The Effect of Heavy Metals on Microbial Communities in Industrial Soil in the Area of Piekary Śląskie and Bukowno (Poland)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper titled “The effect of heavy metals on microbial communities in industrial soil” investigates the activity and structure of microbial communities in heavy metals contaminated soils. Based on the methodologies such as phospholipid fatty acid method, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, and metabolic activity using BIOLOG and EcoPlate, the paper analysed effects of metal contamination, pH and water quality on microbial growth and community structure. Overall the paper is well-written and comprehensively presented the methodologies. It provided a good and detailed discussion of the results.

However, the Introduction section of the paper should be improved by including existing literatures on this topic, especially, highlighting the potential applications of this work. For example, the following works must be reviewed and cited:

·         Masum and Thomas (2021). Effects of microbial spatial distribution on organic biodegradation and immobilization of trace metals in co-contaminated soils. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2021.104063

·         Masum and Islam (2020). A case study on predicting the environmental impacts of untreated effluent generated from Tannery Industrial estate in Dhaka, Bangladesh. https://doi.org/10.24057/2071-9388-2019-127

·         Jin et al. (2018). Effects and Mechanisms of microbial remediation of heavy metals in soil: a critical review. https://doi.org/10.3390/app8081336

·         Ayangbenro and Babaloa (2017). A New Strategy for Heavy Metal Polluted Environments: A Review of Microbial Biosorbents. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14010094

and similar literatures.

The paper can be considered for publications after addressing the review comments adequately.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachement.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The main subject described in the Manuscript “The effect of heavy metals on microbial communities industrial soil” is a classical study on heavy metal contamination effects on soils.

The manuscript is only a descriptive study of the microbial communities of two specific industrial soils, with contamination by some heavy metals.

Then I will comment other points of the article

Mayor points

1.      The techniques used to describe microbial diversity, PLFA analysis and DGGE profile and sequence bases identification from gel bands are old technologies, and they provide limited information.

They should use one of the two current approaches to the study of soil diversity.

Metabarcoding, the identification of the community composition via analysis of the sequences of barcode marker genes, or metagenomics, the analysis of the collective genomes of the community

2. On the other hand, no study has been carried out on control soils.

The state of the microbial communities of uncontaminated soils adjacent to industrial ones should be carried out if we want to know the influence of contamination.

Minor points

 

. The title must be changed,

The title is very general, THE EFFECT OF HEAVY METALS ON MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES IN INDUSTRIAL SOIL,

The study is a specific characterization of the microbial communities of two specific industrial soils

Material and Methods

Total HM content in soils.

Total HM content is not correct, it a partial HYM content, only 4 heavy metals have been evaluated

Total HM contaminants  in the soil environment, are namely arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni).

Culturable bacteria enumeratiom 

What is the composition of Broth Agar medium?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The reviewed work concerns the effect of heavy metals on microbial communities in industrial soil. The topic is very important and it is good that the authors undertook this research. The work is written correctly, the authors chose the appropriate literature. There are no editorial mistakes, tables and figures are well presented.

In my opinion, however, the work is too long, maybe the authors would try to shorten some chapters?

At work, the following things can be improved:

1. Indicate the novelty of research.

2. Justify the choice of the research object.

3. Try to correct the conclusion.

4. Line 608. I think it should be M. Frąc.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has been improved according to the reviewer's suggestions