Distribution Patterns and Driving Factors of the Phytoplankton Community in the Middle Reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River
, Qing Yang 1,2, Huiqiu Liu 1,2, Xin Chao 1,2, Shengxian Yang 1,2 and Sang Ba 1,2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This MS clearly described the phytoplankton community structure and its influencing factors between main stream and tributaries. It has a reasonable and scientific experimental plan for study area and sample collection, and data analysis. I do not see any major issues with this MS.
There are still some relatively minor improvements to make.
1. type error: line 22, “was”; line 150, “in the wet season and the wet season”?
2. Line 414, jointly funded ?
3. Please provide the detail list of 140 identified phytoplankton genera as appendix file.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article characterizes the phytoplankton of the studied section of the river and selected tributaries in detail and using several statistical procedures. I agree with the overall concept, structure and performed analyses. The authors also found planned driving factors.
However, I would recommend the following additions:
In the study, many tributaries were monitored, collectively labelled "tributaries", including graphs. In the article, however, it would be good to characterize the individual tributaries, possibly even sub-sections of the main stream, in detail. Not just by giving altitude.
The aim of the description, e.g. channel parameters (width, average depth), flow velocity, and flow characteristics, is to enable the reader to interpret the results more closely. Whether any tributary is different. E.g. in the graphs of Fig. 2 and Fig. 4 shows a higher dispersion of values for the "tributary" file.
If the characteristics of the tributaries are practically comparable, it would be good to add this information as well.
The characteristics of tributaries and sections of the main stream (if it is not practically the same in the entire monitored length) can be included in supplementary materials. They do not need to be included in the main text.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Revision of the manuscript “Distribution patterns and driving factors of phytoplankton community in the middle reaches of Yarlung Zangbo River Xiaodong
authors: Xiaodong Li, Peng Zhang, Qing Yang, Huiqiu Liu, Xin Chao, ShengxianYang, Sang Ba *
2309217
I found the arguments in this manuscript interesting because it analyzes the phytoplankton community structure, diversity, biomass, and many other parameters of an import river and its tributaries in China, as well as the driving factors that influenced the communities in an attempt to understand the relationships.
The main points of my recommendations regard:
1-Along the text, several sentences must be rewritten because they are unclear, and they are all highlighted in the text.
2- Results: the sub-paragraphs 3.1, 3.2, 3,3, 3.6, 3.8. All of these begin with a description of the analysis performed. I propose that you relocate. advancing in Data processing and analysis. All the sentences to move are highlighted in the text.
3- I suggest an English revision of the text.
Minor revisions are all reported in the pdf
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
