Influence of Tourism Disturbance on Soil Microbial Community Structure in Dawei Mountain National Forest Park
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This research aimed to reveal the response characteristics of soil microbial community structure to different degrees of tourism disturbance setting up continuous plots with different interference intensities: severe interference, moderate interference and the control area.
- The Authors in the Materials and Methods session should enter the year and month of the research and the dates of the measurements carried out
- Lines 79-88 Are there any photos or data on the areas of Interference?
- Correct the Scientific Name in italics in the text
- Line 398 2. Figures, Tables and Schemes
- Standardize references as indicated in the guidelines for authors
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The figures should be enlarged
The criteria for sustainability evaluation and classification should be added and discussed, instead of describing the results and data processing
The conclusion should be added from the results and discussion on the influent of tourist disturbance on soil microbial community according to the above objectives
The data of tourist activities and disturbing should be added and discussed related to soil microbial structure
The map of location should be added
The impact of tourist activities should be added and discussed which affected the microbial
The discussion should be concentrated on and related to the soil microbial structure
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript 'Influence of Tourism Disturbance on Soil Microbial Community Structure in Dawei Mountain National Forest Park' authored by Li et al. aimed at elucidating the changes and the response mechanisms in the soil microbial community following tourism disturbances. Overall, the study is decent and timely. However, the manuscript needs improvement in its current form.
Major issues:
- Figure 1, Figure 2, and Figure 3 all need to be improved. The legends are not readable. Numbers in the Venn diagram are not clear (Figure 1). For better clarity to the readers, care must be taken so that the figures should be legible.
- Table 1 is not properly discussed (section 3.1). It is important to discuss the physical and chemical properties of soil more thoroughly.
- Lines 171-176: Supplementary information must be provided for the Venn diagram (which OTUs are unique and overlapping?).
Other issues:
- Abstract and introduction: I recommend replacing the word “flora”
- Introduction: Line 34: “Light” pollution level – light is not a proper word here.
- Line 42-43: Please provide citations on previous reports on the effect of tourism disturbances on the soil microbial communities.
- Material and methods: Line 70-72: Renowned as a natural… - rephrase the statement
- Line 72-75: Were the soil collections done at the Dawei National Park? Please clarify
- Why are MD, CK and DZ abbreviations used? Is there any specific reason? Looks complicated.
- Please provide the purpose of using each software in this study including R, LefSe, PCoA in the method section.
- Results: Line 145-149: What are effective sequence numbers and effective base numbers? Please explain.
- Table 2: Genus and not genius.
- Line 215-216: What are the criteria for selecting the LDA scores?
- Table 3: The meaning of asterisk (*) should be mentioned.
- Discussion: The importance of soil characteristics obtained in this study is not discussed enough.
- Conclusion: Line 398: What is “3.2. Figures, Tables and Schemes”?
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
I appreciate the authors' efforts in improving the manuscript “Influence of Tourism Disturbance on Soil Microbial Community Structure in Dawei Mountain National Forest Park” by making substantial revisions. However, I still have concerns with Figures 2 and 3. The texts in the figures are still not legible. The authors should revise the text in the images for better clarity.
Moreover, the term “flora” still exists in different parts of the revised manuscript (Lines 46, 48, 57, 273, 295, 297). The authors should replace the word with microbial community.
Author Response
Responds to Round 2:
Response 1: Figures 2 and 3 have been re-uploaded to the zip file.
Response 2: The term “flora” still exists in different parts of the revised manuscript (Lines 46, 48, 57, 273, 295, 297) have replaced the word with microbial community.
