Carbon Distribution Characteristics and Sequestration Potential of Various Land-Use Types in a Stony Soil Zone of the Arid Mountainous Regions on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The abstract lacks the conclusion of the entire article and the significance of the research.

2. The introduction need to be rewritten, currently lacking logical coherence, confusing and unfocused expression, and not requiring so many paragraphs.

3. The study area section needs to be supplemented. Currently, there is a lack of local information, such as soil types,basic information on human activities, vegetation types, etc.

4. Lack of reference for testing methods and other related literature.

5. The results and analysis lack statistical analysis of data. Currently, these structures are very rough and have not been thoroughly revealed to reveal these inherent laws.

6. The discussion is too simple. Currently, there is a lack of discussion on key information and no comparison with others' research progress. Overall, it is relatively poor, and the discussion needs to be rewritten and reorganized.

7. The conclusion currently appears to be written in Chinese to English, rather than in international journals, lacking key data and arguments to support it.

8. Figures 2 and 4 need to be redrawn and currently look very unattractive. The key information that needs to be supplemented with statistics in Table 2 is currently only the mean and standard deviation, and other statistical information is very lacking.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

This study is interesting. However, a few major constraints need to be rectified. （1）In lines 64-78（Introduction）. What are the scientific hypotheses of this study? (2) In lines 79 , the study area should be written in more clear. （3）In lines 112, What is the distance between each plot? How many forest stands were selected in your study? Sampling design should be written in more clear.(4) The statistical methods: the sampling is only one time, more times of observations are needed to make a solid conclusion.(5) Also, describe the limitations of your study in discussion. The discussion needs to be described in more detail.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

After careful reading and analysing the manuscript  main findings, I didn't found any novel aspect and decided to not approve the Ms for publication. Although here are some major sugesstion, that authors need to adress: 

1: I suggest the authors to add other soil biological and physiological characteristics like  soil nitrogen, soil quality index, and various biological determinants associated with it.

2 The statistical analysis is confusing and I recommend to again analyze the data.

3 abstract and conclusion needs revision. 

Thanks 

No. The language of MS is smooth and don't need any major revision 

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The scientific issues in the introduction are not very clear, mainly reflected in the relatively simple third and fourth paragraphs of the preface.The description of others' progress is relatively simple.The discussion also has the same issue, and it is strongly recommended that the author start by writing the first and second parts of the discussion.What are the underlying reasons for the differences in SOC distribution of eco forest and orchards?The comparison with other reasons is not only about size, but also the reasons for these sizes.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have substantially improved the manuscript. I recommend this paper for publication in this journal.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Recommended for acceptance 

Author Response

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Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The author has made the necessary modifications and is now ready to accept the manuscript