All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.
Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.
Dear Dr. Dáttilo,
Although one of the reviewers still believes there is room for improvement, all of them accepted your manuscript in its current form. Therefore, I am pleased to accept your study for publication in PeerJ.
Sincerely,
Daniel Silva
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Dezene Huber, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
No more comments this time. I consider that the new version of the paper must be published
No more comments this time. I consider that the new version of the paper must be published
No more comments this time. I consider that the new version of the paper must be published
No more comments this time. I consider that the new version of the paper must be published
I don't believe that the response letter addresses comments from my previous review. Perhaps these were addressed in a previous round of review.
The literature review has greatly improved.
The experimental design is still lacking - this is a very simple analysis.
The results presented are valid, though easily obtained.
This manuscript presents a basic GIS analysis related to Mexican cloud forests. It does not produce new data, develop new methods, nor test complex ecological hypotheses. Though it would not meet the standards of most research journals, it may be useful for managers.
The manuscript written very very in English and everything is clear now.
The experimental design is good.
The findings are useful for the conservation of montane cloud forests.
Dear Dr. Dáttilo,
Ater this new review round, major reviews from one of the reviewers were still requested. I comprehend that new analyses at this point may be difficult to develop. Still, in case you are able to perform them and the reviewer is pleased with them, I believe the text will be accepted. Otherwise, in case new analyses are not possible, please provide arguments to convince the reviewer and I believe (and hope) we will be able to move forward with your contribution.
Sincerely,
Daniel Silva
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
The manuscript represents an interesting contribution on the geographic distribution of the Mexican cloud forests and deals with a relevant topic, such as conservation of this threatened vegetation type in Mexico. Some previous papers have been addressed different topics related to Mexican cloud forests, but not considering as a whole and current data about cover surface in Mexico. This paper is an interesting contribution about the past and future distribution ranges of the Mexican cloud forests and this work could have implications on their conservation strategies. Some new suggested references must be added to the manuscript. I recommend that this new version of this paper deserves be published in PeerJ with few minor corrections
This paper is within Aims and Scope of the journal. Methods are described with detail and information can be replicate. Research question is well defined and relevant in terms of biological conservation.
The manuscript represents an interesting contribution about the past and future distribution ranges of the Mexican cloud forests and this work could have implications on their conservation strategies. This paper is an interesting contribution on the geographic distribution of the Mexican cloud forests and deals with a relevant topic, such as conservation of this threatened vegetation type in Mexico.
I recommend that this new version of this paper deserves be published in PeerJ with few minor corrections detailed below:
Page 7 (Abstract), line 34. Please add the word “federal” before “protected areas”
Page 9, line 85. Please write “;” rather than “,” after “CONABIO 2010”
Page 10, line 102. Please add the reference of Toledo-Aceves et al., 2011, after CONABIO, 2010
Page 10, line 102. Please write “The evaluation of land-cover vegetation of cloud forests in Mexico …”
Page 10, line 110. Please delete “mixed forests within”
Page 12, lines 143 to 146. Please move Fagus grandifolia to the line 143 and please add the genus Quercus (Fagaceae) in the line 146
Page 13, line 180. Please add the following reference after “Querétaro (Cartujano et al., 2002).”
Cartujano, S., Zamudio, S., Alcántara, O., Luna-Vega, I. (2002). El bosque mesófilo de montaña en el municipio de Landa de Matamoros, Querétaro, México. Boletín de la Sociedad Botánica de México, 70, 13-43.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
Page 13, line 183. Please write “surface” rather than “land”
Page 13, line 184. Please write “presents” rather than “contained” before cloud forests
Page 14, lines 201-205. What happen with Oaxaca and Chiapas in relation to mixed forest patches and NPAs?
Page 15, line 219. Please write “federal” rather than “federally”
Page 15, line 227. Please add the reference of “Sánchez-Ramos & Dirzo, 2014” after the reference of Hamilton et al. 1995
Page 16, line 263. Please write “estimation” rather than “estimate”
Page 17, line 272. Please add the reference of “Sánchez-Ramos & Dirzo, 2014” after the reference of Williams-Linera 2002
Page 17, line 278. Please write “federal protected areas”
Page 18, line 297. Please write “vagility” rather than “mobility
Page 18, lines 311-314. In this context of other mechanisms, the Areas Voluntarily Designated for Conservation or AVDCs (Áreas Destinadas Voluntariamente para la Conservación, in Spanish), represent conservation areas protected by local communities that operate independently of the NPA federal system, as occur with state-level protected areas. In relation to other Mexican states, Oaxaca has few NPAs (Contreras-Medina et al. 2022). In this state, only eight NPAs are recorded (see Contreras-Medina et al. 2022, Figure 3), in contrast with the neighboring state of Chiapas, where 19 NPAs are present (CONANP 2023). This difference among these two states in the number of NPAs apparently reflects a lower representation of cloud forests in protected areas in Oaxaca in comparison to Chiapas (see Ponce-Reyes et al. 2013, Table 3). However, in Oaxaca there are these alternative conservation areas called AVDCs, which are more efficient in conservation terms (Martin et al. 2011; Briones-Salas et al. 2016; Contreras-Medina et al. 2022) and are distributed across the state (see Contreras-Medina et al. 2022, Figure 3), including areas with cloud forests.
Contreras-Medina, R., García-Martínez, A.I., Ramírez-Martínez, J.C., Espinosa, D., Balam-Narváez, R., Luna-Vega, I. (2022). Biogeographic analysis of ferns and lycophytes in Oaxaca: A Mexican beta-diverse area. Botanical Sciences, 100(1), 204-222.
Briones-Salas M., Lavariega-Nolasco M., Cortés-Marcial M., Monroy-Gamboa A.G., Masés-García C.A. (2016). Iniciativas de conservación para los mamíferos de Oaxaca, México. In: Briones-Salas M., Hortelano-Moncada M.Y., Magaña-Cota G., Sánchez-Rojas G., Sosa-Escalante J.E., (Eds.). Riqueza y conservación de los mamíferos de México a nivel estatal. Ciudad de México: Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Asociación Mexicana de Mastozoología A. C. and Universidad de Guanajuato, pp. 329-366. ISBN: 9786070284304
Martin G.J., Camacho C.I., Del Campo C.A., Anta-Fonseca S., Chapela F., González M.A. (2011). Indigenous and community conserved areas in Oaxaca, Mexico. Management of Environmental Quality, 22, 250-266.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
Page 20, lines 364-366. An analysis considering all types of protected areas recognized in Mexico (AVDCs, and NPAs at federal, state and municipality level), is needed in relation to representativeness of cloud forests in conservation areas across all the country”
The authors have improved the English for this manuscript. According the three reviewers comments, the authors partly seletcted some simple comments to improvement. While according to the responses, I see the authors havn't improve the core questions, espacially for the analysis. Reviewer 2 and Reviewer 3 suggested the authors to improve the experimental design, while there is no new analysis added.
There are only primary data and very simple analysis. I suggest the authors add some new analysis based on these data.
All undetlying data have been provided, but the statistically need improve.
Dear Dr. Dáttilo,
After this first review round, your manuscript received diverse decisions. At first, I tended to accept the issues raised by reviewer two, indicating that significant improvements would be needed to properly accept the manuscript. Still, you and your co-authors also received two more positive decisions than that of Reviewer #2. Considering it all, your manuscript may be accepted for publication if you and your co-authors can improve the text in the direction indicated by the reviewers, especially that provided by Reviewer #2.
I hope the issues raised help to improve the manuscript after the manuscript is re-assessed by the reviewers in the future.
Sincerely,
Daniel Silva
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
The manuscript represents an interesting contribution on the geographic distribution of the Mexican cloud forests and deals with a relevant topic, such as conservation of this threatened vegetation type in Mexico. Some previous papers have been addressed different topics related to Mexican cloud forests, but not considering as a whole and current data about cover surface in Mexico. This could be an interesting paper about the past and future distribution ranges of the Mexican cloud forests and this work could have implications on their conservation strategies. Some suggested references must be added to the manuscript. I recommend that this paper deserves be published in PeerJ with several corrections.
Research question well defined and methods are described with sufficient detail. The contribution is in accordance with the aims and scope of the journal
Some previous papers have been addressed different topics related to Mexican cloud forests, but not considering as a whole and current data about cover surface in Mexico. This could be an interesting paper about the past and future distribution ranges of the Mexican cloud forests and this work could have implications on their conservation strategies.
Several details and comments are necessary to attend by authors along the manuscript. For guidance to authors, pages and lines are cited and all these are detailed below:
Page 1, line 21. Please delete the word “and”
Page 1, lines 30 and 34. Please write “cloud forests” rather than “Cloud Forests”
Page 2, lines 60 and 61. Please write “Despite their biological importance, cloud forests face considerable . . .”
Page 2, line 62. Please delete the reference of Still et al., 1999 and add the following reference: Jiménez-García & Peterson, 2019. Also, please include the cited paper in the references section.
Jiménez-García, D., & Peterson, A. T. 2019. Climate change impact on endangered cloud forest tree species in Mexico. Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad, 90, e902781.
Page 2, line 65. Please add the word “important” after “current state is . . .”
Page 3, line 67. Please write “less than” rather than “merely”
Page 3, line 68. Please add the following references: (González-Espinosa et al. 2011; Luna-Vega et al., 2023), after “total land area”. Also, please include the cited paper in the references section.
Luna-Vega, I., O. Alcántara-Ayala, L.J. García-Morales, D. Espinosa, J.C. Ramírez-Martínez, R. Contreras-Medina. 2023. Threatened trees characteristic of Mexican tropical montane cloud forests. Diversity 15: 42.
Page 3, line 69. Please delete the reference of Flores-Villela & Gerez 1994 and add the following references: (Rzedowski 2006; González-Espinosa et al., 2011).
Page 3, line 69. Please write the following sentences before “Among the states . . .”. “The Mexican cloud forests represent the northernmost extension of this vegetation type in the New World (Luna-Vega & Magallón, 2010). These forests are best developed between 1500 and 2500 m above sea level and are characterized by the cloud layer´s persistence and seasonality (Rzedowski 2006; González-Espinosa et al., 2011)”. Also, please include the cited papers in the references section.
Luna-Vega, I. Magallón S. 2010. Phylogenetic composition of angiosperm diversity in the cloud forests of Mexico. Biotropica, 42, 444–454.
Rzedowski, J. 2006. Vegetación de México. First digital edition. Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad: Mexico City, Mexico.
Page 3, line 70. Please write correctly the reference “González-Espinosa et al., 2011”
Page 3, line 73. Please add to the list the following reference: (Jiménez-García & Peterson, 2019)
Page 3, line 75. Please add to the list the following reference: (Luna-Vega et al., 2023)
Page 3, lines 79 and 80. Please add to the list the following reference: (Jiménez-García & Peterson, 2019)
Page 3, line 92. Please write “remote sensing” rather than “remotely sensed”
Page 4, lines 94 and 95. Please write “cloud forests” rather than “Cloud Forests”
Page 4, line 94. Please write “remote sensing” rather than “remotely sensed”
Page 4, line 92. Please write “threat degree” rather than “threats”
Page 4, lines 100 and 102. Please write “mixed” rather than “Mixed”
Page 4, lines 103 to 106. These last lines of Introduction section appear more like conclusions. I consider that these lines must move to other section.
Page 4, lines 112 to 115. Authors must consider that INEGI produces and updating land-cover maps more or less continuously. The most recent is the following:
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). 2021. Conjunto de Datos Vectoriales de la Carta de Uso de Suelo y Vegetación, Serie VII. Conjunto Nacional. Scale 1:250,000; Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía: Mexico City, Mexico.
Page 5, line 121. Please write “spatial resolution”
Page 5, lines 126 and 129. Please write “mixed” rather than “Mixed”
Page 5, line 129. Please write “cloud” and “oak” rather than “Cloud” and “Oak”, respectively
Page 5, line 129. Please write “woody” rather than “wooden”
Page 5, line 130. Please check the word “and” appears in Arial format
Page 5, line 131. Please write “Carpinus tropicalis” rather than “Carpinus caroliniana”
Page 5, line 131. Please add “Fagus grandifolia (Fagaceae)” to the species list
Page 5, line 134. Please add the following reference (Luna-Vega et al., 2023), after Llamas-Barba et al. 2015
Page 5, lines 140 and 143. Please write “mixed” rather than “Mixed”
Page 6, line 152. Please write “Natural Protected Area (NPA) concerning to the map of the Mexican National System of NPAs (CONANP, 2023)”
Page 6, lines 162 and 163. There are some other Mexican states with cloud forests (Please see Figure 1 in Luna-Vega et al. 1999, and Figure 2 in Luna-Vega et al., 2023)
Luna-Vega, I., Alcántara-Ayala, O., Espinosa, D., Morrone, J.J. 1999. Historical relationships of the Mexican cloud forests: a preliminary vicariance model applying parsimony analysis of endemicity to vascular plant taxa. Journal of Biogeography, 26(6), 1299–1305.
Page 6, lines 162, 165 and 171. Please write “cloud forest” rather than “Cloud Forest”
Page 6, line 165. Please write “mixed” rather than “Mixed”
Page 6, line 171. Please write “in Mexico” rather than “is Mexico”
Page 7, line 179. Please write “cloud forest” rather than “Cloud Forest”
Page 7, lines 185 and 186. This asseveration in the case of Tamaulipas must be take carefully, because in the El Cielo Biosphere Reserve cloud forest covers a surface of 160 km2 sensu González-Medrano (2005). However, the El Cielo reserve is a state NPA, not included in the federal system of NPAs (CONANP 2023).
González-Medrano, F. 2005. La vegetación. In: Historia Natural de la Reserva de la Biosfera El Cielo. Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, Consejo Tamaulipeco de Ciencia y Tecnología. Mexico. pp. 88-105.
Page 7, line 197. Please write “from a landscape perspective.” and delete “adopting a”
Page 8, line 202. Please add the following reference (Luna-Vega et al., 2023), after Falcão et al. 2022
Page 8, lines 203 to 226. Please check these paragraphs because appear in 11 size format
Page 8, lines 203 and 204. Please add 2 or 3 references after “environmental disturbance” related with this asseveration
Page 8, line 207. Please write “mixed” rather than “Mixed”
Page 8, line 208. Please write “cloud” rather than “Cloud”
Page 8, line 210. Please delete the reference of Flores-Villela & Gerez 1994 and add the following reference: (González-Espinosa et al., 2011).
Page 8, line 210. Please write “such as climate regulation, soil nutrient cycles and water supply”
Page 9, lines 227 to 230. Please check these lines because appear in Arial format
Page 9, line 237. Please write “the Mexican transition zone (Morrone 2020), which includes the main mountain chains in Mexico and harbors cloud forests in the country” rather than “the Sierras templadas ecorregion in Mexico, which harbors Cloud forests in the country”. Also, please include the cited book in the references section.
Morrone, J.J. 2020. The Mexican Transition Zone: A natural biogeographic laboratory to study biotic assembly. Cham: Springer.
Page 9, line 234. Please write “mixed” rather than “Mixed”
Page 9, line 236. Please write “cloud forest” rather than “Cloud Forest”
Page 9, line 242. Please add the following reference (Jiménez-García &Peterson, 2019), after López-Arce et al., 2019
Page 9, line 245. Please add the following references after “biological invasions” (Luna-Vega et al., 2006, 2023)
Luna, I., O. Alcántara, R. Contreras-Medina, A. Ponce. 2006. Current knowledge of threatened vascular plants closely related to Mexican cloud forests. Biodiversity and Conservation 15(12): 3773-3799.
Page 10, line 262. Please add a recent reference to this list.
Page 10, line 272. Please write “(Guerrero, Michoacán, and Tamaulipas), showing considerable inadequacy of the present natural protected areas system for Mexican cloud forests (Jiménez-García &Peterson 2019).”
Page 11, line 281. Please write “local” rather than “traditional”
Page 11, line 293. Please add the year after “CONABIO”
Page 12, line 316. Please add the following references after “Natural Protected Areas” (Ponce-Reyes et al., 2012; Jiménez-García &Peterson 2019)
The text is long for the small amount of new information and lack of mention or scholarly comparison with the most recent relevant research - it ignores recent related research. While the text could be used for a report of some kind, even for management it contributes little to existing knowledge (see comments below).
Besides the older works mentioned that address Mexican cloud forests, there are several more recent studies that address cloud forests globally – some with fairly high spatial resolution – and one older study. They address climate change, deforestation and conservation considerations (see below citations). Los et al. address climate change over past decades. Haman et al. address changes in low cloud cover. Helmer et al. address forest cover by protection and by future climate by biogeographic cloud forest zones. Mulligan addresses forest cover of cloud forests by country. Karger et al. address forest cover and forest loss of cloud forests in the context of different species groups. Some of these articles include supporting information as maps or tables with data by country or by biogeographic zone. Scholarly comparison of these other results are needed. Several of these works have information directly comparable to the results presented, except for the fragmentation indices.
Hamann, H.F. and Sanchez-Azofeifa, G.A., 2024. Multi-decadal trends of low-clouds at the Tropical Montane Cloud Forests. Ecological Indicators, 158, p.111599.
Helmer, E.H., Gerson, E.A., Baggett, L.S., Bird, B.J., Ruzycki, T.S. and Voggesser, S.M., 2019. Neotropical cloud forests and páramo to contract and dry from declines in cloud immersion and frost. PloS one, 14(4), p.e0213155.
Karger, D.N., Kessler, M., Lehnert, M. and Jetz, W., 2021. Limited protection and ongoing loss of tropical cloud forest biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5(6), pp.854-862.
Los, S.O., Street-Perrott, F.A., Loader, N.J. and Froyd, C.A., 2021. Detection of signals linked to climate change, land-cover change and climate oscillators in Tropical Montane Cloud Forests. Remote Sensing of Environment, 260, p.112431.
Mulligan, M., 2010. Modeling the tropics-wide extent and distribution of cloud forest and cloud forest loss, with implications for conservation priority. Tropical montane cloud forests: Science for conservation and management, 740, pp.16-38.
The authors combined existing, recent, land-cover maps with an existing GIS vector layer of cloud forests circa the late 1990s and estimated fragmentation indices. The analyses are fairly minimal and trivial, consisting of GIS overlays and estimating forest fragmentation indices. No new geospatial datasets were created. There is only an implied change analysis, not an actual one. There is no comprehensive basis to understand the implications of the work for the field.
There is not enough information on the cloud forest map used for the analysis. How were disturbed forest or successional forests dealt with in creating the map. What remote sensing and field data were used and how were the areas defined.
The article contains quite a bit of speculation about the values of the various fragmentation indices estimated. For example, mesh size is stated to be “very low.” However, there is no way to know how the mesh size estimated compares with other landscapes or with the past state of the landscape studied.
Review on the paper entitled “Current status of the remaining Mexican cloud forests:
landscape findings and conservation initiatives” by Dattilo et al.
Cloud forests are one the most endangered ecosystems due to the climate change, habitat losses, agricultural, and so on. While cloud forests have significant presence of endemic and endangered species that contributed to the high biodiversity. Thus study the changes of cloud forests is very important.
This work tried to do an evaluation of Mexico’s cloud forests. Here, the authors estimated the average total area, number of patches, effective mesh size, total edge, and shape of mixed forests that was present in 2020 within polygons of cloud forests defined in 1999 by Mexico’s National Commission for the Use and Knowledge of Biodiversity using data from the North American Land Change Monitoring System. This is a very important work for cloud forests conservation and biodiversity maintenance. There are two main concerns are that (1) the whole paper is very simple and lack the deep analysis of the data, the authors need to think a little more about how to use the data organize some further analysis to make this paper more attractive; (2) the English of this manuscript need improvement by a native speaker.
P165-199: please see the results part, there are only very simple statistics and comparison. The authors need add more analysis to put forward some interesting points.
There are many language problems from the first sentence of abstract.
The authors need more analysis for this paper.
no comment
All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.