Soil Biological Properties along a Topographic Gradient in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest Biome
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments
This study investigated the effect of topography and seasons on soil biological properties in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest biome. This is an interesting study that can shed light on processes and factors that affects soil properties in the Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. The idea of the paper is laudable; however, the authors should pay attention to grammatical and spelling errors throughout the manuscript. For example, in Line 63, toposequence was wrongly spelled as “topossequences”. The Language should also be improved throughout the manuscript. Also, what is the contribution to knowledge in this study? This should be emphasized in the abstract and conclusion. The authors should also try to make clear distinctions between the use of topography and toposequence in this study, especially when relating the effect of factors (e.g., topography and seasons) on soil properties in the Results and Discussion section.
Find below some of my specific comments to help improve the paper.
Abstract
Specific comments
Line 22-23: How does the land slope condition lower microbial activity and organic cycling in the midland? What is the major explanation for this?
Line 23-24: Same question as above. How do the different seasons affect the soil biological properties? What is the trend of the effect from one season to the other backed with one or two explanations?
Introduction
The introduction has not properly addressed some major issues like the effects of season and altitude on soil biological properties. I believe that discussing these points would help readers to have a better understanding of the study.
Specific comments
Line 32-33: “it is estimated that approximated that around 8.5%...” Choose either to use “estimated” or “approximated”.
Line 32-35: This sentence is too long, break the sentence into two for clarity and write “km2” properly. The author should note this issue of writing in superscripts where appropriate throughout the manuscript. Also, note “mol L-1” in Line 148.
Line 70-73: This long sentence is not clear. The authors should redraft this sentence for clarity. Also, this sentence should not be a stand-alone paragraph.
Line 77-78: “In light of the information presented above, we hypothesize that topography promotes the soil biological heterogeneity in a toposequence within the Atlantic Forest.” On what basis was this hypothesis made? How do we expect topography to promote soil biological properties? I mean, the author should give an explanation to back their hypothesis.
Materials and methods
Specific comments
In what year was this study carried out? What was the total duration of the study? Were enough samples collected over time to validate the results obtained and understand the trends of the changes in soil properties?
Line 129: “the samples were pounded to clods”. Why and how was this pounding carried out?
Line 144: “destined”. Please, use a better word choice.
Line 146-147: “The AMN content was determined according to the anaerobic incubation method.” The authors should give a brief description of this method.
Results
Specific comments
Line 193-194: What does this phrase mean “being higher in the toposequence during the summer”? Which of the toposequences? This part is unclear and should be clearly explained.
Line 196: “throughout the environments”. Please, rephrase this part of the sentence to be precise in meaning.
Figure 3 is not legible enough for readers to discern.
Line 202: Correct as “…..winter on soil biological….”
Line 284: Correct as “Individually, physical and topographical properties….”
Discussion
Line 321: Correct as “Other studies have also indicated the effect…”
Line 355: Rephrase this part “eroded high parts” of the sentence.
Line 360: Write this “N-NH+4” appropriately.
Line 416: Correct as “seasonal plant”…
The English Language should be improved throughout the manuscript. There re some grammatical and spelling errors in the manuscript. I have noted out some of these errors in my comments to the authors.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I have read the manuscript and have no objections to the text.
Author Response
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the considerations on the manuscript and their helpful comments to improve the quality of the paper.
Reviewer 3 Report
Atlantic forest plays a vital role in regulating climate change and protecting diversity. The paper examines the effects of topographic gradient on forest biome here, that is appropriate for publication in the journal. However, I have a few concerns with aspects of this manuscript. It seems that the language should be improved by professional person. Many sentences are too long to better understanding. The quantity of all figures in this study should be improved to show clearly to us.
In the abstracts, the author stressed that Atlantic Forest exhibits remarkable floristic diversity over short distances. This study concluded that even a small altitudinal gradient (up to 100 meters) in the Sea of Hills regions can lead to significant changes in soil biological and chemical attributes. So, how to exclude the effects of spatial heterogeneity to the biome in this study?
In the introduction section, I don’t think the author give a comprehensive introduction for this study. The author emphasized the important role of Atlantic Forest in Brazilian coast. However, how does the topography affect soil biological properties and how does soil properties affect vegetation characteristics? This section is poorly mentioned, especially for line 49-58. This paragraph should be rewrite. Meanwhile, I think you should give the detail hypothesizes in the last paragraph.
In the Materials and Methods section, the author should give more information about the 750-meter transect along a topographic gradient. Meanwhile, why only 25 plots (a total of 42 plots) were studied? And how do you select these 25 plots? How man do the soil samples were collected? Only one for each plot? Please give the detail information.
In the result section, the descriptions are lack of logic. In the 3.1, the author named “Moisture distribution, biological properties, and soil collection seasons effect”. However, there were no any information about these, especially for figure 4.
In the discussion section, there are logical issues with the description. The author should separate the Discussion into several parts. Meanwhile, there are many sentences including “may be”, and “possibly” descriptions when the author wants to explain something even though they have conducted the analysis. Meanwhile, some sentences also make me very confused, for example, “In the midland, there is a greater energy expenditure for the microbial population maintenance, that is, due to the stress conditions, the microorganisms consume more substrate to survive (line 339-341)”. Where can I get this information in this paper? Line 351-369, all sentences in this paragraph are cited, thus, what does the author want to show here? Therefore, the almost discussion should be rewrite.
Line 35: the unit “Km2” should be “Km2”.
Line 36-39: please rewrite this sentence. The deforestation and poor agricultural management are both anthropic activities. However, biodiversity depletion and physical and chemical soil degradation are not anthropic activities. They can be recognized as the results of anthropic activities.
Line 88-89: could you please delete this sentence or rewrite it? It repeats the previous sentence (line 85).
Line 98-100: which year? Please add the same information in Figure 2.
Line 110-113: in this section, there are two descriptions of length, such as 10 meters and 20 m, please revise.
Line 118: please use lowercase.
Line 166: the “Pearson correlation coefficient (r)” should be “"
Line 129-130: the author showed that before performing the analysis, the samples were pounded to clods followed by sieving through a 2.0 mm mesh to obtain the fine air-dried soil (FADS). So, the soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen was also measured using FADS (line 142-143)? Please confirm it.
Line 156-158: Please place this sentence in the previous paragraph.
Line 193-194: the sentence mainly showed the significant season effect of soil moisture, thus please delete the comparation among toposequence. The same as the following description.
Line 313: please confirm the description of “decomposition reduced rates”.
Line 347-348: please rewrite this sentence. the reference of 52 should be used to confirm our results.
It seems that the language should be improved by professional person. Many sentences are too long to better understanding.
Author Response
The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the considerations on the manuscript and their helpful comments to improve the quality of the paper.
please see the response on attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
In this research, Diego et al quantify the distribution pattern of soil biological properties along a small topographic gradient and identify how these properties are related to soil chemical, physical, and 14 topographical attributes in an Atlantic Forest fragment in Brazil, a global biodiversity conservation hotspots around the world. The authors found some important results that the distribution of soil biological properties associated with soil nutrient cycling strongly depended on topography by producing soil moisture gradients favorable to microbial activity. The topic is very relative practicability. Based on this, I think this manuscript can be published after a minor revision. The main concerns are as follows:
1. The introduction did not clearly and concisely illustrate the relationship between topographic factors and soil properties, such as physical, chemical and biological attributes. Too much is emphasis on the research region and some irrelevant contents. Please rearrange these sentences and reduce them.
2. In the results and discussion, please provide more valuable information and make comparison with some other similar research. In addition, some figures, especially figure 3 is not clear, please change it with high-definition picture. Moreover, the authors should present a summary of the present findings that directly related to the research concern raised in the Introduction.
Moderate editing of English language is necessary.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have attended to all my concerns and the manuscript is now ready for publication.
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate your suggestions and contributions to our submitted manuscript. Your observations were crucial in improving the quality and accuracy of our work, and we are very grateful for your dedication in reviewing our manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
I think the significant differences in soil moisture and biological characterization should be noted in Figure 4 between summer and winter.
Moderate editing of the English language required
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate your suggestions and contributions to our submitted manuscript. It is important to highlight that the significant differences in soil moisture and biological characterization were carefully emphasized in the text. Your observations were crucial in improving the quality and accuracy of our work, and we are very grateful for your dedication in reviewing our manuscript.
