This study contributes to a better understanding of the growth-mortality trade-off in temperate forests, placing special emphasis on the behavior of species after disturbance. While it is true that not all disturbances allow for equal population recovery, I believe this study provides a good approximation for understanding it.
The paper explores an important topic and has potential for publication, but the authors should review the text to avoid grammatical errors and some generalizations (do not include all US territory nor all North America temperate species).
Comments by line number:
12- Please change this line for “by comparing early and late developmental forest stands across the eastern United States.”
80- I am not sure but, maybe, do you want to type “slow-growing” instead of “show-growing”?
81- please, consider moving the figure 1 closer to its first reference.
105- please, ad a “to” before “test”.
140- Please use the capital letter at “Inventory”
142- Please, consider including a map with the area where the plots were sampled.
142- In the supplementary material there is not a Table S1.
168-172- Please, could you indicate how do you identify the climate spaces? I am a bit confuse about why use this terminology and not “Early stand development was defined by plots with low stand basal area values (i.e., below or equal to 0.33 of stand development)” Could you clarify it? Please.
240- Please, could you incorporate at the Table S2 (or in another table) in which stage of development have been included the species?
254- The Figure S1 is not cited in the main text, also the table S1 and the Figure S4 didn’t appear in the Supplementary material.
258- With “inside plot” what do you refer? If it pretends to indicate the smaller plot within the Fig. 2 the text did not indicate it clearly. Please, consider rewrite it to make it easier to understand.
274- The confidence interval bands were hard to distinguish so, please consider making the inside plot bigger or change the colour of the bands to make it more visible.
298- I guess that the reference of the supplementary material should be Fig. S1-S3, please confirm it.
329-330- Please, be consistent with the units across the text -> line 329: “between 0.01 and 0.36 y-1”; line 340: “mortality changed from 0.36 y-1 to 0.05 y-1”. Also, in the results you show the annual probability and do not include units. I recommend selecting one of the options and use it along the manuscript.
351- Maybe this statement is a bit overstated because your study is limited to the eastern populations of the US.
374- Please consider removing the “have” in this sentence.
376-378- Please, would you include some species examples?
378-379- would you include some examples of this strategy?
405- Please change the reference of the figures to Fig. S2-S3.