Small-scale livelihood and cultural fire: Global spatiotemporal characteristics, and gaps in data

Cathy Smith; Matthew Kasoar; Oliver Perkins; James D. A. Millington; Jayalaxshmi Mistry

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0339561

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 14, 2025
14 Mar 2025 Author Response Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-10824_R1_author_response_to_comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339561.r001
16 Apr 2025 Decision Letter - Rodrigo Nogueira Vasconcelos, Editor PONE-D-25-13919Small-scale livelihood and cultural fire: global spatiotemporal characteristics, and gaps in dataPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kasoar, 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. Based on the reviewers' evaluations, minor improvements are needed to enhance the manuscript; therefore, the decision is for a minor revision. Please submit your revised manuscript by May 31 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. 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If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: 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: The manuscript presents a well-structured and rigorous analysis of small-scale anthropogenic fire use. The methodological approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data from a wide range of sources, is both innovative and comprehensive. The integration of spatiotemporal data into global fire modeling is a significant contribution. The manuscript is coherent and logical, with each section building upon the previous one. 1- Minor revisions in the abstract to emphasize key contributions. 2- A clearer overview of the methodology in the introduction to improve linkages. 3- Expand the conclusion with specific recommendations for future research and policy applications. Reviewer #2: General Assessment This manuscript addresses an important and underrepresented topic in global fire science: the spatiotemporal patterns and data gaps related to small-scale livelihood and cultural fire use. It draws on a unique global dataset (the LIFE database) and presents both quantitative and qualitative analyses that are relevant for improving fire models and remote sensing interpretations. The authors have clearly responded to previous reviewer concerns by improving clarity, transparency, and methodological detail throughout the manuscript. While the study remains limited by the availability and quality of existing case study data, it makes a valuable contribution by identifying global patterns and data gaps in anthropogenic fire use. The revised manuscript is substantially improved and, with minor revisions, is suitable for publication. 1. Technical Soundness, Data Support for Conclusions, and Statistical Analysis The manuscript is technically sound and methodologically well-structured for its exploratory goals. The authors apply clear and justified criteria for selecting data from the LIFE database and transparently describe how central estimates (mean, median, approximate values) were derived. The treatment of seasonality using a climatologically normalized framework is a strength of the study, allowing for comparisons across hemispheres and climate zones. While no inferential statistical tests are applied, the descriptive statistics are appropriate for the research aims. Thus, while the manuscript does not include hypothesis testing or predictive modeling, it is technically soundness for the purpose it sets out to achieve. 2. Clarity, Structure and English Language Quality The manuscript is well written, clear, and generally easy to follow. 3. Figures and Visualization Figure 1 remains difficult to interpret. It attempts to display multiple variables (case study location, data type, fire-use purpose) on a single map using color and background shading. This results in visual clutter and makes interpretation challenging—particularly in regions with overlapping data points and similar color hues. 4. Final Recommendation Recommendation: Minor Revisions This is a strong and timely contribution that brings new data and insight into the role of small-scale and cultural fire use in global fire regimes. With minor revisions—primarily to improve figure clarity and streamline some dense text—it will be suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. ****** 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:Aldnira Tolentino Nogueira 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". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339561.r002
Revision 1
17 Oct 2025 Author Response We greatly appreciate the time and efforts of both reviewers, and are encouraged by their supportive comments, which we hope we have addressed satisfactorily below. Reviewer #1: The manuscript presents a well-structured and rigorous analysis of small-scale anthropogenic fire use. The methodological approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data from a wide range of sources, is both innovative and comprehensive. The integration of spatiotemporal data into global fire modeling is a significant contribution. The manuscript is coherent and logical, with each section building upon the previous one. 1- Minor revisions in the abstract to emphasize key contributions. 2- A clearer overview of the methodology in the introduction to improve linkages. 3- Expand the conclusion with specific recommendations for future research and policy applications. Authors' response: We are grateful to the reviewer for their very positive appraisal of our work! As suggested, we have made minor text additions to the abstract and the final paragraphs of the introduction to better highlight the applications of this analysis, and introduce the methodological aims. We remain open to any further suggestions of specific improvements that could improve clarity or flow of the text! Regarding the final recommendation, this prompted some discussion among the authors and ultimately we felt that this manuscript is probably not the right place to try and make specific recommendations of policy applications. We believe that the methodology and analysis of case study data can enable significant improvements to the representation of human fire use in coarse-resolution land surface models, however in isolation these models do not necessarily then provide improved utility for making policy and landscape management decisions. For example, while we might use outputs from such models to identify where interventions might be most beneficial (from a global earth system perspective), nonetheless the context and circumstances of the local situation are also critical to understand the feasibility and impacts on the ground, and there may be additional dimensions (e.g. cultural or historical) which are not well captured in the case study data and quantitative relationships that emerge. So, while there is need and utility in analysing and synthesising local case studies to advance understanding globally, we want to also still be clear on the uncertainties and gaps in our current data, and thus limitation of our models (as we hope this paper does). Reviewer #2: General Assessment This manuscript addresses an important and underrepresented topic in global fire science: the spatiotemporal patterns and data gaps related to small-scale livelihood and cultural fire use. It draws on a unique global dataset (the LIFE database) and presents both quantitative and qualitative analyses that are relevant for improving fire models and remote sensing interpretations. The authors have clearly responded to previous reviewer concerns by improving clarity, transparency, and methodological detail throughout the manuscript. While the study remains limited by the availability and quality of existing case study data, it makes a valuable contribution by identifying global patterns and data gaps in anthropogenic fire use. The revised manuscript is substantially improved and, with minor revisions, is suitable for publication. 1. Technical Soundness, Data Support for Conclusions, and Statistical Analysis The manuscript is technically sound and methodologically well-structured for its exploratory goals. The authors apply clear and justified criteria for selecting data from the LIFE database and transparently describe how central estimates (mean, median, approximate values) were derived. The treatment of seasonality using a climatologically normalized framework is a strength of the study, allowing for comparisons across hemispheres and climate zones. While no inferential statistical tests are applied, the descriptive statistics are appropriate for the research aims. Thus, while the manuscript does not include hypothesis testing or predictive modeling, it is technically soundness for the purpose it sets out to achieve. 2. Clarity, Structure and English Language Quality The manuscript is well written, clear, and generally easy to follow. 3. Figures and Visualization Figure 1 remains difficult to interpret. It attempts to display multiple variables (case study location, data type, fire-use purpose) on a single map using color and background shading. This results in visual clutter and makes interpretation challenging—particularly in regions with overlapping data points and similar color hues. 4. Final Recommendation Recommendation: Minor Revisions This is a strong and timely contribution that brings new data and insight into the role of small-scale and cultural fire use in global fire regimes. With minor revisions—primarily to improve figure clarity and streamline some dense text—it will be suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Authors' response: We greatly appreciate the reviewer’s supportive comments on our manuscript. The author group spent some time debating whether there is a way to improve the clarity of Figure 1. For the figure in the main text we could not come up with a better way to present the information globally – the main purpose of the figure is ultimately to show the large-scale distribution and representativeness of the case studies in a concise way. With the existing figure we did already attempt to use a colour palette that makes the symbols distinct from the background shading, and used 3 separate maps for each of the different quantitative properties that we subsequently analyse to avoid the different symbols obscuring each other. Further splitting by the fire-use purpose would result in 24 maps which we feel would probably only increase the clutter. Instead, we have now added two additional supplementary figures (figures S1 and S2 in the revised Appendix B) which zoom in on Africa and south-east Asia - the two regions where the density of case studies is particularly high, which we hope will therefore allow interested readers to see the finer detail and distinguish the individual points over these regions, while still preserving the main Figure 1 as a global overview. Hopefully this addresses the main concern, but we remain open to any alternative suggestions that would improve clarity of either the figure or text! Additional changes to the manuscript: Equations (1) and (3) describing the criteria for temperature-driven and precipitation-driven seasonality zones, had erroneously been labelled the wrong way around, i.e. the equation for precipitation-driven seasonality was incorrectly labelled as ‘temperature-driven’, and vice versa. This mistake in the description of the equations has now been corrected, and we apologize for the error. Only the wording in the description of the equations was incorrect; the equations were correctly applied in the analysis and none of the results are affected. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-25-13919_author_response_to_comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339561.r003
9 Dec 2025 Decision Letter - Kristofer Lasko, Editor Small-scale livelihood and cultural fire: global spatiotemporal characteristics, and gaps in data PONE-D-25-13919R1 Dear Dr. Kasoar, 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. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support. 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, Kristofer Lasko, PhD Academic Editor PLOS One Additional Editor Comments (optional): Ensure you either delete your empty "Acknowledgments" section, or populate it as needed. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339561.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Kristofer Lasko, Editor PONE-D-25-13919R1 PLOS One Dear Dr. Kasoar, 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 You will receive further instructions from the production team, including instructions on how to review your proof when it is ready. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few days 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. You will receive an invoice from PLOS for your publication fee after your manuscript has reached the completed accept phase. If you receive an email requesting payment before acceptance or for any other service, this may be a phishing scheme. Learn how to identify phishing emails and protect your accounts at https://explore.plos.org/phishing. 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. Kristofer Lasko Academic Editor PLOS One https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339561.r005

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