Genetic Diversity Maximization as a Strategy for Resilient Forest Ecosystems: A Case Study on Norway Spruce

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Many thank for letting me review the paper titled “Genetic diversity maximization as a strategy for resilient forest ecosystems: a case study on Norway spruce” by Kelblerová et al. In the mentioned draft, the authors tried to demonstrate the strategy of genetic diversity maximization when selecting core collection from locally adapted, phenotypically superior trees in order to establish a new deployment population providing local and high-quality gene sources for reforestation.

Major correction:

• Poor quality of English writing. The manuscript should be thoroughly revised in this respect. Many sentences are difficult to understand
• The title, abstract and conclusion are not in line. If authors would like to talk about diversity, they should have the results of the diversity in the abstract. What is the novelty of this paper, in comparison to the previous reports?
• The discussion section is not informative and not linked with the results of this paper.
• The conclusion has been written too general and didn’t reflect the achievement of this study.

Minor correction:

• The abstract is too lengthy and didn’t explain the results clearly.
• What is the general achievement of this paper? Please highlight in the last sentence of the abstract.
• Please add geographical locations.
• More information about the initial screening of markers should be added
• Lines 113- 118 should be transferred to the material and method section.
• The reference should be double-checked.

Best wishes,

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments and recommendations. We believe that we appropriately addressed all the issues tackled in your reviewer's report.

Detailed replies to your suggestions are highlighted in bold.

• Poor quality of English writing. The manuscript should be thoroughly revised in this respect. Many sentences are difficult to understand

We revised the English grammar and style.

• The title, abstract, and conclusion are not in line. If authors would like to talk about diversity, they should have the results of the diversity in the abstract. What is the novelty of this paper, in comparison to the previous reports?

• The discussion section is not informative and not linked with the results of this paper.
• The conclusion has been written too general and didn't reflect the achievement of this study.

All the tackled sections (abstract, introduction, discussion and conclusion) has been modified. The novelty of this paper, the core collection selection method based on the clustered heatmap, was emphasized.

Minor correction:

• The abstract is too lengthy and didn't explain the results clearly.

The abstract has been modified following reviewer's suggestions.

• What is the general achievement of this paper? Please highlight in the last sentence of the abstract.

The general achievement has been highlighted.

• Please add geographical locations.

An approximate GPS coordinates are stated in MM, paragraph Origin of the research material.

• More information about the initial screening of markers should be added

Extending information about the initial marker screening was added.

Lines 113- 118 should be transferred to the material and method section.

Lines 113 – 118 were transferred to the MM section.

• The reference should be double-checked.

References have been double-checked and adjusted.

Reviewer 2 Report

The Authors declared, that the aim of the studies was to reveal the genetic structure of targeted Norway spruce populations in Krkonoše Mountains National Park, the Czech Republic, and the demonstrate the strategies of core collection selection and proposition of a subsequent deployment strategy promoting the genetic diversity of produced seeds.  The aim of the studies does not reflect the content of the abstract. Reading the abstract, I would like to know what kind o strategies were proposed. 

In my opinion, as the Reviewer, the abstract is not enough information and could be improved to explain the process of a core selection as a strategy for resilient genotypes of Norway Spruce. I think that it is a clue of the results, which could be applied to other endangered ecosystems. 

The introduction of the paper possesses too general character. The annotation regarding climate was not the issue of methodology in the process of core collection selection of resilient Norway spruce genotypes promoting climatic adaptation through assisted migration in improving and enhancing forest health and productivity preservation. The introduction should be improved to possess data regarding references, which can indicate a more precise core collection selection of resilient Norway spruce genotypes. The relevant references to fulfill this gap was used in the discussion of the results. But, in my opinion, it is very important to obtain a consistent and logical pattern of the methodological process in the paper.  In the introduction, it should be emphasised, e.g. different scenarios of selection of core collection process.  

The discussion of the results is not consistent with the introduction, where the problem of climate change and pathogens impact to the resilient genotypes of Norway spruce was mentioned. It is important to the discussion of results, regardless of the fact that genotyped microsatellite loci are non-coding elements regions of the genome.

The Authors obtained very interesting results, which were not satisfactorily concluded. The conclusions should be summarised on the basis of obtained results to be more strict and informative to readers. Deployment schemes, eg. should be developed as some parts of the conclusion section.

The utilised references are relevant.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments and recommendations. We believe that we appropriately addressed all the issues tackled in your reviewer's report.

Detailed replies to your suggestions are highlighted in bold.

The Authors declared, that the aim of the studies was to reveal the genetic structure of targeted Norway spruce populations in Krkonoše Mountains National Park, the Czech Republic, and the demonstrate the strategies of core collection selection and proposition of a subsequent deployment strategy promoting the genetic diversity of produced seeds.  The aim of the studies does not reflect the content of the abstract. Reading the abstract, I would like to know what kind o strategies were proposed. 

The introduction of the paper possesses too general character. The annotation regarding climate was not the issue of methodology in the process of core collection selection of resilient Norway spruce genotypes promoting climatic adaptation through assisted migration in improving and enhancing forest health and productivity preservation. The introduction should be improved to possess data regarding references, which can indicate a more precise core collection selection of resilient Norway spruce genotypes. The relevant references to fulfill this gap was used in the discussion of the results. But, in my opinion, it is very important to obtain a consistent and logical pattern of the methodological process in the paper.  In the introduction, it should be emphasised, e.g. different scenarios of selection of core collection process.  

We modified the introduction, strategies of core collection selection were added.

In my opinion, as the reviewer, the abstract is not enough information and could be improved to explain the process of a core selection as a strategy for resilient genotypes of Norway Spruce. I think that it is a clue of the results, which could be applied to other endangered ecosystems. 

The abstract has been modified.

The discussion of the results is not consistent with the introduction, where the problem of climate change and pathogens impact to the resilient genotypes of Norway spruce was mentioned. It is important to the discussion of results, regardless of the fact that genotyped microsatellite loci are non-coding elements regions of the genome.

The introduction as well as the discussion has been modified according to reviewer's suggestions.

The Authors obtained very interesting results, which were not satisfactorily concluded. The conclusions should be summarised on the basis of obtained results to be more strict and informative to readers. Deployment schemes, eg. should be developed as some parts of the conclusion section.

We modified the conclusion to point out the achieved outputs more directly.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I have read the manuscript “Genetic diversity maximization as a strategy for resilient forest ecosystems: a case study on Norway spruce” several times, and, in my opinion, the paper can be interesting for the scientific community. However, I have some recommendations, which in my opinion will help the reader to understand better the new information brought by the paper. I have to recommend a revision of the manuscript.

General Comment:

A very interesting work that analyses the genetic diversity of a local population, using SSRs, and presents an improvement strategy for the seed orchards design. I didn't find a major weakness of the article. In Bibliography, the authors must respect the Instructions for authors of Forests journal (E.g.: authors name, article title, the abbreviated name of journals, publication year with bold, volume with italic, etc).

Specific comments:

- Line 4: add ‘*’ to the corresponding author.

Abstract

- Line 11: I suggest to replace ‘Heavily’ with ‘Severely’.

- Line 11: I suggest to replace ‘of broad’ with ‘with wide’ and to avoid repeating the word ‘genetic’ (you can do this using ‘populations’ instead of ‘genetic resources’, for example).

- Line 24: Please add 1-2 findings.

Keywords

- Line 24: In alphabetical order. Without ‘(L.) Karst’.

1. Introduction

- Line 32: Add a comma after ‘pollution’.

- Lines 45-46: I suggest to replace ‘and productivity preservation’ with ‘while maintaining productivity’.

- Line 52: delete ‘contemporary’.

2. Materials and Methods

- Line 73: I suggest to replace ‘We aimed at the presumably’ with ‘We targeted the probably’.

- Line 82: Vegetative buds were sampled… when?

- Lines 108-110: Try to clarify this sentence.

3. Results and Discussion

- Line 116: add ‘in’ after ‘entered’.

- Lines 120-121: Delete ‘total’, replace ‘=’ with ‘of’ and delete all SE references, transpose too much of the table into the text.

- Line 123: without SE.

- Line 124: After ‘0.85’ replace the text in brackets with ‘with the highest value, 0.943, registered by WS00716.F13’.

- Line 160: ‘paBG3’ or ‘paGB3’, as in Table 1?

- Line 237: I think the correct number is 30, instead of 25.

- Line 247: In figure 2, I counted only 14 white dots. Please check.

- Lines 271-272: Please delete the sentence ‘MI design [57] minimizes… ramets’ because the same thing was said a little above (lines 268-269).

- Line 287: quasi-equal is not equal. I believe that for the second series of clones (23-57) the correct number of ramets is 5 (not 6).

4. Conclusions

- Line 293: The first sentence is not very clear. Maybe you should add ‘was’ after ‘management’?

- Lines 298-300: I don't think you separated the paragraphs too well. The first sentence of paragraph 2 seems to belong to the first paragraph. Maybe polish the 2nd paragraph a little more, and reduce the 'we'.

References

- Lines 319-438: You must respect the Instructions for authors of Forests journal (E.g.: Authors name, article title, Abbreviated Journal Name, publication year with bold (without a comma between journal and year), volume(issue) with italic (without space between volume and bracket), etc). In the whole list, write in italics the scientific name of the species and family.

Forests Instructions for Authors (https://0-www-mdpi-com.brum.beds.ac.uk/journal/forests/instructions)

References should be described as follows, depending on the type of work:

Journal Articles:

1. Author 1, A.B.; Author 2, C.D. Title of the article. Abbreviated Journal Name Year, Volume, page range.

Books and Book Chapters:

2. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Book Title, 3rd ed.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; pp. 154–196.
3. Author 1, A.; Author 2, B. Title of the chapter. In Book Title, 2nd ed.; Editor 1, A., Editor 2, B., Eds.; Publisher: Publisher Location, Country, Year; Volume 3, pp. 154–196.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments and recommendations. We believe that we appropriately addressed all the issues tackled in your reviewer's report.

Detailed replies to your suggestions are highlighted in bold.

- Line 4: add '*' to the corresponding author.

We added the asterisk to the name of the corresponding author.

Abstract

- Line 11: I suggest to replace 'Heavily' with 'Severely'.

- Line 11: I suggest to replace 'of broad' with 'with wide' and to avoid repeating the word 'genetic' (you can do this using 'populations’ instead of ‘genetic resources’, for example).

- Line 24: Please add 1-2 findings.

The abstract has been completely modified.

Keywords

- Line 24: In alphabetical order. Without ‘(L.) Karst’.

We ordered keywords alphabetically. Nevertheless, the full version of the Norway spruce scientific name was kept.

Introduction

- Line 32: Add a comma after ‘pollution’.

We added comma after ‘pollution’.

- Lines 45-46: I suggest to replace ‘and productivity preservation’ with ‘while maintaining productivity’.

We modified Intriduction, this whole sentence was removed.

- Line 52: delete ‘contemporary’.

We deleted ‘contemporary’.

Materials and Methods

- Line 73: I suggest to replace ‘We aimed at the presumably’ with ‘We targeted the probably’.

We modified the sentence.

- Line 82: Vegetative buds were sampled… when?

The information was added.

- Lines 108-110: Try to clarify this sentence.

This statement is clarified by findings obtained in the paper cited, Chaloupková et al. 2016.

Results and Discussion

- Line 116: add ‘in’ after ‘entered’.

We added ‘in’.

- Lines 120-121: Delete ‘total’, replace ‘=’ with ‘of’ and delete all SE references, transpose too much of the table into the text.

We corrected the sentence.

- Line 123: without SE.

We deleted the SE values.

- Line 124: After ‘0.85’ replace the text in brackets with ‘with the highest value, 0.943, registered by WS00716.F13’.

We corrected the sentence.

- Line 160: ‘paBG3’ or ‘paGB3’, as in Table 1?

Information was corrected to ‘paGB3’.

- Line 237: I think the correct number is 30, instead of 25.

Thank you for pointing that out, we corrected the number from 25 to 30.

- Line 247: In figure 2, I counted only 14 white dots. Please check.

Thank you for your remark, which indicated that we need to explain the method in more detail: Each dot in the Figure represents two accessions (e.g., the most upper left dot targeted G_40 and G_38, the next dot represents accessions G_38 and G_21 (G_38 needs to be counted just once). Therefore, we finally got 15 accessions represented by 14 dots following this logic.

Nevertheless, when double-checking the Figure, we found that we placed one dot wrongly. Therefore we modified the Figure 2, still keeping 14 dots.

- Lines 271-272: Please delete the sentence ‘MI design [57] minimizes… ramets’ because the same thing was said a little above (lines 268-269).

We deleted the sentence.

- Line 287: quasi-equal is not equal. I believe that for the second series of clones (23-57) the correct number of ramets is 5 (not 6).

We corrected the number from 6 to 5. 

 Conclusions

- Line 293: The first sentence is not very clear. Maybe you should add ‘was’ after ‘management’?

- Lines 298-300: I don't think you separated the paragraphs too well. The first sentence of paragraph 2 seems to belong to the first paragraph. Maybe polish the 2nd paragraph a little more, and reduce the 'we'.

The conclusion section has been completely reworked.

References

- Lines 319-438: You must respect the Instructions for authors of Forests journal (E.g.: Authors name, article title, Abbreviated Journal Name, publication year with bold (without a comma between journal and year), volume(issue) with italic (without space between volume and bracket), etc). In the whole list, write in italics the scientific name of the species and family.

The inappropriate formatting of references has been corrected.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I suggest accepting the paper.