Effects of the Application of Nutrients on Soil Bacterial Community Composition and Diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
-This sci. article correspond for scope of journal
- Content of sci. article appropriate to title of article.
- Key words: are appropriate
- Methods of investigation are adequately used.
- Results are cleraly presented and discussed.
- Table, figure and pictures are clearly presented.
- Conclusions are based on obtained results.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Dear Editor and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and for the comments of reviewers concerning our manuscript entitled “Effects of nutrient application on soil bacterial community com-position and diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China (2026120)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied all provided comments carefully and have made appropriate corrections which we hope meet with approval. The corrections made in the paper and the respective responses to your comments are listed below and shown by revision format in the improved version of the text.
Point 1: -This sci. article correspond for scope of journal
Point 2: - Content of sci. article appropriate to title of article.
Point 3: - Key words: are appropriate
Point 4: - Methods of investigation are adequately used.
Point 5: - Results are cleraly presented and discussed.
Point 6: - Table, figure and pictures are clearly presented.
Point 7: - Conclusions are based on obtained results.
This is the CERTIFICATE OF ENGLISH EDITING.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Introduction
poor connections between paragraphs, the logic connections are confusing, please rearrange your paragraphs
You mentioned the management measure of thinning, but the reason why you would like to explore the shift of soil microbe under thinning, was not sufficiently introduced.
The research gap and the process of developing a scientific hypothesis, or the logic of the hypothesis, is not clear, not enough.
Materials and methods
The distance between different treatment? Any replicates?
Where your raw sequences can be obtained? Did you deposit them in the Genebank or elsewherer? If YES, then the accession number?
Bioinformatics and Statistical Analyses should be separated into two parts?
Did you test the normality of the data?
Results
No data of the plant growth in Table 1S
Figure 3 The data is not convinced, since many genus with significant difference, the abundance were quite low? How large of their impact to the whole community still needs further investigation. Or you only show the different genus in top 50
Figure 4 any difference between different treatments? If yes, please add the anosim analysis to test the difference
Discussion
further explanation and more deep discussion, especially 4.4. In current state, very limited discussion about the bacterial function, then the soil bacterial function should be removed from the manuscript.
Please find the specific comments in the attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and for the comments of reviewers concerning our manuscript entitled “Effects of nutrient application on soil bacterial community com-position and diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China (2026120)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied all provided comments carefully and have made appropriate corrections which we hope meet with approval. The corrections made in the paper and the respective responses to your comments are listed below and shown by word in the improved version of the text.
Reply Dear External Audit Experts:
Response to introduction:
1.poor connections between paragraphs, the logic connections are confusing, please rearrange your paragraphs
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your suggestion. The entire Introduction section has been re-edited.
Please see the line 33—90.
2.You mentioned the management measure of thinning, but the reason why you would like to explore the shift of soil microbe under thinning, was not sufficiently introduced.
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We have revised the introduction as follows:
“Productivity of artificial forests in China was mostly lower than that of foreign forests at the same latitude [7]. In addition to forest ' s own biological factors, incom-plete management might be the main reason [8]. For example, in the northeast forest region, the previous management method was untimely single tending and thinning operation without any exogenous energy input, [9]. and the thinning residues were mostly made into industrial chips or directly removed from the forest land for fire-wood. Stand productivity was usually not improved by simple thinning after canopy closure without nutrient application [10], Most of the forest productivity operated abroad would be improved. In addition to timely thinning intensity after canopy clo-sure, a large amount of exogenous energy input (such as nutrient application) was also an important reason [10,11].”.
Please see the line 38—47.
3.The research gap and the process of developing a scientific hypothesis, or the logic of the hypothesis, is not clear, not enough.
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We have revised the introduction as follows:
“Productivity of artificial forests in China was mostly lower than that of foreign forests at the same latitude [7]. In addition to forest ' s own biological factors, incom-plete management might be the main reason [8]. For example, in the northeast forest region, the previous management method was untimely single tending and thinning operation without any exogenous energy input, [9]. and the thinning residues were mostly made into industrial chips or directly removed from the forest land for fire-wood. Stand productivity was usually not improved by simple thinning after canopy closure without nutrient application [10], Most of the forest productivity operated abroad would be improved. In addition to timely thinning intensity after canopy clo-sure, a large amount of exogenous energy input (such as nutrient application) was also an important reason [10,11].
In recent years, there were few studies on the composition of forest soil microbial communities after thinning combined with nutrient application measures, mainly focusing on farmland in China [12,13]. There were some studies on soil bacteria in plantations under single nutrient application, and presenced scientific controversies around the effects of different nutrient application measures on the structure and diversity of the forest soil bacterial community. For example, Guan [14] revealed that nutrient appli-cation reduced the soil bacterial richness and diversity in-dices in Catalpa bungei plan-tations. Li Chao et al. [15] revealed that nutrient application significantly altered the relative abundance of the dominant soil bacterial phyla, increased the soil bacterial richness, and de-creased the bacterial diversity index in Eucalyptus plantations. Be-sides, nitrogen nutrient application increased the soil bacterial diversity in Schima su-perba plantation and the relative abundance of Proteobacteria in Pinus massoniana plantation [16]. According to Wei et al. [17], nitrogen nutrient application significantly altered the soil bacterial community structure and reduced soil bacterial biomass in Picea koraiensis plantation. In contrast, nitrogen nutrient application did not affect the soil bacterial biomass in temperate broad-leaved and coniferous forests [18].”.
Please see the line 38—64.
Response to materials and methods:
1.The distance between different treatment? Any replicates?
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We revised our manuscript according to your comments. Please see the line 129-133.
“The distance between different treatments was 30-40 m; distance between repeated plots: 10 m.”
2.Where your raw sequences can be obtained? Did you deposit them in the Genebank or elsewherer? If YES, then the accession number?
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. The original data encountered problems when uploading NCBI, resulting in data cannot be uploaded. I sent all the original data compression files to the edit mailbox, if you want to see and edit them available. Of course, I am also further trying to solve the problem of uploading raw data. Upload success I will tell you the first time the accession number.
3.Bioinformatics and Statistical Analyses should be separated into two parts?
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your considerable suggestion. “Bioinformatics” and” Statistical Analyses” were separated into two parts. Please see the line 177—195 and line 196—211.
4.Did you test the normality of the data?
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your considerable suggestion. We have normalize the sequence as the least sequence of the sample. And then do the further analysis. We revised our manuscript as follows:
for example: Shannon Chao1 Richness coverage
Sig: 0.716 0 .870 0.995
Response to results:
1.No data of the plant growth in Table 1S.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your considerable suggestion. The data of the plant growth at end of part 2.1. Sorry, I made a supplement. Please see the line 103-107.
2.Figure 3 The data is not convinced, since many genus with significant difference, the abundance were quite low? How large of their impact to the whole community still needs further investigation. Or you only show the different genus in top 50.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your considerable suggestion. Yes, we agree with your comments. For this question, because in the Figure 2：A total of 343 bacterial genera (87.06 %) were shared among the four treatments, most of the top 50 bacteria have little difference and belong to unidentified flora. Hence were able to adapt to the four treatments. We want to analyze the difference of bacterial genera between N treatment and CK treatment, NP treatment and CK treatment, NPK treatment and CK treatment.
All the bacteria in Fig.3 are bacteria with significant differences in soil. Fig.3 (a) is a bacterial genus with significant differences between N treatment and CK treatment. Fig. 3 (b) Significantly different bacterial genera in NP and CK soils; fig.3 (c) There were significant differences in bacterial genera between NPK treatment and CK treatment.
3.Figure 4 any difference between different treatments? If yes, please add the anosim analysis to test the difference.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your considerable suggestion.
Sequencing results showed no significant difference in bacterial community structure among different treatments. Anosim, r=0.049, P=0.36
Response to discussion:
1.further explanation and more deep discussion, especially 4.4. In current state, very limited discussion about the bacterial function, then the soil bacterial function should be removed from the manuscript.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your valuable comments, I agree to delete the bacterial functional analysis section(3.5 and 4.4were deleted). Please see the line 295—311and 389-404.
2.Please find the specific comments in the attachment：
Detailed reply in PDF:
1.In the 11 line: “active and decisive” is changed to “critical”.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 11.
2.In the 12 line：“maintain” is changed to “maintaining”.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 12.
3.In the 13 line：“determine” is changed to “explore”.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 13.
4.In the 21 to 25 lines: “soil samples were collected in the 0-10 cm soil layer. After extracting the soil DNA, the 16SrRNA V3-V4 variable region of the soil bacteria in the Larix olgensis plantation was sequenced by Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology. Next, the bacterial diversity, composition and function of soil bacteria under different fertilization regimes were determined using Miseq PE300.” is restated and shortened to “the soil samples of 0-10 cm soil layer were collected, and the diversity, composition and function of soil bacteria under different fertilization conditions were determined by Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology of MiSeq platform.”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 21-23.
- Lines 28 to 30: “(3) Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Verrucomi crobia (relative abundance >10%) were the dominant bacteria phyla in the soil. (4) Based on the redundancy analysis,” “(5) The bacteria in the soil were mainly chemoheterotrophs and aerobic heterotrophs. Overall, different nutrient enrichment only significantly impacted the soil bacterial com-munity composition in Larix olgensis plantation and did not change the bacterial Shannon index and function.” was deleted.
“variation” was deleted.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 25-27.
- Lines 105: 2.1 Site Description: I supplemented the forest tree species: “The farm consists of Quercus mongolica, Betula davurica, Populus davidiana, Larix olgensis and Betula platyphylla as the major tree species for timber production.”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 95-96.
- Lines 114: “the” was deleted.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 125.
- Lines 118: the concentrations, or the specification? where you obtain these fertilizers?
Response:
Dear reviewer,
The quantities of the nutrients was based on a recommendation from the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Sustainable Forest Ecosystem Management, Northeast Forestry University-referring to the fertilization standard of Northeast forest area.
- Line 199-207:
(1) “and average diameter at breast height (DBH) growth of the larch plantation” was deleted.
And the “average diameter at breast height (DBH) growth of the larch plantation”was Placed in part 2.1, Please see the line 103-107.
(2) give space inbetween (Table 1):
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 118-119.
(3)Part 3.1: “TN, TP, SOC, AP, TK , AK” is corrected to “soil total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), soil organic carbon (SOC), and available phosphorus (AP)， total potassium (TK)，available potassium (AK) ”. We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line109-114.
(3) Line 202: P value is added, (Table 1, P<0.05).
(5) Line 203: “%” is added.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 112 and113.
- Line 230: Title error. It has been corrected to “3.3Effects of fertilization on soil bacterial community composition”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 232.
- “fertilization” is replaced by “nutrient application” in the full text.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 1,11,1375,85…..
- Line 331：“reflect” is changed to “partly reflect”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 320.
- Line 334： “treatment” was deleted.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 323.
- Line 336-340：Because this sentence is not logical in this article. So we decided to delete. “The decrease in bacterial richness with an increase in the nutrient components added implies that the increase in bacterial richness after thinning was limited to a threshold. Therefore, when the nutrient components increased to a certain threshold, the increase in the bacterial richness index started decreasing.” was deleted.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 325.
- Line 345：“potassium” is changed to “K”.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 330.
- Line 355: “The higher the diversity index, the higher the bacterial community diversity.” was deleted.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 341.
- Line 356：“inhibits” is changed to “inhibited”.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 342.
18.357: “promotes” is changed to “promoted”.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 343
- Line 362-364: Added further explanation: “Natural factors such as soil type, temperature, vegetation and human factors such as soil tillage methods and fertilizer application determined soil properties. Soil properties affected soil bacterial community composition and diversity. Under the same conditions of other factors, the soil total nitrogen, total phosphorus, organic carbon, and other important chemical properties remained at a relatively stable level after adding nutrients. Therefore, there was no difference in the composition and abundance of dominant bacterial communities at the phylum level [51]. As a result, soil bacterial diversity is more stable.”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 346-353.
- Line 366: “AN” changed to “nitrogen”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 355.
- Line 370-371:
(1)Added some discussion: “For instance significant effects of soil pH and available phosphorus on soil bacterial community in young Phoebe bournei plantations after adding phosphate fertilizer [55]. Total nitrogen, total phosphorus and pH were the main environmental factors affect-ing the bacterial community structure of Eucalyptus Plantation [15]. Former studies showed soil pH was the most important factor driving different soil microbial com-munity composition patterns and diversity [56]. However, there was no significant re-lationship between the soil bacterial diversity and pH in the present study, which was consistent with the findings reported by Liu [57]. It can be seen that the change of soil microbial community structure will be affected by many factors, but in different eco-systems, the driving factors may be different, which cannot be generalized and needs to be further explored.”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 360-370.
(2) And supplement“Former studies showed soil pH was”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 364.
- Line 374: “is” changed to “was”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 367
- According to the advice of the fourth reviewer. “ the initial characterization of soil properties and textural analysis”was placed in the “material and methodologies section. ”
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 108-121.
- According to the suggestion reviewer, “Bioinformatics” and” Statistical Analyses” were separated into two parts.
Response:
Dear reviewer,
We revised this problem according to your suggestion. Please see the line 177-196 and 196-211.
- This is the CERTIFICATE OF ENGLISH EDITING.
- Line 248: “need more details” (The suggestion you gave me on the title of Figure 1)
Response:
Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestion. We have made some improvements.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript describes the effect of nutrient application on soil bacterial community in a forest plantation. It shows how N, P and K influenced the bacterial community. This area is important in soil science studies and is sometimes neglected. The MS is also generally well written. General comments - what informed the nutrient application? Was it based on a fertilizer recommendation? Include a conversion of 1 square hectometre to hectares for international readers.
Specific comments:
Keywords can be improved. Should be other words, than those in the title that can be used to search the paper.
M&M - how did the authors decide on the quantities of the nutrients? Was it based on a recommendation from a laboratory.
Any records of the fertilizers applied before 2015? This will help us understand if there are no significant differences at the end.
All abbreviations should be written in full on first mention, except the scientifically known and accepted abbreviations like pH.
For all softwares and instruments, please include model/version, supplier/manufacturer and country.
Results -
Line 199 - the average diameter DBH is not shown in table 1.
Line 203 - Actually there decrease in TP among the treatments was not significant.
Line 206 - See comment about line 203.
Line 218 - The increase was not significant among N, NP and CK
Line 219 - Only CK was significantly lower, the other three treatments were not significantly different. Then NPK was not significantly different to CK.
Line 230 - The changes discussed under the subtitle are for bacterial phyla not soil chemical properties.
Line 249 - 250 - The common and unique bacteria are not clear in the figure. Use differently coloured circles to highlight them in the figure.
Line 284-288 - Kindly check the figure to confirm if the interpretation is correct. For example, TK seem not to be correlated with be the CK treatment.
Discussions - well written in general. if the authors have the history of nutrient application before 2015, then the non-significant differences between CK and other treatments could be more explained.
Other minor comments can be found in the attachement.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and for the comments of reviewers concerning our manuscript entitled “Effects of nutrient application on soil bacterial community com-position and diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China (2026120)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied all provided comments carefully and have made appropriate corrections which we hope meet with approval. The corrections made in the paper and the respective responses to your comments are listed below and shown by word in the improved version of the text.
Reply Dear External Audit Experts:
The manuscript describes the effect of nutrient application on soil bacterial community in a forest plantation. It shows how N, P and K influenced the bacterial community. This area is important in soil science studies and is sometimes neglected. The MS is also generally well written. General comments - what informed the nutrient application? Was it based on a fertilizer recommendation? Include a conversion of 1 square hectometre to hectares for international readers.
Response: Thank you for your constructive suggestions. We have revised our keywords. Please see the line 129-133.
“(The quantities of the nutrients was based on a recommendation from the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Sustainable Forest Ecosystem Management, Northeast Forestry University-referring to the fertilization standard of Northeast Forest area. In early July 2015, urea, diammonium hydrogen phosphate and potassium chloride fertilizers were purchased at Jiamusi Jiatai Seed Fertilizer Company. In the set of 12 plots, according to the experimental design, the chemical fertilizer was applied by means of uniform hole application between rows and soil covering, and the number of holes in each row was 20-25 holes for fertilization treatment.)”
And full text of “.hm-²” to “/ha”.
Response to specific comments:
1.Keywords can be improved. Should be other words, than those in the title that can be used to search the paper.
Response: Thank you for your constructive suggestions. We have revised our keywords. Please see the line 28-29.
“Larix olgensis plantation; fertilization; bacterial community; high-throughput sequencing; soil microorganisms” is changed to “Larix olgensis plantation; nutrient application after thinning; bacterial community; 16S rRNA; high-throughput sequencing”
2.M&M - how did the authors decide on the quantities of the nutrients? Was it based on a recommendation from a laboratory.
Response: Thank you for your constructive suggestions. Please see the line 130-133.
“The quantities of the nutrients was based on a recommendation from the Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Sustainable Forest Ecosystem Management, Northeast Forestry University-referring to the fertilization standard of Northeast Forest area.”
3.Any records of the fertilizers applied before 2015? This will help us understand if there are no significant differences at the end.
Response:
It is a pity that this woodland had no fertilization record before 2015. Because of the lack of previous studies on fertilization and soil microorganisms in larch plantation forests, we conducted this study.
4.All abbreviations should be written in full on first mention, except the scientifically known and accepted abbreviations like pH.
Response:
Thank you for your constructive suggestions. We sloved this problem through the whole manuscript.
(1) Please see the line 107-111: “TN, TP, SOC, AP, TK , AK” is corrected to “soil total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), soil organic carbon (SOC), and available phosphorus (AP)， total potassium (TK)，available potassium (AK) ”.
(2) Please see the line 154-155: “E.Z.N.A.” was changed to “E.Z.N.A.® soil DNA Kit (Omega Bio-tek, Norcross, GA, U.S.)”，This is the kit model for extracting soil DNA.
(3) Please see the line 176-177: “QIIME 2” was changed to “QIIME 2 (quantitative insights into microbial ecology) pipeline (USA,version 2.0)”
(4)Please see the line 204: “ANOVA” was changed to“Ane-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)”.
(5) Please see the line 153-184: Significant changes have been made to 2.3.2 and 2.4 on the recommendation of a fourth expert.
5.For all softwares and instruments, please include model/version, supplier/manufacturer and country.
Response: We revised this problem in the manuscript.
(1) Please see the line 176-177: Add“QIIME 2 (quantitative insights into microbial ecology) pipeline (USA, version 2.0) ”
(2)Please see the line 173: Add“UPARSE (China, version 7.1)”
Response to results -
- Line 199 - the average diameter DBH is not shown in table 1.
Response:
we added the data of the average diameter DBH at end of part 2.1. Please see it in the line 100-104: “Average diameter at breast height (DBH) of 4 treatments (in 2015, 28 years old): 14.2 cm, 13.4 cm, 13.3 cm, 13.7 cm. 3 years after nutrient application, the average DBH / cm (in 2018, 31-year-old): 15.2 cm, 14.5 cm, 14.5 cm, 14.8 cm, the stand average DBH regular growth rate: 6.58 % / 3a, 7.59 % / 3a, 8.28 % / 3a, 37.43 %/ 3a, nutrient application treatment than CK treatment 0.85 % - 1.70 % / 3a.”
- Line 203 - Actually there decrease in TP among the treatments was not significant.
Response:
We are sorry to make this mistake. We revised this problem. Please see the line 109:
“The TP here is wrong, and should be TK.”
- Line 206 - See comment about line.
Response:
(1)Thank you for your constructive comments. We revised these problems according to your comments. Please see the line 100-104:
“Average diameter at breast height (DBH) of 4 treatments (in 2015, 28 years old): 14.2 cm, 13.4 cm, 13.3 cm, 13.7 cm. 3 years after nutrient application, the average DBH / cm (in 2018, 31-year-old): 15.2 cm, 14.5 cm, 14.5 cm, 14.8 cm, the stand average DBH regular growth rate: 6.58 % / 3a, 7.59 % / 3a, 8.28 % / 3a, 37.43 %/ 3a, nutrient application treatment than CK treatment 0.85 % - 1.70 % / 3a.”
(2)Line 205
9.Discussions - well written in general. if the authors have the history of nutrient application before 2015, then the non-significant differences between CK and other treatments could be more explained.
Response: It is a pity that this woodland had no fertilization record before 2015. Because of the lack of previous studies on fertilization and soil microorganisms in larch plantation forests, we conducted this study.
10.Other minor comments can be found in the attachement.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
* authors must change the article title
* sentences highlighted in the pdf must be rephrased.
* Why are the initial characterization of soil properties and textural analysis not included in the material and methodologies section? it could be explain certain result.
* all figures are not clear
*soil physical properties are not analyzed, why in the conclusions authors discuss these properties?
*
*
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Editor and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and for the comments of reviewers concerning our manuscript entitled “Effects of nutrient application on soil bacterial community com-position and diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China (2026120)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied all provided comments carefully and have made appropriate corrections which we hope meet with approval. The corrections made in the paper and the respective responses to your comments are listed below and shown by word in the improved version of the text.
Reply Dear External Audit Experts:
1.authors must change the article title.
Response:
The title has revised into “Effects of nutrient application on soil bacterial community composition and diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China.” Please see the line 2-3.
- Sentences highlighted in the pdf must be rephrased.
- Line 11–12: “Fertilization is an important management practice for maintain soil fertility, and fertilization affects soil bacterial community structure” was changed to “Fertilization as an important management measure to maintain soil fertility can affect soil bacterial community structure”. Please see the line 10-11.
- Line 13 – 15: “The objective of this study was to determine the influence of nutrient enrichment tion after thinning using the Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology.” is changed to “The objective of this study was to explore the influence of nutrient application on the soil bacterial community composition and diversity in Larix olgensis Henry plantation after thinning using the Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology”. Please see the line 11-14.
(3) Line 31: “Based on the redundancy analysis, the soil organic carbon and soil total nitrogen were the major drivers of the soil bacterial com-munity structure variation”is changed to “The soil organic carbon and soil total nitrogen were the major drivers of the soil bacterial community structure.” Please see the line 24-26.
(4) Line 45:“However, the changes in soil nutrient composition and concentrations after fertilization directly alter the diversity of soil microorganisms, transforming the soil microbial communities.”was changed to “However, changes in soil nutrient composition and concentration after fertilization could affect soil microbial diversity and community structure.” However, based on the suggestions of four experts, the introduction was re-edited and the sentence was deleted.
(5) Line 142-192: It has been re-edited on the advice of four experts. Please see the line 154-207.
(6) Line 239: “different” was changed to “difference”. Please see the line 237.
(7) Line 252: “environments” wae changed to “treatments”. Please see the line 250.
(8) “fertilization”is replaced by “nutrient application”in the full text.
(9) Line 314: “contentafter” was deleted. Please see the line 297.
(10) Line 355: “The higher the diversity index, the higher the bacterial community diversity.” was deleted. Please see the line 334.
(11) According to the recommendation of the second reviewer, the bacterial function part of the manuscript was deleted.
(11) According to the suggestion of the second reviewer, “Bioinformatics” and” Statistical Analyses” were separated into two parts. Please see the line 175-207.
(12) line 382:” line” was deleted .Please see the line: 371.
(13) line 374-375：Coule you explain why there is no relation with pH?
Response: Please see the line 353-363：“For instance significant effects of soil pH and available phosphorus on soil bacterial community in young Phoebe bournei plantations after adding phosphate fertilizer [55]. Total nitrogen, total phosphorus and pH were the main environmental factors affecting the bacterial community structure of Eucalyptus Plantation [15]. Former studies showed soil pH was the most important factor driving different soil microbial community composition patterns and diversity [56]. However, there was no significant relationship between the soil bacterial diversity and pH in the present study, which was consistent with the findings reported by Liu [57]. It can be seen that the change of soil microbial community structure will be affected by many factors, but in different ecosystems, the driving factors may be different, which cannot be generalized and needs to be further explored.”
(14)327-328：authors have to better explain this observations in correlation with ph and CE.
Response: Please see the line 310-317：” The decrease of soil pH was due to the release of a large amount of H+ after a series of decomposition and transformation in the soil with nitrogen (urea) -based nutrient addition, which reduces the soil pH [47]. Previous studies have shown that differences in soil bacterial community diversity and richness can be largely explained by soil pH [48,49], which was inconsistent with our findings. There was no significant correlation between soil pH and soil bacterial diversity and richness. Therefore, soil pH may not be the key factor regulating soil bacterial diversity in middle-aged larch plantations.”
3.Why are the initial characterization of soil properties and textural analysis not included in the material and methodologies section? it could be explain certain result.
Response: I agree with your suggestion that it is more reasonable. “ the initial characterization of soil properties and textural analysis”was placed in the “material and methodologies section.” Please see the line:105-118.
4.all figures are not clear
Response: All pictures have been re-edited and uploaded, thank you for your reminder.
5.soil physical properties are not analyzed, why in the conclusions authors discuss these properties?
Response: Line 407, This is an imprecise mistake. “physical and” was deleted. Please see the line 380.
- This is a screenshot of the CERTIFICATE OF ENGLISH EDITING.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Except the accession number of the sequences, I do not have any further concerns
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and for the comments of reviewers concerning our manuscript entitled “Effects of nutrient application on soil bacterial community com-position and diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China (2026120)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied all provided comments carefully and have made appropriate corrections.
Point 1: Comments and Suggestions for Authors：
Except the accession number of the sequences, I do not have any further concerns
Response 1:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We have revised the introduction as follows:
Please see the line 184-186: “All 16S rRNA gene sequence datasets derived from Illumina MiSeq sequencing were submitted to the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under accession number SRP411512.”
Point 2: English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.
Response 2:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We have revised the introduction as follows:
The paper has been revised in English by MDPI, which is proof of polishing:
Point 3: Please check that all references are relevant to the contents of the
manuscript.
Response 3:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We have revised the introduction as follows:
Improper references have been deleted: [2] 、[4] 、[25] 、 [41]、 [44]、、、
Reviewer 4 Report
i would like to thank authors for their corrections. i think that this version is suitable for publication.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 4 Comments
Dear Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and for the comments of reviewers concerning our manuscript entitled “Effects of nutrient application on soil bacterial community com-position and diversity in a Larix olgensis Plantation, Northeast China (2026120)”. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied all provided comments carefully and have made appropriate corrections.
Point 1: Comments and Suggestions for Authors：
I would like to thank authors for their corrections. i think that this version is suitable for publication.
Response 1:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We have made content changes and English editing based on the recommendations of all reviewers. We deeply appreciate your consideration of our manuscript.
Point 2: English language and style are fine/minor spell check required .
Response 2:
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your constructive comments for our manuscript. We have revised the introduction as follows:
The paper has been revised in English by MDPI, which is proof of polishing:
