Is Grazing Good for Wet Meadows? Vegetation Changes Caused by White-Backed Cattle

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,
Your manuscript entitled "Is grazing good for wet meadows? Vegetation changes caused by white-backed cattle" deals with a very interesting topic from different points of view and presents very significant results both for the effects deriving from grazing on plant biodiversity and for productivity. In my opinion, your paper is well written and worthy of being published, in the attached text I have pointed out some small oversights and spelling errors.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1

The Authors are grateful to the Reviewer 1 for approving the manuscript. The text of the article has been rechecked and corrected by a certified translator.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is straightforward and clear. I have made comments on the manuscript (attached). In addition:
1) There needs to be a supplement with the factor loadings of the PCs. 

2) There needs to be a table (as a supplement?) with summary statistics on all of the parameters (species richness, shannon-wiener, light, pH, etc.) by year.

3) There needs to be a supplement with summary data on the plants, by year. 

4) There needs to be a supplement with details on how all the parameters were measured.

5) The authors need to explain how the plot locations were selected. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The Authors are grateful to the Reviewer 2 for approving the manuscript. Responses to the review comments are below.

The text of the article has been rechecked and corrected by a certified translator.

 

• There needs to be a supplement with the factor loadings of the PCs. 

 

Table S1. Factor loadings of PCA based on analysis according to species cover

	Principal component
Species	PCA1	PCA2	PCA3	PCA4	PCA5	PCA 6
Ch All. Magnocaricion	0.032	0.224	0.275	0.463	0.806	-0.100
Ch All. Phragmition	0.016	0.086	0.020	0.054	-0.184	-0.977
Ch All. Calthion palustris	-0.621	-0.717	0.207	0.229	0.014	-0.059
Ch O. Molinietalia	0.196	0.014	0.931	-0.242	-0.184	0.045
Ch Cl. Molinio-Arrhenatheretea	-0.650	0.647	0.116	0.207	-0.298	0.116
Other species	0.389	-0.093	0.033	0.793	-0.440	0.125

 

Table S2. Factor loadings of PCA based on analysis according to Ellenberg ecological indices

	Principal component
Ellenberg Index	PCA1	PCA2	PCA3	PCA4	PCA5	PCA 6
L	0.032	0.224	0.275	0.463	0.806	-0.100
T	0.016	0.086	0.020	0.054	-0.184	-0.977
K	-0.621	-0.717	0.207	0.229	0.014	-0.059
F	0.196	0.014	0.931	-0.242	-0.184	0.045
R	-0.650	0.647	0.116	0.207	-0.298	0.116
N	0.389	-0.093	0.033	0.793	-0.440	0.125

 

• There needs to be a table (as a supplement?) with summary statistics on all of the parameters (species richness, Shannon-Wiener and ecological indicator values by year.

 

Table S3. Summary statistics (mean and standard deviation) of phytosociological relevés characteristics by year

	Year
Characteristic	2016	2017	2018	2019
L	7.225 ± 0.417	7.218 ± 0.408	7.178 ± 0.329	7.156 ± 0.317
T	a5.183 ± 0.133	ab5.194 ± 0.131	ab5.207 ± 0.122	b5.225 ± 0.126
K	4.055 ± 1.373	4.073 ± 1.371	4.171 ± 1.212	4.283 ± 1.220
F	b9.035 ± 0.538	b8.972 ± 0.587	a8.707 ± 0.561	a8.567 ± 0.551
R	a5.329 ± 1.488	ab5.375 ± 1.444	b5.727 ± 1.046	ab5.647 ± 0.928
N	4.776 ± 0.728	4.784 ± 0.702	4.655 ± 0.510	4.614 ± 0.476
*Fodder Value	0.588 ± 0.655	0.708 ± 0.826	1.142 ± 0.898	1.529 ± 0.982
EGQ	a12.05 ± 8.271	a12.01 ± 8.262	a15.12 ± 9.303	b20.38 ± 8.289
Species no.	a15.38 ± 5.881	ab17.38 ± 4.426	bc20.30 ± 4.59	c24.07 ± 6.664
Shannon-Wiener H	a1.367 ± 0.585	a1.412 ± 0.602	b1.776 ± 0.544	b1.949 ± 0.594

abc – means in a row marked with the different letters differ significantly (ANOVA with repeated measures).

*Fodder value was used to calculate grassland quality index E_GQ.

• There needs to be a supplement with summary data on the plants, by year. 

 

Table S4. Summary statistics (mean and standard deviation) of plant species cover by year

	Year
Characteristic	2016	2017	2018	2019
Ch All. Magnocaricion	c60.5 ± 36.64	bc56.08 ± 38.26	ab47.01 ± 32.09	a41.74 ± 30.67
Ch All. Phragmition	a13.27 ± 24.92	ab11.35 ± 20.93	a7.38 ± 17.45	a7.38 ± 17.45
Ch All. Calthion palustris	11.29 ± 17.81	12.35 ± 15.7	13.79 ± 13.07	14.45 ± 12.63
Ch O. Molinietalia	13.58 ± 11.96	11.18 ± 7.5	17.43 ± 10.73	15.9 ± 10.15
Ch Cl. Molinio-Arrhenatheretea	a9.41 ± 14.28	a9.62 ± 11.84	ab15.14 ± 12.16	b17.52 ± 14.64
Other species	a0.95 ± 1.33	a1.08 ± 1.28	a1.72 ± 1.5	b4.52 ± 4.8

abc – means in a row marked with the different letters differ significantly (ANOVA with repeated measures)

 

• There needs to be a supplement with details on how all the parameters were measured.

All indicators except E_GQ (evaluation of grassland quality) were described in detail in the methodology, therefore we have also supplemented this parameter.

For the evaluation of the grassland quality the following formula was used:

where:

E_GQ – evaluation of grassland quality,

D (%) – percentage of species,

FV – fodder value of species.

 

• The authors need to explain how the plot locations were selected. 

The selection of plots for the study was made during the initial field visit in 2016. The relevés were taken in homogeneous plant patches to take into account the diversity of vegetation in the entire research area. Observations were made in the same places in the following years.

 

Responses to comments in the text:

What was the history of this site? Had it every been grazed prior to the study? (pp. 4)

In the 20th century, the area was regularly grazed, mainly by cattle belonging to local farmers. In the 1990s, grazing and any use were discontinued. After Poland's accession to the EU in 2004, mowing was carried out for several years. Grazing was restored in 2016.

How were the plants identified? Were vouchers kept? (pp. 4)

Plants were identified directly in the field, no plant samples were collected.

Not sure what this is. Overall, methods should me mentioned for all these - maybe in a supplement (pp. 5)

Ellenberg indicator values (EIVs; Ellenberg et al. 1992) are estimates of species ecological optima along seven main ecological gradients - light, temperature, continentality, moisture, nutrients, soil reaction and salinity. We used 6 indicators without salinity.

For each study patch in each year, the weighted average (Wa) of the aforementioned ecological indicators was calculated with a formula proposed by Czarnecka and Chabudziński (2014):

WA = Ʃn i=1 (A2×I)/ Ʃn i=1 A2i,

where WA is the weighted average; Ai is the abundance of cover of the i-th species in a given niche; Ii is the ecological indicator value for the i-th species, and n is the number of species in the niche.

Instead of “reaction” – “Soil/water reaction (pH)”

Reviewer 3 Report

I think that current manuscript was poorly organized and logically disconnected. 1) study subject is ambiguously described, ‘wet meadows’, ‘wetland ecosystems’, ‘peatland’, ‘wet habitat’? these are needed to be unified. 2) Introduction part did not make any sense to the study topic. You might focus on key words like ‘plant diversity’, ‘grazing’, and their linkages, thus rationalize your study. 3) Results were disorderly expressed, what are your main findings? So, please group your results into different parts logically. 4) Result is completely disconnected with the study topic, which should be reorganized and rewritten associated with study results. 

Author Response

Reviewer 3

The Authors of the paper thank the Reviewer for his constructive criticism and comments, which will undoubtedly enhance its value.

The text of the article has been rechecked and corrected by a certified translator.

 

1) Study subject is ambiguously described, ‘wet meadows’, ‘wetland ecosystems’, ‘peatland’, ‘wet habitat’? these are needed to be unified.

In the introduction of the revised manuscript, we began to characterize the studied habitats generally naming them "wetland ecosystems”. In the rest of the paper, the nomenclature has been standardized and we use the term „wet meadows”.

2) Introduction part did not make any sense to the study topic. You might focus on key words like ‘plant diversity’, ‘grazing’, and their linkages, thus rationalize your study.

Although the introduction of our work is not very extensive, in our opinion, all the key words mentioned by the reviewer are discussed in it and documented in the relevant literature.

3) Results were disorderly expressed, what are your main findings? So, please group your results into different parts logically.

The results of the study are divided into three parts, which are expressed in the text by subsections:

3.1. Plant Cover and their Changes vs. Habitat Conditions; 3.2. Biodiversity dynamics; 3.3. Dynamics of Pastures Forage Quality.

In our opinion, such a presentation of the research results is logical and consistent. In the first subsection we showed the vegetation and its dynamics over the years and the factors responsible for its transformation. Then the changes in biodiversity, and finally the forage quality of the studied pastures. Qualitative and quantitative changes in flora and vegetation have affected animal welfare and improved the pasture suitability of the studied habitats.

4) Result is completely disconnected with the study topic, which should be reorganized and rewritten associated with study results.

The study topic was reorganized and rewritten in relation to the study results. Please, see above. The discussion has been rewritten according to the presentation of the study's results.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

1) I appreciate the rewrite, and the supplements that were added. This is a much better paper.

2) The authors provide adequate responses to my comments and questions in the 'Author Response'. However, they did not actually incorporate those into the text. They need to incorporate those into the Methods. Readers need to know whether there was prior grazing, whether plant vouchers were collected (vs field ID), how plots were selected, etc.

3) The authors give naked p-values for their statistical tests. They need to minimally also provide the test statistic (F or t) and the df. It is unacceptable to only report a p-value. 

Author Response

REVIEW RESPONSE

Reviewer 2

The Authors are grateful to the Reviewer 2 for approving the manuscript again. Responses to the review comments are below.

1) I appreciate the rewrite, and the supplements that were added. This is a much better paper.

• Thank you.

2) The authors provide adequate responses to my comments and questions in the 'Author Response'. However, they did not actually incorporate those into the text. They need to incorporate those into the Methods. Readers need to know whether there was prior grazing, whether plant vouchers were collected (vs field ID), how plots were selected, etc.

• The explanations provided in response to the Reviewer's previous comments have been included in the text under “Materials and Methods” (red font).

3) The authors give naked p-values for their statistical tests. They need to minimally also provide the test statistic (F or t) and the df. It is unacceptable to only report a p-value. 

 

• We thank the reviewer for pointing out a shortcoming in the text. The values of test statistics and degree of freedom used in statistical test has been provided in the results section. Also in the supplements, The column with the values of statistical tests has been added in tables S2 and S3. The F-statistic is used both in GLM and ANOVA. However, for multiple comparisons tests, the z-statistic is used in a case of GLM and the studentized range statistic (qs) is used for Tukey's test in a case of ANOVA.