The paper aims to ascertain the role of induced high temperatures and aridity conditions on the postfire regeneration of Pinus halepensis, a serotinous obligate seeder. For this, authors performed an experiment by means of Open Top Chambers (OTCs) in a recently burned Mediterranean forest. The study is in general of interest and mainly well performed. My main concerns, however, arise in how the study is fundamentally focused on the effect of increasing temperatures and some methodological issues. Specifically, the hypotheses, title and body text focus on the effect of increasing temperatures on pine regeneration. However, OTCs do not exclusively directly impact on temperature but also on soil moisture. The top hole of the structure has smaller surface than surface at soil level (conical shape). Therefore, rainfall exclusion is also occurring in this experiment. This probably explains the high differences in soil moisture between treatments of 50%, which are quite extreme and should not be only attributed to an increase of 1.62°C of air temperature. I think this point should be reflected along the whole manuscript as an increase in temperature and aridity conditions, not only temperature. The other point where I have some concern is how germination and mortality of seedlings are assessed. If seedlings are not identified and tagged for next samplings some deviances in final results could occur. See below more specific comments about this and other points.
Specific comments:
Page 3, Lines 48-49. You should also introduce obligate seeders with soil seedbank, not only with canopy seedbank. They are also an important part of this group, and their ecology should be also mentioned. In fact, great part of references you use to introduce and justify your work are from species with this strategy, but it seems, and it is written as seeds from serotinous cones were the only alternative.
Page 4, Lines 74-75. Well, not so largely unexplored. See for example Salesa et al. (2022) Science of Total Environment 822, 153655. This reference fits with your experimental design and surprisingly is not mentioned in the whole manuscript.
Page 5, Line 103. You include in your aims to ascertain the importance of “seasonal variation in seed availability” on post-fire regeneration. This is a fundamental part of your work, but it is weakly developed and introduced. Please explain better this point in your introduction. It is strange for the reader to see this concept for the first time in the manuscript aims.
Page 6, Lines 114-119. An additional effort in explaining your hypotheses will be appreciated.
Page 7, Line 131: Arbutus unedo.
Page 7, Line 140: plots were selected with homogenous environmental, topographical and plant cover conditions. Please, give more details of these conditions or at least a range of them.
Page 8, Line 143: Give details of the final height and width of the OTC structures, this important to know if treelets fitted within them.
Page 8, Line 164: edges?
Page 9, Lines 172-175: Why did you sow different number of batches per season?
Page 9, Lines 179-181: I think this is not the proper methodology to assess germination and mortality. To assume that mortality is the difference in seed count between consecutive visits can include some deviances if seedlings are not identified and tagged. For example, mortality can be underestimated if compensated with new seedling emergences. We could even have zero mortality if emergences are equal to seedling deaths.
Page 9, Lines 184-185: It will be interesting to show pine density values for plots and subplots. Pinus halepensis regeneration after fire can be highly variable, sometimes reaching hyperdense stands. Could mortality occurred in your experiment be due or affected by seedling density (competence)? Maybe this should be explained or considered in your analyses.
Page 10, Line 208: How did you know the exact number of non-emerged seeds? This is linked to the problem explained above, since you did not identify and tagged each emerged seedling.
Page 12, Lines 247-253: Please, explain in the text if during the performance of your experiment rainfall was higher or lower than mean values. It can be observed in Figure S1, but it is not easy to see and even it is placed in the supplementary material. To know if your experiment was performed in a dry or wet year is important to interpret your results.
Page 32, Figure 2. It will be interesting to check if after a rain or only after heavy rains soil water content from both treatments become equal and restart form the same point. This is important to attribute preponderant role of temperature in your results and discard that you are also excluding rainfall by means of OTC. Maybe you should plot daily values or at least explore this point. With weekly values this can not be observed. A permanent lower soil moisture is observed independently of rainfall events.