Evolution of Soil Chemical Fertility in an Area under Recovery for 30 Years with Anthropic Intervention

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article by Lourencetti et al. entitled “Evolution of soil chemical fertility in an area under recovery for 30 years with anthropic intervention”. I have gone through the manuscript and I found that this is a good work and long term experiment. The study is well designed, data properly analysed, but the introduction, discussion and conclusion are not well written. Moreover, methodology lacks of detailed as well as losing reproducibility.  

The authors smartly represent the Introduction section but this is not enough. Therefore, the authors should add more justification of this study with references.

The authors should the study area map in the method section.

Soil analysis lacks of details. The readers will be confused.

In case of P measurement, the authors should add a reference.

In Table 2 legend, the authors said OM = organic matter; What is MO2 in the Table 2? It may be OM2.

Line no. 123-129, the sentence is very long. The authors should split this sentence with actual meaning.

Results and discussion part is poorly written. In this section, the authors have mentioned only results rather than discussion. Therefore, the authors should rewrite the discussion section with mentioning the mechanism.

Conclusion should be more specific and outcome based and consistent with the title.

All figure legends and Table headings should be improved.

 The English language of this manuscript should be improved.

Author Response

Thanks for the suggestions/corrections.

The language of the manuscript was revised for publication.

The map of the experimental area was inserted.

Reference has been added regarding the methodology for determining soil phosphate.

The results and discussion, conclusion have been rewritten.

All figure and table legends have been improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript concerns an essential topic of ‘Evolution of soil chemical fertility in an area under recovery for 30 years with anthropic intervention. The research is interesting and has novelty. However, It has been seen that the authors have dealt with the issues very quickly. Where need more focus on the manuscript. And it needs extensively revised in some parts of the manuscript to reach the standard of the journal. There are some points that should be addressed before the manuscript is suitable for publication in ‘Sustainability’

Line 25-26. Is there any involved mechanism for increasing soil emendation and plant nutrients?

The introduction is too short and needs to improve with the addition of more literature review with recent citations

Line53. please explain clearly which kind of plant species. I think need to write two or three lines about the plant species. Why you chose them?

Why does the author use the liming and gypsum? Please explain in the introduction part.

The location and climate are important for this research please explain it in the introduction.

This needs one hypothesis for this study

The aim of this study needs to be re-write again.

In the Materials and Method part, need to explain more about soil sampling.

Why the authors did not measure some soil enzymes in this study? They are important indexes in soil emendation.

The discussion needs to improve with more literature review with recent citations. the author can use the below references.

Zhao, Z., Wang, P., Xiong, X., Wang, Y., Zhou, R., Tao, H.,... Xiong, Y. (2022). Environmental risk of multi-year polythene film mulching and its green solution in arid irrigation region. Journal of hazardous materials, 435, 128981. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.128981

Li, W., Shi, Y., Zhu, D., Wang, W., Liu, H., Li, J.,... Fu, S. (2021). Fine root biomass and morphology in a temperate forest are influenced more by the nitrogen treatment approach than the rate. Ecological indicators, 130, 108031. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108031

Yang, Y., Dou, Y., Wang, B., Xue, Z., Wang, Y., An, S.,... Chang, S. X. (2022). Deciphering factors driving soil microbial life-history strategies in restored grasslands. iMeta. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/imt2.66

Wang, X., Wang, T., Xu, J., Shen, Z., Yang, Y., Chen, A.,. Piao, S. (2022). Enhanced habitat loss of the Himalayan endemic flora driven by warming-forced upslope tree expansion. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 6(7), 890-899. doi: 10.1038/s41559-022-01774-3

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Thanks for the suggestions/corrections.

The language of the manuscript was revised for publication.

The Introduction, References, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusions have been improved.

Why the authors did not measure some soil enzymes in this study? They are important indexes in soil emendation.

We know the importance of studying enzymes in the soil, in this long-term work we only aim to show the effect of time on the quality of soil fertility, but other research is still being done in the area and will certainly be evaluated in a future work.

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper describes soil management through fertilization over a period of 30 years, and I believe it to be extremely valuable. In order to improve the content, I would like to ask you to correct the following points. 

I don't understand the symbols for Table 1. 

What are Presine, M.O., H+Al, SV? 

Are K, Ca and Mg in moles per volume of soil? Usually mol/100g. If the unit means concentration　of extract ,I don't really understand the meaning . 

In Table 2, it is easy to understand that the relationship between pH and V has a high relationship with hydrogen ions, and organic matter has a high relationship with P due to decomposition. Is this based on all the data over the past 10 years? In Table 3, it seems that the numerical values of the physical properties have changed little by little. 

Units are not shown in Figures 3 ,4 and Table 3,4,5. 

It is the result of 30 years of experimental data, so it is very valuable, but there is no uniformity in how to summarize it.

There are items that decreased after increasing due to aging of physical property values,In the end, we have no choice but to discuss the average value for each treatment.

A lot of the same data is laid out partly in tables and partly in graphs, but the decision as to which treatment is not ultimately optimal .

Author Response

Thanks for the suggestions/corrections.

The language of the manuscript was revised for publication.

The Material and Methods and Results, Discussion have been improved.

Figures and tables have been improved.

Reviewer 4 Report

This is an interesting and useful paper, but you may improve this article in order to publish in this journal. Otherwise, I have a lot of recommendations to increase the quality of your paper. Be careful with the writing and mistakes.

Line 20. You must write the author of all the scientific names. So, you must write the author of Urochloa decumbens.

Line 28. You must write the keywords in alphabetical order.

Line 34. You must follow the rules of this journal. When there are several correlative references you must write as follows: “[1–6]”. You must use the long hyphen as well. Just follow the rules of this journal.

Line 36. You must follow the rules of this journal. When there are several correlative references you must write as follows: “[7–8]”. You must use the long hyphen as well. Just follow the rules of this journal. Just look for this very common mistake in your whole paper.

Line 37. This sentence has no sense, you must rephrase as follows: “According to Silva et al. [10], sustainability is achieved…”. This is a very common mistake in your article, look for this mistake and fix it. If you read the previous text is much more logical.

Line 59. I think that a map is the best way to express this idea. Try to make a basic map of the location.

Line 79. When you write a scientific name, you must write its authors. Therefore, you must write the authors of Zea mays. Look for this tiny mistake in your whole paper.

Line 79. When you write a scientific name, you must write its authors. Therefore, you must write the authors of Avena strigosa. Look for this tiny mistake in your whole paper.

Line 79. When you write a scientific name, you must write its authors. Therefore, you must write the authors of Urochlora decumbens. Look for this tiny mistake in your whole paper.

Line 280. This sentence has no sense, you must rephrase as follows: “According to Siqueira [26], the low base saturation indicates…”. This is a very common mistake in your article, look for this mistake and fix it. If you read the previous text is much more logical.

Line 7. This sentence has no sense, you must rephrase as follows: “According to Teran et al. [7], fertile soils presents…”. This is a very common mistake in your article, look for this mistake and fix it. If you read the previous text is much more logical.

In the references there are a lot of mistakes. If you follow the rules of this journal you must write the references as follows:

First, you must write the journals in italics and in the abbreviated form.

Second, the volume must be written in italics.

Third, the number must be written into brackets.

Fourth, the year must be written in bold and just before the volume.

Fifth, the initials of the authors must be written without a space between the authors with several initials in their names.

So, you must follow the rules of this journal.

And finally, there is a very interesting paper that will be very useful for your paper because it treats ecological restoration as well in gypsum soils over 13 years of study, the article is the following one:

Mota, J.F.; Martínez-Hernández, F.; Salmerón-Sánchez, E.; Mendoza-Fernández, A.J.; Pérez-García, F.J.; Merlo, M.E. Spontaneous Primary Succession and Vascular Plant Recovery in the Iberian Gypsum Quarries: Insights for Ecological Restoration in an EU Priority Habitat. Plants 2023, 12, 1162.

Otherwise, the authors adequately developed the Introduction, presenting the problems but you must write explicitly the objectives of this paper.

The methods are adequate.

The Discussion is well developed and the data presented are correctly compared with other papers.

The authors are to be congratulated for the results obtained in this article.

Your English is very good.

Author Response

Thanks for the suggestions/corrections.

Changes have been made to the text. 

Reviewer 5 Report

Row 47 – “The increase in soil organic matter leads to an increase in pH “Usually this leads to lower values of soil pH. Please give an adequate citation.

Row 69 –  the picture has bad quality.

Row – 76 What are Presin and M.O. in  Table 1?  – Please explain.

Row  - 120 – Table 2 Again what is MO, if it is OM please change it!

Row – 134 Please give dimensions of Phosphorous and Organic matter in figures.

Row – 138 Please give dimension of Base saturation  in figures – % ?

The introduction is short, please add more information and citation.

The soil chemical fertility is not only Phosphorous and O.M. but also Nitrogen, Potassium, and other nutrients. If you want to show soil recovery please add other nutrients also. 

Author Response

Thanks for the suggestions/corrections.

Changes have been made to the text. 

As it was studied over 30 years, it was verified that the other chemical attributes of the soil did not change, so they were not presented in this work.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This article by Lourencetti et al. entitled “Evolution of soil chemical fertility in an area under recovery for 30 years with anthropic intervention”. I have gone through the manuscript and I found that the authors have addressed about all queries properly and improved this manuscript significantly than the previous one.

The English language of this manuscript is smooth for the readers.

Reviewer 2 Report

I didn't see any providing file by the author for replying to reviewer comments individually. Maybe the authors don't have enough experience to publish the articles. Anyway, it can be accepted.