The Effect of Ornamental Groundcover Habit and Irrigation Delivery on Dynamic Soil Conditions
Rüdiger Anlauf
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors show the effect of ornamental groundcovers on water content, soil temperature, salt content, vegetative coverage and microbial communities. The research is important with respect to urban greens and their improvement with respect to climate change.
My main comments are mainly with respect to formal matters.
I particularly dislike that differences are often presented as certainty, even though most of the time they are not statistically significant. That's not scientifically correct style! See comments below!
Abstract, ln 18, 21: Soil temperatures were lowest.... loxer VWC....: This is only partially true, because most of the differences were statistically not significant. This should be worded differently (see commenbts below)!
ln 85: full stop is missing
ln 104: Explain GMS at first occurrance in the text!
ln 115: Cahaba Fine Sandy Loam: The texture is important. However, naming a local soil type is not interesting for international readers. Better use soil type according to Soil Taxonomy or/and WRB.
ln 117: Agri-AFC: Abbreviation unknown.
ln 132: unit is wrong, should read L/m² (NOT m³)
ln 163: sentence construction not understandable, delete "were assigned"??
ln 204/205: Wedelia plots .... had lower VWC values (Fig. 1): NO, this is generally not true, because it was significant only in 9 out of 42 measurements. This must be worded differently!
ln 212: ... yielding lower MINIMUM VWC values ....
ln 219: The average MAXIMUM VWC of the soil...: Be correct and specific in your statements, otherwise it is confusing to the reader!
ln 233: ... how does root growth increase infiltration rate? I do not doubt the citations, but how it works needs some explanation (otherwise it leaves the reader with a lot of questions)!
ln 244: This is not Fig 4 but Fig. 5!
ln 250 ff: The fallow plots had the highest temperature ... : Again, I very much suggest different wording. If most of the differences are N.S., it is simply not correct to make such a general statement!
ln 259: Please, the technical terms "electronic conductivity" and "Electrical conductivity" are simply wrong. It is Electric Conductivity which describes salt content!!
ln 299 ff: Microbial communities: Absolute and relative abundance is given in large tables. I would very strongly recommend to delete one of the tables, as they do not give any additional information!
ln 325: Canopy interception. The authors reported negative interception values, but this is simply not possible. The origin of the numbers was later explained, but this only shows how the measurement error can be explained (but, again: this is NOT negative interception)! I would very strongly recommend to delete the whole paragraph on canompy interception. It doesn't have much scientific value because of this measurement error.
Table 3/table 4: delete one of them!
Table 5: to be deleted!
Fig. 1: "Rainfall" (dotted line in the legend) must be deleted. Also, it is not clear what NS refers to: there are three differences (fallow vs. Li, fallow vs. We, Li vs. We). Needs to be organized in a different way.
The same problem in all subsequent figures!
Fig. 6: Unit is wrong, should read µS/cm (NOT µS/cm³)
Author Response
Dear reviewer 1, we appreciate your thorough review of this manuscript and believe that your efforts have led to significant improvements and a stronger paper. We have attached an overall response with specific updates.
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
I have reviewed the paper " The effect of ornamental groundcover habit and irrigation delivery on dynamic soil conditions ". The contribution of this paper to the scientific knowledge is moderate. The paper is written with a moderate English level.The aims of the paper are germane with Land topic, but in my opinion, there some important flaws and I suggest the corrections in the comments for the authors and also in the file attached.
In particular I suggest to divide results and discussions into two separate paragraphs because in this form are not clear
I suggest editing english
Author Response
Dear reviewer 2,
The authors appreciate your input on the manuscript. We believe this has led to an improved paper with greater impact. Individual responses to edits and critiques can be found in the attached document.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and suggestions for Authors
The effect of ornamental groundcover habit and irrigation delivery on
dynamic soil conditions
Subject is very interesting and fall within the scope of the journal. The experimental dataset undoubtedly are useful and constitutes scientific values. The presented manuscript deals with the current global problem.
The objective of this experiment was to study the influence of ornamental groundcovers on soil health and conditions, and to quantify various environmental, cultural, or economic benefits that may be associated with groundcover plantings.
General remarks
In order to increase the usefulness of the article, Authors must refer to the following points.
In the Materials and Methods section the following should be completed:
§ Soil types according to WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources 2022 year). Line 116 - Why was the soil cultivated only to a depth of 10 cm, and the moisture measured to a depth of 15 cm? The physical and chemical properties of the soil should be supplemented. The depth from which the soil was collected for microbiological tests should be added. In how many repetitions were the plot studies conducted?
§ Please check the letter indexes for the numerical data in tables 2, 3, 4 and 5. Some of the data show significant differences. In Table 5 there are no designations i and ii.??
Specific and technical comments
The manuscript is prepared technically carelessly. The manuscript should be adapted to the publisher's requirements. For example, citation records: line 67- should be [14,15] and etc. This remark applies to the entire manuscript. Line 104 - "GMS" must be given the full name using the abbreviation for the first time. In the Materials and Methods section, subsections (2.1; 2.2. etc.) should be numbered. In the Results and Discussion section, subsections (3.1; 3.2. etc.) should be numbered. For some citations, names should be added. Some items are missing from the text of the Manuscript or References: 19, 20, 36, 56, 58, 66 and 77. In Table 2, please correctly record the p-values as required.
Best regards
Minor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Dear reviewer 3,
Thank you for your generous review of our manuscript. We feel that your time and effort will improve the impact of the research and the strength of the manuscript. Responses to individual comments can be found in the attached document.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
All my comments have been adequately considered!
Reviewer 2 Report
see the attached file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
