Traditional Medicine Analysis and Sustainable Use of Korean Pond Wetland Plants in the Agricultural Landscape

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. Dear authors, it is an important subject, but in the Introduction, please describe what the relevance is? Why is it important?
2. What is the research question?
3. Why there is a sustainable use in the title but not in the text, please write in the discussion subchapter about sustainable use of ponds and education of TM.
4. By the promoting of TM and TK in the conservation or protection of the ponds? Please describe more why is it needed in terms of sustainability and how you will achieve it.
5. Did you prepare the herbarium, if yes where is it stored, and what are the voucher specimen numbers?
6. Methods - why did you choose those two months May and September? please explain.
7. Did you interview the owner of the ponds, did you ask if they use the medicinal plants from that ponds? if yes, how?
8. Line 22 abbreviation KTKP – explain
9. Line 54, United Kingdom, is it about Great Britain?
10. Line 56-57 abbreviation TEK is the same, use a different one
11. Line 82 ecological conservation?
12. Line 112 which taxonomic classification? In the appendix please, use the Italic for all Latin names and the author of the taxon, it is very important to make the nomenclature correct. 
13. Line 133 average per pond? or what average?
14. Line 201 Lay people - change it to a better name of locals
15. Figure 2 - no skin, use botanical terms - Bark 
16. Line 256 More information about food, what plants, how could be used
17. Line 278-279 Rephrase the sentence about the seeds.
18. Line 283 The sentence is incorrect, rewrite.
19. Line 349 you have already many times used the TM abbreviation.
20. Graphical abstract please explain what is working organs?  

Author Response

Sustainability

 

Dear Reviewer 1, please find our responses to your comments below.

 

1. Dear authors, it is an important subject, but in the Introduction, please describe what the relevance is? Why is it important?

☞ We have included the relevance of the study in the Introduction (line 84).

 

2. What is the research question?

☞ We have included specific research questions in the Introduction (line 87).

 

3. Why there is a sustainable use in the title but not in the text, please write in the discussion subchapter about sustainable use of ponds and education of TM.

☞ We have added a new subsection title “3.5 Sustainable use of ponds using TM education” in the Discussion (line 327). In addition, the results of the study were further described in terms of sustainable use in lines 357–359.

 

4. By the promoting of TM and TK in the conservation or protection of the ponds? Please describe more why is it needed in terms of sustainability and how you will achieve it.

☞ We have outlined with the relevant information in the Introduction section (line 84 onwards), as well as in the Discussion (line 357 onwards). In this revised text, we have elaborated on why it is important to improve public awareness for the conservation of wetlands and how to achieve this.

5. Did you prepare the herbarium, if yes where is it stored, and what are the voucher specimen numbers?

☞ Unfortunately, the herbarium was not fully prepared prior to the submission of our manuscript. It was difficult to collect all the plants due to the large area and number of subjects (40) in this study. However, we have obtained a list of national biological resources, which has been used instead.

6. Methods - why did you choose those two months May and September? please explain.

☞ The climate in Korea changes remarkably over the four seasons. Plant surveys should ideally cover all four seasons; however, this is achieved by classifying species that appear in spring and those that appear in autumn. If we were to include a subsection describing this in the methods, the content may become too long. However, if you wish this information is included, we will revise the manuscript accordingly..

 

7. Did you interview the owner of the ponds, did you ask if they use the medicinal plants from that ponds? if yes, how?

☞ We thank the reviewer for these insightful questions. We initially conducted a general ecological survey rather than a survey for the purposes of obtaining traditional knowledge. Our general questions to the owner were related to the amount of water used. As a follow-up study, we will examine the intention to use the plants described in this study.

 

8. Line 22 abbreviation KTKP – explain

☞ Thank you for pointing out this error. We have corrected it.

 

9. Line 54, United Kingdom, is it about Great Britain?

☞ This was our mistake because the domain of the website was in the UK. The country is in fact England, which we have corrected in the revised text.

 

10. Line 56-57 abbreviation TEK is the same, use a different one

☞ We thank the reviewer for pointing out is error. This abbreviation is commonly used in the literature [19-21]. However, we have revised the definition of TEK to “traditional environmental knowledge or traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)” to include both meanings.

 

11. Line 82 ecological conservation?

☞ We have corrected revised this error to “ecological conservation.”

 

12. Line 112 which taxonomic classification? In the appendix please, use the Italic for all Latin names and the author of the taxon, it is very important to make the nomenclature correct.

☞ We have made the relevant changes.

 

13.Line 133 average per pond? or what average?

☞ As suggested, we have used “average per pond.”

 

13. Line 201 Lay people - change it to a better name of locals

☞ We have used “local people” as suggested.

 

14. Figure 2 - no skin, use botanical terms - Bark

☞ In the appendix and main text, this was changed to bark and epidermis. In Figure 2, we have deleted the word “skin” from the pie chart and revised with “bark.”

 

15. Line 256 More information about food, what plants, how could be used

☞ We have explained the general use of the generic Persicaria plants mentioned in this study (line 263).

 

16. Line 278-279 Rephrase the sentence about the seeds.

☞ We have rephrased the sentence and deleted the mention of “seeds” (line 288).

 

17. Line 283 The sentence is incorrect, rewrite.

 

☞ As suggested by the reviewer, we have rewritten this sentence.

 

18. Line 349 you have already many times used the TM abbreviation.

☞ Thank you for highlighting this error. We have made relevant changes.

 

19. Graphical abstract please explain what is working organs?

☞ It distinguishes the organs of the human body that are affected by the plant taxa. The text that relates to this graphic can be found in the methods section (line 127) and in the results section in subsection “3.4 Affected organs for plant resources.”

Reviewer 2 Report

I have read the article entitled: "Traditional medicine analysis and sustainable use of Korean pond wetland plants in the agricultural landscape" with a great interest. I consider this manuscript as valuable material from the scientific point of view, especially for those readers who are interested in natural medicines.

I have only 2 comments:

1. Please use the full name of the abreviation - KTKP in the Abstract. I know that later in the text this was explained by the Authors, but since the Abstract should be understood alone, it will be better to use the full name.
2. In my opinion the Conclusion are too long. Perhaps the Authors could shorten the text about 50 % less than it is now ? It can help to extract the most important findings of their study...

Author Response

 

 

Sustainability

 

 

Dear Reviewer 2, please find our responses to your comments below.

 

 

1. Please use the full name of the abreviation - KTKP in the Abstract. I know that later in the text this was explained by the Authors, but since the Abstract should be understood alone, it will be better to use the full name.

☞ We thank the reviewer for pointing out this omission. KTKP was revised to Korea Traditional Knowledge Portal (KTKP) in the Abstract.

2. In my opinion the Conclusion are too long. Perhaps the Authors could shorten the text about 50 % less than it is now ? It can help to extract the most important findings of their study...

☞ According to the reviewers suggestion, we have reduced the content in the Conclusions section. However, it was not possible to reduce the content by 50%; our reductions total approximately 35%.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, 

please add the explanation of choosing the May and September to the Methods section, line 115. 

Was the manuscript checked by the English language editor or native speaker done? if not, please do this. 

Also, add an explanation that in a follow-up study, you will examine the intention to use the plants described in this study.

Author Response

Sustainability

 

Dear Reviewer 1, please find our responses to your comments below.

 

1. please add the explanation of choosing the May and September to the Methods section, line 115.

☞ We have provided the survey method in the Study sites and plant survey methods as follows “For the survey, plants were identified and recorded using illustrated reference books [44-45]. Survey times were across two sessions held in May (Spring) and September (Autumn) 2012 because it was a general plant survey of the four seasons in Korea [9, 10, 25, 39].” in (112 line)

 

2. Was the manuscript checked by the English language editor or native speaker done? if not, please do this.

☞ The manuscript has been carefully reviewed by an experienced editor whose first language is English and who specializes in editing papers written by scientists whose native language.

 

3. Also, add an explanation that in a follow-up study, you will examine the intention to use the plants described in this study.

☞ We have included the survey method in the Conclusions section as follows: “Therefore, it is necessary to develop plant education content using this result in follow-up studies.” in (386 line)