Soil-Microbial CNP Content and Ecological Stoichiometry Characteristics of Typical Broad-Leaved Tree Communities in Fanjing Mountain in Spring

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of the manuscript: Soil-Microbial CNP Content and Ecological Stoichiometry Characteristics of Typical Broad-Leaved Tree Communities in 3 Fanjing Mountain in Spring.

General comments: The manuscript is well written in English and reports the impact of diverse forest stand types and soil depths on the soil ecological stoichiometry characteristics, shedding light on nutrient limitations and cycling patterns within the mid-subtropical forest ecosystem in southwest China during spring. The introduction, methods, results and discussion are well written and documented. However, there are some typographical errors and precise description in methods that should be resolved before publication.

Comments to authors:

Line 156: the word measured is repeated

Line 162: There is a missing period between the words control and The

Line 343: The font size is different in the words R. Argysophyllum

Line 382: ”Limited tools” appear to be an incomplete sentence

 It should be convenient to explain the experimental design (Factorial) in methods.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thanks a lot to the contribution by the editors and reviewers. All the comments are precious and indispensable for improvement of our manuscript.

Based on your comments and suggestions, we have revised the manuscript carefully. The replies to referees are listed one by one. In addition, all the amendments in this revised manuscript are highlighted in red.

Reviewing #1:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

• Line 156: the word measuredis repeated.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. The superfluous word Measured has been deleted (Line 141).

• Line 162: There is a missing period between the words controland The.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. The word the has been put at the beginning of the sentence (L149).

• Line 343: The font size is different in the words R. Argysophyllum.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. It has been changed to the same font as requested (L329).

• Line 382: "Limited tools" appear to be an incomplete sentence.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. “Limited tools” is a redundant word, it has been removed (L371).

• It should be convenient to explain the experimental design (Factorial) in methods.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We sampled in the fixed monitoring plot ( 30x30m ) of the forest ecosystem in Fanjing Mountain, and determined the forest type by the main dominant tree species in the plot. Considering the heterogeneity of forest soil, two farther samples were selected for each forest type, and each sample had three 30x30m plots.

If you have any further question about this paper, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Thank you and all the referees very much for the kind advice.

Sincerely yours,

Yingying Liu

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please refer the enclosed comments 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Please refer the enclosed comments 

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thanks a lot to the contribution by the editors and reviewers. All the comments are precious and indispensable for improvement of our manuscript.

Based on your comments and suggestions, we have revised the manuscript carefully. The replies to referees are listed one by one. In addition, all the amendments in this revised manuscript are highlighted in red.

Reviewing #2:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

1. Abstract: What was the period of study, please mention it. March month coincided that with which growth stage of different identified forest species(line 18).

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. The study period was spring, which I have already added in the article (line 18). 

2. Why is this kind of observation observe, OC displays a significant differenceand MBC : MBN becomes non-significant, regardless of forest species and soil depths, authors to streamline.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. There were no significant differences in soil MBC: MBN ratio in different forest species; but, the MBC: MBN ratio of C. fargesii and C. multiervis in the 0-20cm soil layer is significantly higher than that in the 20-40 cm soil layer. There were no significant differences in soil MBC: MBP ratio and MBN: MBP ratio, regardless of forest species and soil depths. We have streamlined this part. (Lines 29-33)

3. I fail to understand, why are these terms used like" slight lacking" or "lacking" used (line 32).These are conventional terms, let'ssay either deficient or low, just give a rethought, please. 

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have revised " slight lacking" or "lacking" to “deficient or low”. (line 27)

4. What is the role of altitude variation in influencing theseobservations. Then, home-take message in this section is weak in terms of practical application and look more like a exploratory nature.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the comprehensive effects of forest stand type and soil depth on soil and soil microbial C, N, P content and stoichiometry. Therefore, the experimental design is mainly based on the selection of forest stand types to select sample plots. Although the altitude span of the four typical forest stand types sample plots is over 1700 meters, the altitude span between the sample plots is not uniform. Therefore, we did not pay too much attention to the impact of altitude on observation results, but only explored altitude as an environmental factor in redundancy analysis.

In the 0-20cm soil layer, altitude is positively correlated with MBC, MBP, MBC: MBN, and MBC: MBP, with an explanation amount of 14% for the variation of soil-microbial biomass carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus ; In a soil layer of 20-40cm, altitude is positively correlated with C: N and C: P, and the explanation amount for the variation of soil-microbial biomass carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus characteristics is 15%.

5. Introduction: Objective 2 is vague and it overlaps with objective 1, While, objective 3 has no novelty, it's a very well known fact. Therefore, these objectives have to be redefined in the pretext of gaps in knowledge.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments.We have redefined the objective. (lines 86-88)

6. Materials and methods: Any specific reason to use 30x30m sample size 2 (table 1). How were the ecological boundaries of this forest species fixed, perhaps not possible with such fixed sample size, Thereby, facilitating common overlaps of one forest species over other species.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We sampled in the fixed monitoring plot ( 30x30m ) of the forest ecosystem in Fanjing Mountain, and determined the forest type by the main dominant tree species in the plot. Considering the heterogeneity of forest soil, two farther samples were selected for each forest type, and each sample had three 30x30m plots.

7. These (line 149-152) are simply irrelevant, why to over-emphasize, scientific community is well aware. Age of different forest species may be mentioned.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have deleted the relevant content and  mentioned the age of different forest species. (lines 124-125)

8. Results: How did you work out this correlation of soil properties and forest type? (Table 2), need some elaboration. What does such wide variation in C:N ratio indicate?

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. The correlation between soil properties and forest types was found by two-way analysis of variance, and the relevant expressions have been added in the article. The wide variation in C:N ratio indicated that the forest types had the greatest impact on C : N ratio. And  the relevant expressions have been added in the article. (line 171, 174-175)

9. Please avoid such kind of statement which has become repetitive in subsequent statement slater on (line 196-197).

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have revised the statement. (line 184-185)

10. Fig. 1: what is highlighted on x-axis?, is not clear.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We 've added the title of the X-axis, and  added a description of the symbol in the explanation section. (line 203-205)

11. Why is it so (line 232-233) and likewise need reasons for line 250-254 highlighting these relations.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have added the reasons in the part of discussion.

12. Figure 3 should contain legends of different color intensity, who do they indicate?

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We added a note to the legend: "Note: The number axis represents the magnitude of the correlation coefficient value, where red denotes a positive correlation and blue denotes a negative correlation." (line 248-250)

13. Delete these lines (line 260-263) and come straight way on results.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have deleted  these lines.

14. What do you think, is it not small amount of variation (62%) (line 288-89).

Response to reviewer:Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. Variance explained by all environmental factors was 62%. we have revised the relevant expression in the text. (line 279-281)

15. Please combine Table 3 and Table 4 together.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have combined Table 3 and Table 4 together. (line 284-285)

16. Discussion: How much low it was (line 325).

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have  revised the statement of  “low” to “It is only 22.5 % of the total phosphorus content (2.8 g/kg) in the world soil. ”. (line 312)

17. Any specific reason for giving preference of total N,P over available N,P, since you are considering C:N, C:P ratio, is it the sole reason?

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. In this paper, only the total C,N,P and microbial biomass C,N,P are discussed, and the available N,P is not considered. Whether the available N,P is another influencing factor needs to be further studied.

18. Did you study microbial counts of rhizosphere of these forest species (line 343-344) to add some strength to your observations.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We did not carry out research in  microbial counts of rhizosphere of these forest species, obviously, It is a very good proposal, in the future research we will increase the relevant research content.

19. Any supporting citation (line 352-353).

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have added supporting citation. (line 343)

20. Please explain in quantitative term, instead of in notional terms (line 382-383).

 Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have revised this part of the statement from “notional terms” to “quantitative term”. (line 366-368)

21. I still could not find the reason for significant relation between OC and total N or OC and total N or OCand total P but non-significant relation between MBC and MCN or MBC and MBN, regardless of forest species or soil depth. Author should explain the significance of such information.

 Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have revised the relevant discussion content. (line 379-403)

22. I also failed to get an explanation, what is the practical significance of such information in terms of betterl forest stand or authors provide some clues about the management issues. Hardly, anything is talked about the service provisions of these forest species or some other kind of clues about suitability/unsuitability of forest species as a outcome of this study.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. This study is more in line with exploratory research. Due to factors such as sampling season and sampling location span, it cannot serve as a clue for forest species adaptability or non adaptability, but can provide some clues for forest management, such as the growth of plants or microorganisms being limited by N, P. We have added this section to the discussion and conclusion. (line 316-317, 336-338, 373-375,413-414.)

The other minor questions have been revised directly in the new edition of manuscript, highlighted in blue.

If you have any further question about this paper, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Thank you and all the referees very much for the kind advice.

Sincerely yours,

Yingying Liu

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I critically reviewed and found out the very interesting manuscript on "Soil-Microbial CNP Content and Ecological Stoichiometry Characteristics of Typical Broad-Leaved Tree Communities in Fanjing Mountain in Spring," which is a very good study. The study's goal is to look at how different forest stand types and soil depths affect soil ecological characteristics, offering light on nutrient constraints and cycling patterns. Although it is very nicely written, there is further scope for strengthening it by reducing the content in the introduction. In methodologies, a location map should also be incorporated. In the discussion, some new references should be included. The conclusion also needs to be revised with a line for policymakers. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thanks a lot to the contribution by the editors and reviewers. All the comments are precious and indispensable for improvement of our manuscript.

Based on your comments and suggestions, we have revised the manuscript carefully. The replies to referees are listed one by one. In addition, all the amendments in this revised manuscript are highlighted in red.

Reviewing #3:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

• I critically reviewed and found out the very interesting manuscript on "Soil-Microbial CNP Content and Ecological Stoichiometry Characteristics of Typical Broad-Leaved Tree Communities in Fanjing Mountain in Spring," which is a very good study. The study's goal is to look at how different forest stand types and soil depths affect soil ecological characteristics, offering light on nutrient constraints and cycling patterns. Although it is very nicely written, there is further scope for strengthening it by reducing the content in the introduction. In methodologies, a location map should also be incorporated. In the discussion, some new references should be included. The conclusion also needs to be revised with a line for policymakers.

Response to reviewer: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have reduced the content in the introduction (lines 44-48, 58-65);  in methodologies, a location map have also been incorporated (lines 118-120);  and in the discussion, some new references have been added. A line for policymakers have been added in the conclusion (lines 32-33, 413-414).

The other minor questions have been revised directly in the new edition of manuscript, highlighted in blue.

If you have any further question about this paper, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Thank you and all the referees very much for the kind advice.

Sincerely yours,

Yingying Liu

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised mansucript is recommendned for acceptance. 

Only some minor editing is required.