Response of Soil Microbial Community Diversity to Long-Term Cultivation of Rice (Oryza sativa L.)/Cherry Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) in Rotation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper of Deng et al. investigated the changes in the soil microbial community following 10 years of crop rotation of the same crops. The paper is well written and the figures were suitable. I just have some concerns regarding the experimental design, the quality of the figures, and the discussion that needs extensive changes.

Specific comments:

Title: Please change to “Response of soil microbial community diversity to long-term cultivation of rice (Oryza sativa L.) - cherry tomato (Lycopersicom esculentum Mill.) in rotation”

Line 22: Please change to "Crop rotation periodicity has always been..."

Line 34: Change “obviously“ to “clear”

Line 37 & 38: Change "or” to “and”

Line 38: what does “above beneficial” means?

Line 43: In conclusion, I prefer if the authors make a conclusion about their results stating the period in which the microbiota starts to change negative or in a way that favors the spread of pathogens and disruption of beneficial ones, because the authors didn't measure the plants yield to make such conclusions.

Line 89: In this part, much information is missing, like how this piece of land is managed agriculturally, if it is fertilized or not, and to what extent! because evidence suggests that fertilizers change the soil microbiota

Information about the study area is missing as well, how big is it? is it managed under a greenhouse or an open field? before this crop rotation, what was cultivated? and for how long? What is the surface of the plots? which year did the sampling start and when did it finish?

Line 103: It makes no sense!! if you took samples in 2022 then you have one type of soil (10a), what about other samplings?? 10 years ago!!

Line 155: What about the taxonomy assignment? which database did you use for each taxonomy kingdom?

Figure 1: Taxonomic names bigger, in the y axis better put relative abundance (%) and then only numbers

Figure 4: not clear and words are small, make one panel below the other and make it bigger 

Table 5: What do you mean by community structure? how did you measure it?

Line 295: The discussion is very poor and needs to be revised intensively! the authors didn't try to give possible reasons for the observed changes in the microbiota, they just gave a definition of each type of the taxa and what it does in the soil! instead, they should associate it with their functionality in the soil

I suggest that the authors develop the theory of litterfall and decomposition and the accumulation of phytotoxic compounds in the soil which affects differently the microbiota in the soil, because with long-term cultivation, we have more decomposition, release of nutrients and other compounds in the soil, and this would affect microbiota, if the litter is always the same (in case of monoculture or long-term of the same rotation) this creates a negative feedback by affecting negatively the microbiota

Please read and cite these works to improve your discussion:

(Microbiota modulation of allelopathy depends on litter chemistry: Mitigation or exacerbation? Science of the Total Environment Journal)

(Specific microbiome signatures under the canopy of Mediterranean shrubs - Applied soil ecology Journal)

(Eucalyptus grandis and Acacia mangium in monoculture and intercropped plantations: Evolution of soil and litter microbial and chemical attributes during early stages of plant development - Applied soil ecology Journal)

Line 306: crop yield and fruit quality were not measured

Line 312: What does “autotoxic substances” mean?

Please read this work and cite this work for autotoxicity

(Inhibitory and toxic effects of extracellular self-DNA in litter: a mechanism for negative plant–soil feedbacks? New phytologist)

Good enough (Understandable)

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

The paper of Deng et al. on the response of soil microbial community is interesting and in the scope of the journal sustainability.

 

But I have some difficulties understanding the design of the experiment.

 

Abstract: Is too long.

 

Introduction: what is the most common rotation of the rice – tomatoes?? And in your experiment you are trying to find out the optimum for the tomato cultivation, for rice cultivation or for both?

 

What happens after the rotation, this is a big confusion that I don’t understand: a 1a rotation changes rice and tomato every year, 3a every 3 years and 5, 7 and 10 every 5, 7 or 10 years, so 10 years of rice and 10 years of tomatoes?

 

So the microbial communities have longer times to develop?

 

For the experimental plots, how were they used before and are they in one field? I am not sure how independent they are, but I hope they are far apart, so they are independent of each other so real replicates and not pseudo replicates.

 

And I miss a control in the experiment, I am not sure what the natural microbial community is in the locations and how much they are changing because of climate and other reasons. But if you have treatments, you also need a control.

 

Table 1 can go to supplement material, as this is not very important information.

 

I am not sure why there is no space before the citations in the text, and also the references don’t fit with the journal's recommendations.

 

The English is fine, but some typing problems in the text.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper was improved, still a few tying mistakes that need to be checked by the authors or the editors.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx