The authors of this manuscript set out to understand the main parameters of forest dynamics including mortality, growth and biomass. The manuscript is entitled: “Dynamics of tree stems and biomass in old-growth and secondary forests across gradients in liana dominance, elevation, and soil”. First, it reports about a study carried out in Tanzania, Africa using a stratified sampling method to understand growth, mortality and recruitment of trees and lianas across secondary forest as well as old-growth forests. The authors considered elevation, disturbance, edaphic parameters. They distinguished interactions between trees and lianas. To my knowledge, our current understanding of dynamics of lianas mainly stems from Neotropics, therefore, I can see a value in this study. Second, interestingly, it reveals some contrasting patterns such as: positive association between liana-tree ration and tree biomass increment. The authors noticed that this highlights that when light is not a limiting liana in the study area leads to increase in biomass. Third, some results confirmed existing trends reported elsewhere. Finally, authors revealed that both secondary forest and old-growth forest exhibit similar dynamics in terms of stem density and biomass. The results of the current study offer insights on potential ways for restoring secondary forests.

In general, I believe this manuscript is well written below I provided minor specific comments to improve this manuscript readability.

Specific comments
Line # 4 Authors could consider replacing "that" by "and"
Line # 23, Please consider removing "s" from "numbers"
Line # 32, Perhaps authors could consider removing "also" from this sentence.
Line # 60, Could authors please specify what is "they" representing? better not to use this at the beginning of the paragraph.
Line # 84, Please see the newest study by Ngute et al 2024 in global change biology
Line # 98 would not this be "sampling plots" instead of "sample plots"?
Figure 1, Map of sampling plots instead of Map of sample plots
Line # 427, Please change "indicated" by "indicate"