Dear Dr. Heinemann,

After reading carefully your author's response and the new version of bg-2015-137, I decided to accept bg-2015-137 for publication in Biogeosciences subjected to technical corrections (listed below).

The revised version of bg-2015-137 sufficiently considers the critics and suggestions indicated by both reviewers. The new title of the manuscript is appropriate.


Best regards,
Jochen Schongart


Technical corrections of bg-2015-137

Title: Evaluation of stem rot in 339 Bornean tree species: implications of size, taxonomy, and soil-related variation for aboveground biomass estimates


In the title and abstract you mention 339 tree species, however, Table S1 indicate a total of 318 tree species. Please check this.

The abstract indicates a total of 3180 drilled, felled and cored individuals, however, summing up the values in Table S4 results in 3176 trees.

P. 4, L. 8: I suggest citing a different reference here. The study of Ng (2013) states that in tropical rainforests with no dry season age cannot be estimated by tree rings (he indicates that tree rings only develop under a seasonal tropical climate) and the author suggests to use the decay rate of wood to estimate the age of that present hollow or decay. However, a nice study showing the variation of the relationship between diameter and age is Brienen & Zuidema (2006) and also Baker et al. (2005):

Baker PJ, Bunyavejchewin S, Oliver CD, Ashton PS (2005) Disturbance history and historical stand dynamics of a seasonal tropical forest in Western Thailand. Ecological Monographs, 75(3): 317–343.

Brienen RJW, Zuidema PA (2006) Lifetime growth patterns and ages of Bolivian rain forest trees obtained by tree ring analysis. Journal of Ecology 94: 481–493.

Meanwhile many studies showing evidentially the annual nature of tree rings in the tropics, also in regions with annual rainfall above 3000 mm (Mariaux 1970; Détienne & Mariaux 1977; Jiménez & del Valle 2011, Herrera & del Valle 2011; Zuidema et al. 2011, 2012; Fichtler et al. 2013; Groenendijk et al. 2014).

P. 5, L. 7: Shouldn’t it be “severity of stem rot may change with the availability of edaphic resources”?

P. 5, L. 12: Check the citation “Heinemann and Russo et al., unpublished” (is it Heinemann et al. or Heinemann and Russo?).

P. 5, L. 16: Present e.g. in normal letters without comma.

P.7, L. 8: Indicate unites for the 3 x 3 square.

P. 7, L. 9: Indicate manufacturer and country of the BAF 10 prism.

P. 7, L. 11: Shouldn’t it be far away?

P. 7, L. 14: Present i.e. in normal letters without comma.

P. 5, L. 15-17: Please check the wording of this sentence.

P. 5, L. 25: Delete the comma at the end of the sentence.

P. 8, L. 16: Indicate manufacturer and country of the hand-borer.

P. 10-12: Section 2.6: Please present the headings as sections:

2.6.1 Differences in stem rot detection among datasets
2.6.2 Variance partitioning among taxonomic levels
2.6.3 Association of stem rot with ecological covariates:

P. 11, L. 22-23: Indicate the term “σ2μ0/(σ2μ0+σ2e0)” as equation (Eq. 1).

P. 12, L. 6: add a dot between “variable” and “All”.

P. 12, L. 22: changes to “Eq. 2”.

P. 16, L. 1: Check wording (two times “model”).

P. 18, L. 2: Check wording (two times “are”).

P. 19, L. 22: In the introduction you argue that tree diameter is a bad proxy for tree age.

P. 20, L. 8: Delete “and” between “wood density” and “growth”.

P. 22, L. 1-4: Rewording (two time susceptibility).

P. 23, L. 14: Present ca. in normal letters.

P. 31, L. 25; P. 32, L. 25; P 33, L. 16 and 22; P. 35, L. 21; P. 36, L. 11: Add dots after the abbreviations of journal name.

P. 32, L. 9-10: Indicate the journal’s name as abbreviation and indicate volume and page numbers.

P. 32, L. 12 and 16: Journal’s name with abbreviation?

P. 33, L. 17-18: Format.

P. 34, L. 7-8: PNAS?
Please check the use of dashes and hyphens: En dashes (–) are longer than hyphens (-) and serve numerous purposes. Please note that we use spaced en dashes for syntactic constructions, not em dashes (—). En dashes are used to indicate, among other things, relationships (e.g. ocean–atmosphere exchange), ranges (e.g. 12–20 months), and components of a mixture (e.g. dissolved in 5:1 glycerin–water). They are also used to link the names of two or more persons used as a modifier (e.g. Stefan–Boltzmann constant).
Legends of Tables 1, 2 and 3 and Figure 2: Indicate “methods” not in italic.
Legend of Figure 5: Indicate space between number and unit (100g).

Table S1: Please indicate genus and species names in italic and indicate the meaning of “NA” in the table legend.

Table S1, P. 9 and 12: As far I know Sterculiaceae and Tiliaceae are now Malvaceae (APG III).

Table S2: Please indicate the meaning of CEC.
Please change the sequence of Tables S5 and S6 as Table S6 is cited in the text before Table S5.

Legend of figure S1: Indicate “methods” not in italic.