the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 23 Apr 2024
Ecosystem characteristics of land covers with various anthropogenic impacts in a tropical forest region of Southeast Asia
Abstract. Given the severe anthropogenic pressure on tropical forests and the high demand for field observations of ecosystem characteristics, it is crucial to collect such data both in pristine tropical forests and in the converted deforested land cover classes. To gain insight into the ecosystem characteristics of pristine tropical forests, regrowth forests, and cashew plantations, we established an ecosystem monitoring site in Phnom Kulen National Park, Cambodia. Here, we present observed datasets of forest inventories, leaf area index, leaf traits of woody species, a fraction of intercepted photosynthetically active radiation, and edaphic and meteorological conditions. We examined how land-use and land-cover change affect species and functional diversity, stand structure, and edaphic conditions among the three land-cover classes. We further investigated relationships between diameters at breast height and tree height, estimated aboveground biomass (AGB), and explored relationships between ecosystem characteristics and AGB. We uncovered some key differences in ecosystem characteristics among the land-cover classes. We also demonstrated the feasibility of locally updating AGB estimates using power law functions. These datasets and findings can contribute to filling data gaps in tropical forest research, addressing global environmental challenges, and supporting sustainable forest management.
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Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on essd-2024-98', Anonymous Referee #1, 03 Jul 2024
This study provides observed datasets of meteorological conditions, forest inventory, leaf traits of woody species, leaf area index (LAI) and a fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR) of pristine tropical forests, regrowth forests, and cashew plantations within Phnom Kulen National Park. Nine forest plots were selected and these forest inventory results cover the period from Apr 2022 to Apr 2023. The authors compared the differences in these ecosystem characteristics among the three types of land-cover classes and provided a well-organized dataset of a tropical forest ecosystem. However, despite the hard monitoring work, I am not quite sure whether this dataset is valuable enough to reach the high standard of ESSD.
Major concern
This study compared the species diversity, leaf functional traits, biomass, and other characteristics of three types of forests. I doubt whether this dataset is unique and useful enough. Does the comparison of these indexes among three types of forests can provide us with any new insights that haven’t been investigated before? The authors claimed that this dataset fills data gaps in tropical forest research, so does it mean there were few studies investigating the ecosystem characteristics in tropical forests? I cannot see any new findings according to the data analysis section.
Three methods were used to calculate aboveground biomass, and the selection of the method can cause a large difference in the calculated results. How to prove which method is better than the other two as the authors claimed in the discussion 4.5.4?
Minor
The journal required a data link at the end of the abstract.
Please add the background of land cover map in Figure 1.
The titles of these tables are too long. Please move the note to the end of the table.
Authors in Table 1 is not a good representation of reference. Just use “reference”.
What is the difference in precipitation and temperature data between Figs. 2 and 3? Are they repeated results?
In Fig. 4, does the small plot represent the local amplifier of the plot outside? The green line seems different among the two plots.
Hard to distinguish the line form of AGBh and AGBf in Figure 5a.
Line 383-384. I doubt the dataset in this study can be used to investigate the effect of land use change from natural land to settlement areas. The land use change is a process, and it is not reflected in this dataset with a short period.
Line 400. Please add the supporting figures or table numbers.
Several figures in the supplementary were not cited in the main text, please check.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-98-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on essd-2024-98', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Jul 2024
Tropical forests play an important role in global terrestrial biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles. It is crucial to collect the ecosystem characteristics of tropical forests after anthropogenic impacts. This manuscript presented observed forest inventory, leaf area index, leaf traits of woody species, a fraction of intercepted photosynthetically active radiation, and edaphic and meteorological conditions in a newly established ecosystem monitoring site of Kulen National Park. The dataset will be helpful in analyzing the forest response to human disturbance in Cambodia. However, the spatial representation of these field observation data is limited for the pantropical forest, and the observation time period is only one year. Thus, I don’t think this manuscript can be published on Earth System Science Data.
Main comments:
- “Land cover” in the title is confusing and unsuitable. The three land cover classes in this study are all forest land, but the tree species management intensities are different.
- The location of weather station is different with that of the nine forest inventory plots, and the observation sites of soil condition and radiation. Thus, I don’t think the meteorological station can represent the microclimate of three land cover classes due to the diverse vegetation cover, tree composition and stand structure.
- How was temperature and precipitation between April 2022 and April 2023 compared with the multi-year average? Was it a dry, wet, or normal year?
- In the discussion section, the authors compared many observed ecosystem characteristics with previous studies. However, most variables (e.g., edaphic conditions, species diversity, SLA, LDMC) area qualitative comparison. Considering the manuscript is a data description paper, the quantitative comparison is important to increase the confidence of the dataset. I suggest adding several tables about ecosystem characteristics comparison in the Appendix or supplementary materials.
Specific comments:
- Line 13: The time period of the dataset should be specified. For example, “…we established an ecosystem monitoring site and conducted about 1-year of field observation in Phnom Kulen…”
- Line 18: “…explore the relationships…” between ecosystem characteristics and AGB. What the ecosystem characteristics refers to and these variables need to be specified clearly.
- Line 60-62: Does the meteorological conditions include both microclimate and soil conditions? I noted that the observed dataset includes edaphic conditions in the abstract.
- Line 77: “…Approximately 60% and 13% ….”. It confused me.
- Line 80: It will be better to show the locations of nine forestry inventory plots or Phnom Kulen National Park in the whole Southeast Asia in Figure 1.
- Line 236-240: The decimal places of surface temperature should be consistent with the values in Table 2.
- Line 241-246: The subplots (P, Tair, and Rg) of Figure 6 are same as those in Figure 5.
- Line 274: The units of AGBf and AGBh in Table 2 are not consistent with those in the caption of Table 1.
- Line 275-287: The decimal places of SLA, LDMC and Chl should be consistent with the values in Table S5.1-5.4.
- Line 290: The mean and SD of DBH and H should be labeled in Figure S6.1.
- Line 306-309: The p-value of the fitted power-law relationship should be labeled in Figure 4.
- Line 314-316: Why the estimated AGB of this study was substantially lower than the other two methods?
- Line 322-326: The unit of y-axis in Figure 5a should be kg tree-1.
- Line 453: Why the Chl of CP in Kulen is higher by 2-2.5 times than that in India? It should be explained.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-98-RC2
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on essd-2024-98', Anonymous Referee #1, 03 Jul 2024
This study provides observed datasets of meteorological conditions, forest inventory, leaf traits of woody species, leaf area index (LAI) and a fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR) of pristine tropical forests, regrowth forests, and cashew plantations within Phnom Kulen National Park. Nine forest plots were selected and these forest inventory results cover the period from Apr 2022 to Apr 2023. The authors compared the differences in these ecosystem characteristics among the three types of land-cover classes and provided a well-organized dataset of a tropical forest ecosystem. However, despite the hard monitoring work, I am not quite sure whether this dataset is valuable enough to reach the high standard of ESSD.
Major concern
This study compared the species diversity, leaf functional traits, biomass, and other characteristics of three types of forests. I doubt whether this dataset is unique and useful enough. Does the comparison of these indexes among three types of forests can provide us with any new insights that haven’t been investigated before? The authors claimed that this dataset fills data gaps in tropical forest research, so does it mean there were few studies investigating the ecosystem characteristics in tropical forests? I cannot see any new findings according to the data analysis section.
Three methods were used to calculate aboveground biomass, and the selection of the method can cause a large difference in the calculated results. How to prove which method is better than the other two as the authors claimed in the discussion 4.5.4?
Minor
The journal required a data link at the end of the abstract.
Please add the background of land cover map in Figure 1.
The titles of these tables are too long. Please move the note to the end of the table.
Authors in Table 1 is not a good representation of reference. Just use “reference”.
What is the difference in precipitation and temperature data between Figs. 2 and 3? Are they repeated results?
In Fig. 4, does the small plot represent the local amplifier of the plot outside? The green line seems different among the two plots.
Hard to distinguish the line form of AGBh and AGBf in Figure 5a.
Line 383-384. I doubt the dataset in this study can be used to investigate the effect of land use change from natural land to settlement areas. The land use change is a process, and it is not reflected in this dataset with a short period.
Line 400. Please add the supporting figures or table numbers.
Several figures in the supplementary were not cited in the main text, please check.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-98-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on essd-2024-98', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Jul 2024
Tropical forests play an important role in global terrestrial biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles. It is crucial to collect the ecosystem characteristics of tropical forests after anthropogenic impacts. This manuscript presented observed forest inventory, leaf area index, leaf traits of woody species, a fraction of intercepted photosynthetically active radiation, and edaphic and meteorological conditions in a newly established ecosystem monitoring site of Kulen National Park. The dataset will be helpful in analyzing the forest response to human disturbance in Cambodia. However, the spatial representation of these field observation data is limited for the pantropical forest, and the observation time period is only one year. Thus, I don’t think this manuscript can be published on Earth System Science Data.
Main comments:
- “Land cover” in the title is confusing and unsuitable. The three land cover classes in this study are all forest land, but the tree species management intensities are different.
- The location of weather station is different with that of the nine forest inventory plots, and the observation sites of soil condition and radiation. Thus, I don’t think the meteorological station can represent the microclimate of three land cover classes due to the diverse vegetation cover, tree composition and stand structure.
- How was temperature and precipitation between April 2022 and April 2023 compared with the multi-year average? Was it a dry, wet, or normal year?
- In the discussion section, the authors compared many observed ecosystem characteristics with previous studies. However, most variables (e.g., edaphic conditions, species diversity, SLA, LDMC) area qualitative comparison. Considering the manuscript is a data description paper, the quantitative comparison is important to increase the confidence of the dataset. I suggest adding several tables about ecosystem characteristics comparison in the Appendix or supplementary materials.
Specific comments:
- Line 13: The time period of the dataset should be specified. For example, “…we established an ecosystem monitoring site and conducted about 1-year of field observation in Phnom Kulen…”
- Line 18: “…explore the relationships…” between ecosystem characteristics and AGB. What the ecosystem characteristics refers to and these variables need to be specified clearly.
- Line 60-62: Does the meteorological conditions include both microclimate and soil conditions? I noted that the observed dataset includes edaphic conditions in the abstract.
- Line 77: “…Approximately 60% and 13% ….”. It confused me.
- Line 80: It will be better to show the locations of nine forestry inventory plots or Phnom Kulen National Park in the whole Southeast Asia in Figure 1.
- Line 236-240: The decimal places of surface temperature should be consistent with the values in Table 2.
- Line 241-246: The subplots (P, Tair, and Rg) of Figure 6 are same as those in Figure 5.
- Line 274: The units of AGBf and AGBh in Table 2 are not consistent with those in the caption of Table 1.
- Line 275-287: The decimal places of SLA, LDMC and Chl should be consistent with the values in Table S5.1-5.4.
- Line 290: The mean and SD of DBH and H should be labeled in Figure S6.1.
- Line 306-309: The p-value of the fitted power-law relationship should be labeled in Figure 4.
- Line 314-316: Why the estimated AGB of this study was substantially lower than the other two methods?
- Line 322-326: The unit of y-axis in Figure 5a should be kg tree-1.
- Line 453: Why the Chl of CP in Kulen is higher by 2-2.5 times than that in India? It should be explained.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-98-RC2
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