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INTRO:

The abstract deals with the combination of empirically studying the simulated effects of allocation and size of conservation measures on the provision of ecosystem services and results of an expert assessment method, the so-called 'Delphi technique'. The authors constructed seven simulation scenarios in a production boreal forest landscape of Sweden, assigning six scenario either to nature reserves, set asides or groups of retention trees dispersed or concentrated in the landscape. The last scenario was assigned to where rotation of production areas was conducted. For the expert assessment scientists were selected with experiences in forest biodiversity or ecosystem services in the boreal zone of Scandinavia. Through a graduated process of answering given questionnaires, providing confidence ratings and recording comments, summaries of the group results by the moderator and the possibility of reconsideration of previous answers given by the experts, stability of the answering was enabled. The abstract closes with the provision of the research questions to be answered during the conference talk.

MERITS:

The background and intentions of the study are ambitious and the announced results could be of great importance for the preservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services in the production forest landscape. Applying the Delphi-technique on this challenging research approach seems to be a new and interesting method. Further merits cannot be given.

CRITIQUE:

In general, the motivation behind this study does not become totally clear for the reader and the weakness of the abstract is, that it does not provide any information about results and possible conclusions which can be derived for future research. Furthermore, it is not comprehensible which ecosystem services provided by which conservation measures are investigated in this study.

Unfortunately, the methods of the simulation process cannot be fully understood. The methods of the questionnaire are described in fully detail, but without giving information on the content of the asked questions.

It would be enriching, if a summarizing outlook on some expected results would have been given.

DISCUSSION:

Even if the background of this study is a of great importance for further biodiversity and ecosystem services research, the given abstract does not display the necessary information on standards and applied methods. Drafting research questions or hypotheses to be answered in this study would have been preferable and helpful. Furthermore, the detailed description of the questionnaire could have been shorter, but instead the combination of simulation and assessment method needs more explanation.

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INTRO:

The authors conducted a study of the impacts of spatial allocation and and size of individual conservation measures on provision of ecosystem services and preservation of biodiversity in a production forest landscape in Sweden. Authors created scenarios and used Delphi Process (virtually) to gain expert views on the scenarios.

MERITS:

The manuscript addresses an important issue: what type of land allocation is optimal for ecosystem services provision. Use of Delphi Process makes sense for running the scenarios by experts and industry professionals to try to achieve a stability of views on the scenarios.

CRITIQUE:

The Delphi Process could potentially be strengthened through at least one direct-contact meeting (physical or virtual) by the participants.

DISCUSSION:

Different ecosystem services are valued differently by the various stakeholders and actors. It is important to bring different views together for natural resource planning, which this study does. The size of protected areas and areas designated for different types of biodiversity conservation is a challenging topic. The study's contribution to this issue is timely.