PONE-D-24-44569Using Spontaneous Vegetation Succession to Evaluate How Natural Restoration Works under Different Climate in Yunnan, Southwest ChinaPLOS ONE

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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

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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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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: Using Spontaneous Vegetation Succession to Evaluate How Natural Restoration Works under Different Climate in Yunnan, Southwest China

The present work deals with the use of Spontaneous Vegetation Succession in China to Evaluate How Natural Restoration Works under Different Climate. First of all, if authors would like to present their study in a more scientific format, some title words should be replace to more appropriate concepts. “Spontaneous vegetation” could be replaced to “herbaceous vegetation” or “successional vegetation” since the word “spontaneous” is not a functional or structural concept of vegetation. In a similar way, the word “works” is not a proper word to refer to ecosystem restoration activity. Perhaps the word “proceeds” or “progress” should adheres better.

The short title does not read short.

Keywords:

Natural restoration; Spontaneous vegetation succession: It is strongly recommended that there should not be the same title words but different ones contained in the document or refer to the study topic, that helps to retrieve the paper in addition to the title words solely.

Climate condition sub areas; Index quantify; Community characteristic: these keywords are not clear or properly written or the authors have not clarity on the concepts they want to consider.

Abstract

“Yet, there remain uncertainties regarding with natural restoration, for example, how to confirm natural restoration works for different climate conditions, and how could we quantify it.”

Natural restoration has been widely and for long time studied, formerly in temperate climates and there after in tropical and many other climates. Then, this motivation is not sufficiently strong.

However, the aim of quantifying Natural Succession from 1703 succession monitoring data(1987 to 2017) with habitat quality data (14 sub-areas) in different Seral stages(grassland, shrub and forest), is a novelty and interesting research.

The word “spontaneous” simply is herein used as a synonymy of the word “natural”, so it could be better to use the longstanding term of natural used in this literature.

“The rule of it follows as H-I > H-IV > W-I > M-III > H-III > M-II > W-III > W-IV > C-II > WII > M-I > H-II > C-I. The times of spontaneous succession in forest stage from grassland stage in each sub-area are similar as the rule of index. The dominate species in each sub-area are different. The stand volumes are influenced by the index, and showed a positive correlation. Future, the index could be used to reallocate the investment in natural restoration project for better returns. Constant vigilance is required in the first 5 years after restoration actions implemented to avoid failure from calculated error.”

The above paragraph is not clear. It needs to be rewritten. The rule (letters and “numbers” or categories) shows there does not say where or how it comes from to many readers not specialized in this topic.

The abstract does not show clearly the Results or the quantitative data obtained in the study. It only limits to three description lines without figure numbers. Perhaps provide ranges of data from Table 3. Stand volumes of vegetation are key results of regeneration and may be shown here.

After reading methodology and Results, I see a problem in summarizing the key results into the abstract. Authors should attend this observation to give the reader a comprehensible understanding of what these letters and categories mean.

Introduction

Line 41. At the end replace “M” for “m”.

Line 45 – 53. Are not fluently reading.

Materials and methods

Line 89. The word “investigative” could be replaced for “research”.

The number of shared characteristics of the samples are 4 or 5?

Line 116. It should be breifley explained how is annual accumulated temperature obtained though is not a common variable used. Is it a daily summarizing of temperature values (maximum day value or which temperature value) or how are the temperature values summarized throughout the year.

Could be useful to mention which graphical software was used to make figures 3-5.

Results

Line 202. Fig. 4. Should be better to delete “It’s a figure to show the” and simply start the text with “Spatial variation of……”.

Line 210, 211. Text already presented in Table 2, so decide which way to present Resistance and Habitat quality data, in a paragraph or a table. Rewrite the paragraph accordingly to the decision.

Table 3. Use of percent or percentage? Correct.

Table 4. Make shorter community characteristics column and expand the previous four columns for better reading.

Discussion

Line 292. Tang does not match with number [54]. Correct.

Use italics for the scientific names.

df

Reviewer #2: The manuscript PONE-D-24-44569 contains important findings that contribute to our understanding of spontaneous or natural" vegetation succession across different climatic conditions in Yunnan, China. The findings will be of significant interest to the broad scientific community and are backed by a strong data set spanning 30 years of observations.

However, this does not come through from the abstract nor the introduction, and it is hard to understand from the current presentation of the methods.

In order to better understand and appreciate the findings and implications of this study a better organization of the methods is needed, which then can be used to re-write the abstract and discussion. For example, the abstract does not do justice to the span of sites, observations, and intervals of the observation used in this study.

Only after reading halfway into the manuscript is enough information presented on the 30-year data set that has 6 observations taken at five-year intervals.

The authors are suggested to please improve readability of the text narrative by providing information on the study design and how locations-sites/plots/samples/time intervals. As it is currently presented it does not convey the importance and complexity of the results being present, and it even detracts from appreciating the implications from the findings.

Please add to Table 1 a blank row to provide clarity and space - between the "Primary division" categories and for Table 4 adding a blank row to provide clarity and space - between the "Secondary division" categories.

The information of Figure 2 and Figure 3

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Reviewer #1: Yes:  Jose Luis Martinez Sanchez

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Revision Plos One.pdf

Using Natural Vegetation Succession to Evaluate How Natural Restoration Proceeds under Different Climate in Yunnan, Southwest China

PONE-D-24-44569R1

Dear Dr. Gui,

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.

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Kind regards,

Ghulam Yaseen, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

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. 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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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 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

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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: The authors have addressed the majority of the recommendations and now I think the paper can reach a publication level. However it will be worthy if authors could make a final full read of the paper to improve language writing though is not their native language. All the rest of the topics I think can be already published as it stand.

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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.

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:  Jose Luis Martinez S

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