. Lines 166-167, “made in 21 plots (one to three per community) measuring 5 m x 80 m, totaling a sampled area of 8.84 ha”. This explanation is not clear to me. If plots were 1-3 per community and you sampled 7 communities, then how a total of 21 plots Also, 5 m x 80 m size plot x 21 plots = 8,400 m2 or 0.84 ha, how 8.84 ha? Rewrite. Line 172, explain the criterion employed for selecting the 982 individuals and specify the number of families to which those species belong. Line 295, this is the first time you refer to the “hydrological gradient” and to the extremes of that gradient (spatial or temporal?). These must be explicitly described in the Methods section. Also, seems to me you are using the following terms indistinctly: flooding regime, hydrological gradient, hydrogeomorphological gradients, and flooding regime gradients. Please correct. Line 644, add the reference number to the Lima and Damascenso-Junior (2020) citation. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? 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PLOS ONE 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: No comments to the authors Reviewer #2: The writing of the paper lacks clarity in presenting the seven types of vegetation communities. They are mentioned only between lines 152 and 158, without detailing the environmental or hydrogeomorphological differences that characterize each community. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the level of conservation or degradation is similar among them. The absence of this information makes it difficult to relate and analyse the results. This information should be clearly presented in the "Sampling Design and Collection" section, and the results should be organized based on these differentiations. Another fundamental point is the lack of clarity in the "Concluding Remarks" section. It is not clear whether there is synchronization or not in the phenology of the different communities and what the contribution of environmental seasonality is to this. Other points: In the results on soil moisture, does the result of 100% mean that the ground was flooded? If so, it needs to be made clear. In the section "Influence of Climate and Soil Moisture on Fournier's Percent Index," there is no presentation or discussion of the flowering data. Was there no influence? Line 576: Are any of the analysed communities classified as nonflooded Cerrado? Table 02: What do the variations of blue and red colours represent? ****** 6. 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. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Cleber J. R. Alho Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". 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Revision 1
26 Nov 2024 Author Response PLOS ONE – 'Response to Reviewers' PONE-D-24-13579 Phenological patterns and climate influences on vegetation communities in the northern Pantanal PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Angelina Martínez-Yrízar, Thank you for considering our manuscript for publication in PLOS ONE. After thoroughly reviewing the feedback provided by you and the reviewers, we are pleased to submit the revised version of the manuscript. We took this opportunity to carefully recheck the data and analyses and have incorporated new content, making revisions to address the reviewers' suggestions. Additionally, we have ensured that the manuscript adheres to PLOS ONE's style guidelines. Enclosed, you will find our detailed responses to the comments raised by both you and the reviewers. We hope that the revisions meet your expectations and have enhanced the quality of the manuscript. We remain enthusiastic about the opportunity to publish with PLOS ONE. Kind regards, Julia Arieira (corresponding author) Response to Reviewers and Editor 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf" Authors’ Response: We have reviewed the style requirements and made the necessary edits. 2. In your Methods section, please provide additional information regarding the permits you obtained for the work. Please ensure you have included the full name of the authority that approved the field site access and, if no permits were required, a brief statement explaining why. Authors’ Response: We included the following sentence about permission for the work: ‘Since the research was conducted outside protected areas and did not involve endangered species, no data collection permission from official environmental institutions (i.e., Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade - ICMBio) was needed.’ 3. We note that your Data Availability Statement is currently as follows: "All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files." Authors’ Response: We are uploading a spreadsheet (Appendix S1) with data used for analyses and produce tables and figures as supporting information. 4. We note that Figure 1 in your submission contains [map/satellite] imagthat may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright. Authors’ Response: We replaced the figure. 5. We notice that your supplementary table are included in the manuscript file. Please remove them and upload them with the file type 'Supporting Information'. Please ensure that each Supporting Information file has a legend listed in the manuscript after the references list. Authors’ Response: We removed the table within the manuscript and are submitting it as Table S1 Table. We also included legends after references as requested. 6. Please upload a copy of Supporting Information Figure/Table/etc. Table which you refer to in your text on page 48. Authors’ Response: Supporting information is provided in the Appendix. 7. Additional Editor Comments: I find the title unclear, not accurate: “Phenological patterns and climate influences on vegetation communities in the northern Pantanal”…phenological patterns influence vegetation communities? My suggestion is to draft the title correctly, aligned with the aims of your study (lines 27-29 and lines 99-101). Authors’ Response: We replaced the title with: “Phenological Cycles in Pantanal Woody Communities: Responses to Climate and Soil Moisture Seasonality” 8. Line 73, “Pantanal mato-grossense” For clarity to readers, provide in brackets a definition of this Pantanal type. Authors’ Response: We added the classification of Pantanal wetland by Junk et al. (2015): ‘a floodplain wetland subjected to predictable monomodal flood pulse of low amplitude’ 9. Line 145, indicate what is the total extension of your study area. Authors’ Response: We included the total extension of the study area and improved the whole paragraph. 10. Line 149-150, make clear that you are referring here to species numbers. Authors’ Response: Review. 11. Line 153, “invaded by trees” exotic or native? Make this point clear. Authors’ Response: Invaded was replaced by ‘invaded by pioneer and native trees’. These species encroach savanna areas becoming a socioeconomic issue for cattle ranchers in the Pantanal; thus, they are called invasive species by farmer. We included a brief description of the seven communities to provide a better understanding of the results. 12. Line 245, as I understand, all your climatic analysis is based on data provided by a single meteorological station, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso (OMM: 83361). Are these data representative of the climate for the whole area? Explain. Authors’ Response: Yes, it is. This station has been the official weather station in operation since 1911 (https://portal.inmet.gov.br/normais.). It is used to calculate the climatological normals of Brazil and serves as a reference for climate monitoring in the North Pantanal. We have included this information in the updated version of the manuscript. The graphic below shows a comparison between the annual seasonality in precipitation between Cuiabá and Poconé. 13. Lines 261-264, indicate how these temperature and precipitation values differ/depart from long-term (30 years or available historical data) mean values. Authors’ Response: To address this comment, we included additional information: ‘This study was performed during the annual hydroclimatic cycle from July 2017 to July 2018 in the northern Pantanal (16°30’S and 56º25’W) (Fig. 1). This period represents normal to moderately wet conditions intercepted with intense rainy periods lasting from nearly 2-4 months [43], considering that the cumulative annual average precipitation in the region was 1,516 mm from 1991-2020 [44]. 14. Lines 166-167, “made in 21 plots (one to three per community) measuring 5 m x 80 m, totaling a sampled area of 8.84 ha”. This explanation is not clear to me. If plots were 1-3 per community and you sampled 7 communities, then how a total of 21 plots Also, 5 m x 80 m size plot x 21 plots = 8,400 m2 or 0.84 ha, how 8.84 ha? Rewrite. Authors’ Response: Thank you for warning us about this mistake. The sentence was reviewed. 15. Line 172, explain the criterion employed for selecting the 982 individuals and specifies the number of families to which those species belong. Authors’ Response: Individuals were selected on the basis of their occurrence within the plots. We have rewritten the paragraph to clarify the methodology clearer including the criterion and number of families. 16. Line 295, this is the first time you refer to the “hydrological gradient” and to the extremes of that gradient (spatial or temporal?). These must be explicitly described in the Methods section. Also, seems to me you are using the following terms indistinctly: flooding regime, hydrological gradient, hydrogeomorphological gradients, and flooding regime gradients. Please correct. Authors’ Response: We have unified the terms with respect to the soil hydrological gradient (e.g., soil moisture and flood regime). 17. Line 644, add the reference number to the Lima and Damasceno-Junior (2020) citation. Authors’ Response: Included 18. Reviewer #2: The writing of the paper lacks clarity in presenting the seven types of vegetation communities. They are mentioned only between lines 152 and 158, without detailing the environmental or hydrogeomorphological differences that characterize each community. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the level of conservation or degradation is similar among them. The absence of this information makes it difficult to relate and analyse the results. This information should be clearly presented in the "Sampling Design and Collection" section, and the results should be organized based on these differentiations. Authors’ Response: We have included a description of the structural and floristic characteristics of the seven types of vegetation communities and of the habitats to which they are usually associated. We also mentioned that the study area is part of the SESC Pantanal Ecological Station, located in the municipality of Poconé (Mato Grosso, Brazil), and it is dedicated to ecotourism and scientific research. 19. Another fundamental point is the lack of clarity in the "Concluding Remarks" section. It is not clear whether there is synchronization or not in the phenology of the different communities and what the contribution of environmental seasonality is to this. Other points: Authors’ Response: We addressed this concern, including the following text: “This study revealed the existence of interspecific synchrony in vegetative and reproductive phenology within savanna and forest communities. Differences in seasonal phenological patterns among communities were predominantly observed in flowering, with communities with intensities concentrated from the very end of the wet season to the dry season, differing from those with flowering more evenly distributed throughout the year. Interspecific synchronism and seasonal responses in leaf fall were triggered by climate seasonality in terms of rainfall, temperature, and evapotranspiration, while the climate signals for flowering and fruiting events were predominantly detected for communities with high dominance for few species.“ 20. In the results on soil moisture, does the result of 100% mean that the ground w: as flooded? If so, it needs to be made clear. Authors’ Response: In the ‘Abiotic control of phenological events’ section, we indicated that ‘A soil moisture content of 100% indicates that the site is in a flooded state.’ 21. In the section "Influence of Climate and Soil Moisture on Fournier's Percent Index," there is no presentation or discussion of the flowering data. Was there no influence? Authors’ Response: Thank you for waring that. We have missed something during our internal review process. We have returned to the paragraph about flowering. 22. Line 576: Are any of the analysed communities classified as nonflooded Cerrado? Authors’ Response: No. We have rewritten the sentence to make this clearer. We meant ‘nonflooded Cerrado which border the Pantanal’. The text was reviewed to make this clear. 23. Table 02: What do the variations of blue and red colours represent? Authors’ Response: This table was transformed into a figure as supplementary material (Figure S1). The figure shows the distribution of individuals with vegetative and reproductive phenological activity across the annual hydroclimatic cycle (2017-2018) in seven savanna and forest communities found in a floodplain wetland in the northern Pantanal. The color gradient represents a low to high frequency of activity among individuals. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PlosOne Arieira et al _Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316011.r002
5 Dec 2024 Decision Letter - Angelina Martínez-Yrízar, Editor Phenological cycles in the Pantanal woody communities: Responses to climate and soil moisture seasonality PONE-D-24-13579R1 Dear Dr. Arieira, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Angelina Martínez-Yrízar, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Please correct: Pag 4. Revise this assertion “under a scenario of 30% rainfall reduction and a 7ºC temperature increase by 2100”. 7 oC? According to IPCC: the global temperature could rise by 3.3°C to 5.7°C (5.9°F to 10.3°F) by 2100 in a high-emission scenario. And provide a reference. Figure 4. Move the word “leaf fall” to the upper part of the graphs. It is located out of place. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316011.r003
Formally Accepted
20 Dec 2024 Acceptance Letter - Angelina Martínez-Yrízar, Editor PONE-D-24-13579R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Arieira, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Angelina Martínez-Yrízar Academic Editor PLOS ONE Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: pone.0316011.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316011.r004

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