Soil Microbial Communities Responses to Multiple Generations’ Successive Planting of Eucalyptus Trees
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe issue of “tree sp. – C limitation – enzyme activity - microbial community structure” relationships is one of the most sounding in to date soil microbiology and ecology. The authors studied the problem in the context of unveiling mechanisms of well-known negative effect of long-term Eucalyptus sp. monoculture planting. So, the topic of the research is of great importance both for basic and applied science.
The main idea is well formulated based on the huge body of the to-date articles.
The authors obtained a big set of rather interesting data; the methodological approaches they use are to-date and adequate. The main finding that the microbial community diversity was strongly affected by water content, P availability, SOC and DOM concentrations is prospective.
Comments
The authors use plenty of abbreviations for indices, pools, methods etc.
I would recommend a list of abbreviations; it would be very helping for understanding the text.
It is unclear what the authors call the terms “soil active carbon pool” and “soil reactive carbon pool”. Are there two different pools? Or two names for the same pool?
The authors formulated an explicit working hypothesis (LL 123-127).
(a) multigeneration successive planting Eucalyptus reduces SPPs, enzyme activity and community diversity of microorganism; (b) soil microbial community structure is affected by many environmental factors. (c) the content of active organic carbon fractions is the key factors affecting the change of soil microbial community structure.
It would be logical to explicitly mention in the text of "Conclusion" to what extent this hypothesis was confirmed, concerning all the three suggestions made.
For table 2 I would avoid “overloaded” values like 289.83±79.37; 227.39±69.09; 206.44±21.47etc. The number of decimal places should correspond to the level of accuracy.
The most of references have full title of the journal, others contain short (abbreviated) ones (e.g. see LL. 654-655, 685, 688). Besides, some of the titles are simply not correct (e.g. see L. 655).
The article can be recommended for publication after making corresponding changes to the text.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Although in general this article makes a good impression, it needs a revision by a native English speaker.
Author Response
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Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease see the attached file. Please provide additional years of data.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
A further read through for common English usage is recommended.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe topic is interesting but the results were predictable. The title should be changed. These are not correct theses. These are ready-made statements. These formulations need to be changed. Specify due to what will be studied. We do not give final conclusions here. Methodology from 53 years ago. Why so old. What are the standards for the values determined? An element of discussion should be added to this section. Writing only someone's name in parentheses is not enough. You should write what opinion the quoted author had. References is too extensive. Some citations are unnecessary. The text highlights 30 comments. The work needs to be corrected decisively.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. Please see the attached file for specific responses.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe work has been carefully revised. Three small comments remain. I still think there is too much literature cited. Unfortunately, there is no remedy for this.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your comments! Please see the attachment for specific responses to your comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
