Effects of Straw Returning on Soil Chemical Properties and Microbial Community Diversity under the Rice-Crayfish Integrated System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled "Effects of straw returning on soil chemical properties and microbial community diversity under the rice-crayfish integrated system" is very well written and suitable for publication in Sustainability. However, some corrections are needed.

 

Abstract: What is the problem that this study is solving? What is the objective of this study? 

 

Key words: Do not repeat words from the title.

 

Introduction: Line 39. 2019? And what is the area of rice-crayfish integrated system cultivated in 2021/2022 in China?

Line 77: What are the three treatments?

 

Materials and Methods: Line 89: 1,100 mm?

Lines 92-93: What are the chemical characteristics of straw?

Line 94: Why only 3 repetitions?

 

Results: Table 1, pH was in H2O or CaCl2?

Figure 1. What was the mean test used? Do the bars represent the error or standard deviation?

Figure 3. Why did you connect the points and not use a regression curve? Use the same scale on the y-axis at both soil depths.

Figure 4. use the same scale on the y-axis at both soil depths.

Discussion: is appropriate to the results.

 

Conclusion: Line 403: It is not necessary to start the sentence with "In conclusion".

Do not use abbreviations. What is the authors' opinion regarding the future with this study?

 

References: all are adequate to the manuscript.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this manuscript, Zhu et al. evaluated the changes of soil chemical and microbial properties in rice paddy fields with three different treatments including: straw returning, straw returning and crayfish cultivation, and control treatments. Overall, I think the concept of this manuscript is fine, but some of information is not clearly written and need to be revised before it can be considered for publication.

 

First, I think the hypothesis of this study (P.2, Lines 73-75) needs to be rewritten because the current hypothesis is ambiguous. It is no doubt that different soil chemical and microbial properties will be observed in different soils. Thus, I am not convinced that such statements is a suitable hypothesis.

Second, I am not convinced with the conclusion of this study about the benefits of rice-crayfish integrated system provide (P.1, Lines 21-25) as many soil chemical and microbial properties were statistically similar between straw returning and rice-crayfish integrated treatments. Moreover, the authors may need to discuss the data between these two treatments in more detail.

 

Line 22-“… system alters chemical properties” – not clear.

 

Line 96: I am curious that if the rice was immediately planted (on the same day?) after straw was returned.

 

Line 101: I wonder if the feed was only applied in the rice-crayfish integrated treatments or it was applied in all three treatments.

 

Line 331-333: “…increased AN and TN…”-  Why?

 

Lines 337-340: this discussion may not be accurate as the TOC values was similar between WS and WSC in 10-20cm depth.

 

Line -347: just curious if the authors measured the soil redox potential in situ.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In the attached file, please address the annotated recommendations.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Figure 4 - The error bars for Amines, which seem to be significantly higher than that of carbohydrates, carboxylic acids, amino acids, and polymers does not coincide with the alphabets (all "a"), which designate no significant difference. 

Please check your figure, data, and stat analysis  

 

Author Response

Point1: Figure 4 - The error bars for Amines, which seem to be significantly higher than that of carbohydrates, carboxylic acids, amino acids, and polymers does not coincide with the alphabets (all "a"), which designate no significant difference. Please check your figure, data, and stat analysis.  

Response 1: Thanks for your valuable comment. We have checked the data carefully. The data in Figure 4 was analyzed among the W, WS, and WSC treatments. Means with different letters for the same property in the same soil layer among the W, WS, and WSC treatments indicate significant differences at P < 0.05.