Distribution Patterns of Soil Fauna in Different Forest Habitat Types of North Hebei Mountains, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,
I have read your manuscript very carefully, and it seems clear and interesting. 
In principle, no changes to the structure of your experimental design are necessary. The introduction is comprehensive and correctly referenced. The results are clearly reported, as are the discussions and conclusions. 
However, there are many errors in the text that need to be corrected. I also suggest that you do an English language revision to make the text more fluid. 
In the attached file, you will find some of my main suggestions and corrections. 
Good work.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors explored the influence of forest types on composition of soil fauna in different seasons, and detected the relationships between environmental factors and soil fauna composition. However, there are some shortcomings for this paper. I think the authors may misunderstand the concept of vegetation type, forest community and forest type. Overall, the manuscript was in poor organization, and several sentences were confused to me.

1. The Abstract should be rewrote and reorganized, and the main findings and the implications from the results should be described.
2. Lines 9-11 could be deleted.
3. Line 26-30, I don’t know whether there are one or two sentences.
4. Line 30, the sentence “They play an important··in ecosystem” is an repetition of line 28 “accelerate the flow of soil nutrient”.
5. Line 35-39, the sentence should be reorganized.
6. Line 47, what does “the interaction among different aboveground vegetation communities” mean?
7. Line 55-56, I don’t think the reason why the authors conduct this experiment is described appropriately.
8. Line 57-58, The three tree species you listed are just three species, which can not represent for vegetation types.
9. Line 61-64, The sentences could be deleted.
10. Line 100, what does “sampling sites” refer to?
11. Line 101, I’m confused with “the plots avoided soil fauna nests”.
12. Line 102, what’s the indication of “TSBF”?
13. Line 116, N and P contents should be revised more specifically.
14. Line 148-150, the sentence should be moved in the section of “Materials and Methods”.
15. Line 166, changed to P<0.05. In addition, P<0.05 or P>0.05 should be checked throughout the manuscript when describing significance or insignificance.
16. The title of Table 3 should be revised. The unit “cm” should be deleted for each specific soil layer.
17. Line 278-283, the sentences should be listed within Figure 5 caption.
18. Line 297-302, litter quality and decomposition patterns of the studied species should be added references as supports.
19. Line 315-316, what do “composition of soil properties” and “the comprehensive action of many soil properties” mean?
20. Line 323-325, the authors should discuss more about why SOC, total N and P were the primary factor influencing soil fauna community composition.
21. The Conclusions should be reorganized to focus the indications and implications from the results of the current study.
22. Finally, the authors should carefully re-check and revise the manuscript thoroughly.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

We highly appreciate the professional comments provided by the reviewer, who make the quality of our research improved. As per the comments of the reviewer, the manuscript has been modified considerably. The modifications are listed below corresponding to the comments of the reviewer.

Point 1: The Abstract should be rewrote and reorganized, and the main findings and the implications from the results should be described.

Response 1: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, the Abstract was rewrote and reorganized, and described the main findings and the implications from the results.

Point 2: Lines 9-11 could be deleted.

Response 2: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, Lines 9-11 was deleted.

Point 3: Line 26-30, I don’t know whether there are one or two sentences.

Response 3: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have reorganized these sentences (see lines 32-36), which are as following:

“The soil fauna are an important component of terrestrial ecosystems and can exert important influences on the ecosystem structure and function [1]. By directly or indirectly participating in litter decomposition, they promote the formation of humus, accelerate the flow of soil nutrient [2,3], and regulate the basic physical and chemical properties and structure of the soil [4,5].”

Point 4: Line 30, the sentence “They play an important··in ecosystem” is a repetition of line 28 “accelerate the flow of soil nutrient”.

Response 4: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. We have deleted the sentence "They play an important··in ecosystem"

Point 5: Line 35-39, the sentence should be reorganized.

Response 5: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. We reorganized the sentence (see lines 43-45), which is as following:

“In the forests, generally, the under-forest microenvironment as well as the nutrient composition of litter can direct and indirectly affect the distribution patterns of the soil fauna.”

Point 6: Line 47, what does “the interaction among different aboveground vegetation communities” mean?

Response 6: Thanks for the reviewer’s comments. “the interaction among different aboveground vegetation communities” means that the interactions among species in aboveground plant communities. We have replaced “the interaction among different aboveground vegetation communities” with “the interactions among species in aboveground plant communities” (see lines 53-54).

Point 7: Line 55-56, I don’t think the reason why the authors conduct this experiment is described appropriately.

Response 7: Thanks for the reviewer’s comment. The reason for the experiment originally written in the manuscript has been deleted, and we rewrote the reason (see lines 61-75). The reason for the experiment originally is described as the following:

“The restoration of soil fauna communities is of great significance to the structure and function of forest ecosystems during forest restoration, and soil fauna communities can be used as assessment indicators for “forest restoration benefits” [9]. In this study, we intend to investigate the distribution patterns of soil fauna in the restored forests in North Hebei Mountains, China, in order to improve the understanding of the relationship between the forest habitat types and the soil fauna communities in the restoration process of the forests in cold temperate zone. We hypothesized that the deciduous broad-leaved forests which promote the formation of litter and soil organic matter can enhance the abundance and diversity of the soil fauna. Via comparatively analyzing the characteristics of the soil fau-na communities and the influencing factors, on the one hand, we expect to obtain the in-fluence of distribution patterns of soil fauna by the forest habitat types, and on the other hand, to determine the environmental factors promoting and limiting the development of soil fauna community. This research may provide references for the design of sustainable forest ecosystems in restoration.”

Point 8: Line 57-58, the three tree species you listed are just three species, which can not represent for vegetation types.

Response 8: We highly regard this comment. According to this comment and combined with the comment “I think the authors may misunderstand the concept of vegetation type, forest community and forest type.” After reviewing the literature, we replaced "vegetation type" with "forest habitat types ", and replaced "forest community" with "habitat" in the full text.

Point 9: Line 61-64, The sentences could be deleted.

Response 9: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, the sentences were deleted.

Point 10: Line 100, what does “sampling sites” refer to?

Response 10: Thanks for the reviewer’s comment. What we want to express is the “sampling point”, but the “sampling sites” was wrongly used. We have replaced “sampling sites” with “sampling point” (see line 104).

Point 11: Line 101, I’m confused with “the plots avoided soil fauna nests”.

Response 11: Thanks for the reviewer’s comment. “the plots avoided soil fauna nests” means that the sampling point needs to avoid soil fauna nests, such as ant nests, which may result in an excessively high number of soil fauna collected. Therefore, in order to make the result more accurate, we need to avoid soil nests when we select the sampling plots.

Point 12: Line 102, what’s the indication of “TSBF”?

Response 12: Thanks for the reviewer’s comment. “TSBF” is a method of collecting soil fauna, which is the abbreviation of “Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility: a Handbook of Methods”. After careful consideration, TSBF is of little significance here and can be deleted.

Point 13: Line 116, N and P contents should be revised more specifically.

Response 13: We highly regard this suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we added the methods for the determination of N and P more specifically (see lines 124-128).

Point 14: Line 148-150, the sentence should be moved in the section of “Materials and Methods”.

Response 14: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, the sentence was moved in the section of “Materials and Methods” (see lines 131-133).

Point 15: Line 166, changed to P<0.05. In addition, P<0.05 or P>0.05 should be checked throughout the manuscript when describing significance or insignificance.

Response 15: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, p>0.05 was changed to P<0.05 in this sentence (see line 185). And we checked for P<0.05 or P>0.05 throughout the manuscript when describing significance or insignificance.

Point 16: The title of Table 3 should be revised. The unit “cm” should be deleted for each specific soil layer.

Response 16: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we revised the title of Table 3 to “Table 4. Diversity indexes of soil fauna in different soil layers”, and deleted the unit “cm” for each specific soil layer (see line 253).

Point 17: Line 278-283, the sentences should be listed within Figure 5 caption.

Response 17: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we have listed the sentences within Figure 5 caption (see line 264-268).

Point 18: Line 297-302, litter quality and decomposition patterns of the studied species should be added references as supports.

Response 18: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we added references on litter quality and decomposition patterns of the studied species with [40], [41], [42] and [43] (see lines 286-292), which are as following:

[40] Zhang, D.; Man, X.L.; Liu, S.Q.; Xu, Z.P. Litter decomposition and nutrient release of typical forest communities in non-growing season in cold temperate zone. J. Beijing For. Univ. 2022, 44, 65–74.

[41] Bohara, M.; Acharya, K.; Perveen, S.; Manevski, K.; Hu, C.S.; Yada, R.K.P.; Shrestha, K.; Li, X.X. In situ litter decomposition and nutrient release from forest trees along an elevation gradient in Central Himalaya. Catena 2020, 194, 104698.

[42] Rahman, M.M.; Tsukamoto, J. Leaf traits, litter decomposability and forest floor dynamics in an evergreen- and a deciduous-broadleaved forest in warm temperate Japan. Forestry 2013, 86, 441–451.

[43] Aerts, R.C. Leaf litter chemistry and leaf litter decomposition interrestrial ecosystems: a triangular relationship. Oikos 1997, 79, 439−449.

Point 19: Line 315-316, what do “composition of soil properties” and “the comprehensive action of many soil properties” mean?

Response 19: We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. We have replaced the phrase “composition of soil properties” with “physicochemical properties” (see lines 303). And “the comprehensive action of many soil properties” means that Soil fauna communities are strongly correlated with soil physicochemical properties, which often influence the soil fauna in the form of multiple factors instead of single factor. In the manuscript, we reorganized the sentence as following:

“Soil fauna communities are strongly correlated with soil physicochemical properties, which often influence the soil fauna in the form of multiple factors instead of single factor.”

Point 20: Line 323-325, the authors should discuss more about why SOC, total N and P were the primary factor influencing soil fauna community composition.

Response 20: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we discussed more about why SOC, total N and P were the primary factors affecting the composition of soil fauna, and reorganized the discussion on the effects of physicochemical factors on soil fauna (see lines 319-334).

Point 21: The Conclusions should be reorganized to focus the indications and implications from the results of the current study.

Response 21: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, the Conclusions was reorganized to focus the indications and implications from the results of the current study.

Point 22: Finally, the authors should carefully recheck and revise the manuscript thoroughly.

Response 22: Thanks for the reviewer’s suggestion. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, the entire manuscript was checked and revised with care to eliminate the grammatical errors and errors in sentence organization in the manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my concerns. I have no further questions.