Effects of Precipitation Variation on Annual and Winter Soil Respiration in a Semiarid Mountain Shrubland in Northern China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors used the model based on soil moisture better represented soil respiration rates, suggested 18 that variable precipitation extended the water limitation influences on soil CO2 emissions. The cumulative annual soil CO2 emissions were 523, 578, and 634 g C m-2 under DP, AP and IP treatments, respectively. The winter soil CO2 emissions ratio to annual CO2 emissions varied from 7.6 to 8.8 % under different precipitation treatments.
The study is worth to publish after addressing following comments.
Please add the conceptual framework of the study before section 2.
At the end of first paragraph of introduction, I highly suggest to add the given sentence with given studies (1-4) as “It is imperative to focus on this issue because climate change due to emissions negatively impacted on production systems (1-4).”
(1) Sensitivity analysis of greenhouse gas emissions at farm level: case study of grain and cash crops. Environmental science and pollution research, 2022
(2)Towards Sustainable Farm Production System: A Case Study of Corn Farming
(3)Extreme weather events risk to crop-production and the adaptation of innovative management strategies to mitigate the risk: A retrospective survey of rural Punjab, Pakistan
(4)Understanding farmers’ intention and willingness to install renewable energy technology: A solution to reduce the environmental emissions of agriculture.
Please write the main research questions at the end of introduction.
Adding structure of article is recommended because it will easier to follow rest of sections of the article.
I suggest to add conceptual framework of the study at the end of introduction section.
Please write main limitations of the study in conclusion section.
Policy implication should have to write in bullet points.
Best of luck with publication.
Author Response
Dear Editor Wang:
Thank you very much for your hard work. Considering the comments, we tried our best to improve the manuscript (2312115) and made changes in the present revised manuscript. Some explanations regarding the revisions of our manuscript are as follows.
(The page and line numbers refer to our revised manuscript resubmitted 13/04/2023.)
Comments:
- Please add the conceptual framework of the study before section 2.
Response: We added the conceptual framework (Figure 1) of the study.
- At the end of first paragraph of introduction, I highly suggest to add the given sentence with given studies (1-4) as “It is imperative to focus on this issue because climate change due to emissions negatively impacted on production systems (1-4).”
Response: Wed added the sentence according to the Reviewer’s suggestion.
- Please write the main research questions at the end of introduction.
Response: In our manuscript, we highlighted the main research objectives of the present study at the end of introduction.
- Adding structure of article is recommended because it will easier to follow rest of sections of the article.
Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We thought that we needed to follow the journal format.
- I suggest to add conceptual framework of the study at the end of introduction section.
Response: We added the conceptual framework (Figure 1) of the study.
- Please write main limitations of the study in conclusion section.
Response: The present study was important for carbon cycling of shrubland ecosystem under changing climate. However, the limitations were that we didn’t consider the effects of biotic factors on total soil respiration. Future research should be necessary to evaluate the effects of altered precipitation on soil respiration through various biotic and abiotic factors.
- Policy implication should have to write in bullet points.
Response: We thought that a better understanding of the response of soil respiration to altered precipitation had important practical implications for global carbon cycle under climate change. We added this sentence in the Conclusion Section.
We appreciate for Reviewer 1’s warm and hard work earnestly, and hope that the correction will have a good result.
Best wishes.
Sincerely
Huitao Shen
Reviewer 2 Report
The review of the manuscript titled "Effects of precipitation variation on annual and winter soil respiration in a semiarid mountain shrubland of North China"
The research examines the effects of variable precipitation on soil respiration (SR) and wintertime contributions to annual SR emissions in shrub ecosystems in Hebei Province, North China. For that, the authors performed precipitation manipulation experiments.
The abstract is well-written and contains all the necessary information about the research and its implementation.
The introduction needs some work to improve the consistency and logic of the narration. The second paragraph (L42-53) seems not to be directly connected to the first one.
The Methods section adequately describes the experimental design and methods of the study.
Conclusions adequately describe the study outcomes; however, the text needs some work. I suggest adding some linking sentences for better transitions from one result to another.
Self-citations account for less than 5% of all source literature. References are up-to-date since only 17 (27%) out of 63 are older than ten years.
Specific comments:
L1163-164. Did you mean that IP soil moisture was 15.7% in absolute values?
L172. It seems like it is two-quarters less, not three.
L202-206. Provide the significance of the differences in winter respiration among the treatments. The value of 8.8% is not in the proper place.
L325-328. That is not correct. The real difference in soil respiration was only between IP and DP treatments. There was no significant difference between DP and AP, as well as between IP and AP.
Author Response
Manuscript ID: 2312115
Dear Editor Wang:
Thank you very much for your hard work. Considering the comments, we tried our best to improve the manuscript (2312115) and made changes in the present revised manuscript. Some explanations regarding the revisions of our manuscript are as follows.
(The page and line numbers refer to our revised manuscript resubmitted 13/04/2023.)
Comments:
- The introduction needs some work to improve the consistency and logic of the narration. The second paragraph (L42-53) seems not to be directly connected to the first one.
Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. The main objectives of our research were to explore the responses of soil respiration to environmental variables (soil temperature and soil moisture). The second paragraph was important to show that soil temperature and soil moisture were the critical environmental variables affecting soil respiration.
- Conclusions adequately describe the study outcomes; however, the text needs some work. I suggest adding some linking sentences for better transitions from one result to another.
Response: We added some linking sentences in this section.
Specific comments:
- L1163-164. Did you mean that IP soil moisture was 15.7% in absolute values?
Response: We considered this sentence ambiguous, and rewrote it the revised manuscript (Line 168-169).
- L172. It seems like it is two-quarters less, not three.
Response: We considered this sentence was not useful, and deleted it in the revised manuscript.
- L202-206. Provide the significance of the differences in winter respiration among the treatments. The value of 8.8% is not in the proper place.
Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We provided the significance in winter respiration. Moreover, we moved the ‘8.8 %’ to the proper place in the Figure.
- L325-328. That is not correct. The real difference in soil respiration was only between IP and DP treatments. There was no significant difference between DP and AP, as well as between IP and AP.
Response: We accepted the suggestion, and reworded it in the revised manuscript (Line 331-336).
We appreciate for Reviewer 2’s warm and hard work earnestly, and hope that the correction will have a good result.
Best wishes.
Sincerely
Huitao Shen
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Quality of the manuscript has been significantly improved. The article is ready for publications.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for your comments on the first manuscript. Those comments are valuable and helpfu.
We highly appreciate your time and consideration.
Sincerely
Huitao Shen
Reviewer 2 Report
The review of the manuscript titled "Effects of precipitation variation on annual and winter soil respiration in a semiarid mountain shrubland of North China"
That is a second review of the manuscript. The authors significantly elaborated the text according to the reviewer's comments by improving the logical links through the narration. I suggest accepting the manuscript for publication after improving some minor drawbacks.
Specific comments:
L168. Remove duplicates "on average".
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for your comments. We have made the modification on the manuscript.
Thank you very much for all your help.
Best regards
Sincerely
Huitao Shen
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The review of the manuscript titled "Effects of precipitation variation on annual and winter soil respiration in a semiarid mountain shrubland of North China"
That is a third review of the manuscript. The authors have fully addressed all the comments of the previous review. I suggest accepting the manuscript for publication in its present form.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We appreciate your effort for our manuscript.
Best wishes
Sincerely
Huitao Shen
