Assessment of the Microbial Communities in Soil Contaminated with Petroleum Using Next-Generation Sequencing Tools

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. Page 3 introduces the process of DNA extraction in detail, but there is no diagram. The authors are advised to add diagrams, such as specimens or purge process .

2. The authors are advised to double check the format of the reference in the manuscript.

3. On Page 6, there are so many data in the main text. The authors are advised to add a table to illustrate those data for easy understanding.

4. More explanations should be provided for Figure 3.

5. What are titles for three axis in Figure 5(a)?

6. In the conclusion, the novelty of the study should be highlighted. 

English is fine.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

1. You said hydrocarbon contaminated soils but have you analysed the soils for hydrocarbon analysis? How high and what are the hydrocarbon level in the soils that you said is hydrocarbon contaminated soils??

2. Have you collected and analysed the uncontaminated soils too? This is a scientific understand to compare the hydrocarbon contaminated soils. 

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

applsci-2354963: “Assessment of the microbial communities in soil contaminated 2 with petroleum using next-generation sequencing tools”.

This study aims to determine the composition of bacteria in crude oil contaminated soil in the area of Mexico. The subject of the manuscript is consistent with the scope of the Journal. Manuscript present many interesting results about an important subject. The present paper is prepared in the usual manner for scientific work. The authors applied correct analytical methods and received many interesting results. The obtained results do not raise any substantive objections. In my opinion, I believe that the work after minimal corrections is suitable for printing in Applied Science. Minor notes below: Please provide a more detailed characterization of the soils used in the studies, e.g. hydrolytic acidity, sum of exchangeable base cations, cation exchange capacity, alkaline cation saturation, exchangeable, organic carbon content, total nitrogen content. These properties are of great importance in the multiplication of microorganisms and the degradation of organic pollutants in the soil. In the "Materials and methods" section, please provide the methods used for these soil determinations. Soil classification according to the World Reference Base of Soil Resources should be given in the manuscript. In the section "Material and methods" not specified how many replications performed laboratory analyzes of soil. Fig.4 is of poor quality (it must be corrected). Please, be sure that all the references cited in the manuscript are also included in the reference list and vice versa with matching spellings and dates. The manuscript needs formatting in some places, e.g. lines 255–257.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Your responses to my comments means to me that you need to:

1) rewrite the parts where you did not analyse the hydrocarbon [but assumed that you did from my understanding]

2) cite the hydrocarbon data from your published paper for a better scientific discussion.

I hope I did not offend you.

All the best.

Author Response

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