Responses of Soil Phosphorus Cycling-Related Microbial Genes to Thinning Intensity in Cunninghamia lanceolata Plantations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is very well written and organized. I have few suggestions for Authors:

1. Abstract: In my opinion asbtract should include section "Research Highlights: Place the novelty of the content and highlight the significance of the study"

2. line 67 - 68: Authors may include which microbial groups are involved in phosphorus cycling"

3. line 173: C. lanceolata should be written in italics?

4. lines: 178, 179, 196, 198, 211, 212, 222, 291, 292, 297, 298, 300, 303, 304, 424 - please unify the way subscripts and superscripts are written

5. line 520 - study, not sudy?

6. lines: 323, 328, 394, 395, 396, 398, 399, 400, 406, 407 - genes names should be written in italics?

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Text in general is poorly written in terms of typos, word to word spacing, use of upper and subindices, italicization, abuse of repetitive words, misspelled words, different writing style, etc. All these elements make hard to read the text. A detailed edition work is required.

Introduction. This section sounds like this phenomenon occurs only in China, please change the meaning to a more universal framework, this phenomenon has been characterized in other models in other latitudes, please mention them.

Figures are presented as raster, please substitute them by vectorial images (*.svg files). In the actual form are hard to read or unreadable. Please match the font and size to the footnote in all the elements, except for panel-indicating letters that should be Arial 16 or similar.

Tables. Please justify values in a way that decimal points are vertically aligned in all cases.

Gene italicization is missing in all text.

Discussion. Dogmatic affirmations are very frequent with limited or inexistence of alternative explanations to found evidence. This section needs to be re-written contrasting evidence found for similar systems in other tree species and environments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English is good, but lot of typing errors and inconsistent writing style must be corrected

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Lin 2024 forests-2833217

Responses of soil phosphorus cycling-related microbial genes to thinning intensity in Chinese fir plantations Kaimin *

DEAR AUTHORS,

 

The article is important, informative, contains new material

 

Note Why is artificial forest thinning necessary? You can plant artificial forests with the required distance between trees, the initial density of trees in 2009 was 3,250 trees hm−2 after thinning in 2007 low (2,250 trees hm−2; WT), medium (1,800 trees hm−2; MT), and high179 (1,200 trees hm−2; HT),.

You need to write in your resume the Age of the forest and how much time passed from thinning the forest to the start of the experiment.

Abstract:  Note With the increasing intensity of thinning, the relative abundance of genes associated with inorganic phosphorus solubilization were significantly increases, whereas genes associated to phosphorus uptake and transport significantly decreases

Note,: Clarification is necessary, there is a relative increase in phosphorus compounds during thinning, but what happens to the absolute content of phosphorus compounds?

.

Abstract: . Note Specifically, soil pH is positively correlated with genes involved in inorganic phosphate solubilization and organic phosphate mineralization, while it is negatively correlated with genes related to phosphorus uptake and transport

This paragraph needs to be written more correctly; it is known that phosphorus is inactivated when the pH value increases. It is necessary to indicate the range of pH values with a positive effect on phosphorus

 

Line 221 water-extractable phosphorus (H2O-P=H2O-Pi+H2O-Po), need write what Pi and Po mean

 

Give all numbers in the entire article to tenths, not to hundredths: 1.1-1.5, etc., TN content(1.16–1.50 g 291 kg−1), SOC content (15.48–19.88 g kg−1), soil pH (4.26–4.86), NH4+-N

292 content (12.22–19.65 mg kg−1), NO3−-N content (2.89–5.35 mg kg−1), and

293 TK content (15.83–21.56 g kg−1), etc.

Note The relative 328 abundances of EC:1.1.2.4, phoR, rne, ugpB, phnC, phnE, and phnD

329 were significantly greater under weak thinning conditions than under

330 moderate or heavy thinning conditions. This contradicts the findings and Abstract:

 

Note Figure 2. Figure 3. And other figures. Very unclear image, therefore difficult to understand. There are almost no differences in the number of genes at different forest thinnings

 

Figure 5. not specified, what does *** mean?

 

15/01/2024

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please substitute the common name of Chinese fir for its scientific name in all document sections. At least add it to the title first, then the common name.

Some minor typos and format errors were found, like EC:1.1.2.4 in italics, phoB not italicized, lack of spacing before parenthesis, or double parenthesis like in: ((e.g.,gcd).

Thanks for improving the figures' quality.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

No comments.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf