Mineral Composition and Photochemical Reactivity of Suspended Particulate Matters in the Euphotic Zones of China’s Nearshore and Estuarine Regions
, Yuwei Liu 1,2, Jia Liu 1,2, Yan Li 1,2, Anhuai Lu 1,2,* and Hongrui Ding 1,2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This article undoubtedly makes sense and can be used as a source of any empirical data for further work. It can in some sense be considered as the "short communication", since it does not carry a conceptual load. The set of methods used by the authors of the article is respected.
There are some comments and remarks:
1. Since we are talking about particulated matter, it is advisable to use at least (some) data characterizing its morphology, for example, microphotographs of scanning electron microscopy (directly in the body of the article - but not only in the supplement / appendix).
2. Ethically required references to all sequences of microorganisms that you received (if it was done), as well as data on gene systematics (it is not strong obvious - but undoubtly recomendable).
3. Duplication of reference numbers in the bibliography should be corrected.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear [Editor's Name],
I am writing to express my agreement with the publication of the paper, which I recently had the opportunity to review. Overall, I found the paper to be well-researched and written, and I believe that it makes a valuable contribution to the field.
However, as a suggestion for improvement, I would like to suggest that the authors consider revising the introduction to make it more concise. While the introduction is well-written and provides a thorough overview of the topic, it is quite lengthy and could potentially be condensed without sacrificing any important information.
In line 419, the authors describe a discussion involving carbon-13, but there is no indication of how this analysis was conducted. It would be helpful for the authors to provide more information on the specific methodology used to analyze carbon-13, as this would provide greater clarity and context for the reader.
Sincerely
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
le This article presents a study on the suspended particulate matter and microbial communities in the euphotic zone of China's nearshore and estuarine regions. The work overall is well written and the data is well presented. The work is publishable, it is advisable to add to the Mineralogical characterization of SPM section: in the characterization by ICP-OES, add data on the quality of the data, such as the use of certified materials to verify precision and accuracy.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for taking the time to review our article and providing us with valuable feedback. We are pleased to hear that you found the work well-written and the data well-presented. We appreciate your thoughtful comments and have carefully considered them as we revise our manuscript.
We appreciate your suggestion regarding the use of certified materials to verify precision and accuracy in the ICP-OES characterization. Since Yttrium is not present in the sample and free from interferences, we used Yttrium internal standard to correct for variability between the calibration standards and the samples. We updated the Mineralogical characterization of SPM section to include information on calibration method and RSD of our ICP-OES analysis.
Thank you again for your feedback and for helping us improve our article. We look forward to addressing your concerns and submitting a revised version of our manuscript for your review.
Sincerely,
Yuan Sun
