Species Diversity and Soil Interconstraints Exert Significant Influences on Plant Survival during Ecological Restoration in Semi-Arid Mining Areas
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study is very interesting because it presents great contributions to the knowledge of the dynamics of species diversity in restored areas; However, you should do better at the following:
- Correlations are presented in results; However, this appears to us as an objective, nor is there a hypothesis related to the correlations. Likewise, the methods do not specify what type of correlations were made; It can be assumed that they were Pearson correlations, however, to obtain Pearson correlations, the data must comply with normality, this is not clarified in methods.
- The conclusions must improve substantially, these must be written based on the objectives, hypotheses (3) and the results of the research. You should limit yourself from making conjectures based on objectives, hypotheses and results. Conclude, do not make proposals or recommendations.
- Other observations appear in the attached document.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer, we have revised the manuscript based on the comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The present article entitled “Species diversity and soil interconstraints exert significant influences on plant survival during ecological restoration in semi-arid mining areas” is based on a interesting theme. Author have tried to analyzed the data from a long-term monitoring site in an opencast coal mine reclamation region, focusing on the effects of species diversity, soil properties, and climate factors on the survival of four key restored species at the different time interval after planting.
Although author have well designed the experiment and clearly presented the results; Our concern is only about the figures which presented the correlation graph. As it is not visible so author should present these graph as supplementary or they enhance the quality of figure in the main file
The present article entitled “Species diversity and soil interconstraints exert significant influences on plant survival during ecological restoration in semi-arid mining areas” is based on a interesting theme. Author have tried to analyzed the data from a long-term monitoring site in an opencast coal mine reclamation region, focusing on the effects of species diversity, soil properties, and climate factors on the survival of four key restored species at the different time interval after planting.
Although author have well designed the experiment and clearly presented the results; Our concern is only about the figures which presented the correlation graph. As it is not visible so author should present these graph as supplementary or they enhance the quality of figure in the main file
Author Response
Dear reviewers, we have revised the manuscript based on the comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The importance of the research topic is particularly relevant today, as nowadays, the negative changes in species diversity due to anthropogenic impacts are significant. The authors have adequately highlighted the fact that most studies on species diversity are not holistic and complex enough, as in the present manuscript the soil study could be a significant aspect. This is an interesting and comprehensive study of the work, but I would suggest some improvements to the manuscript.
Introduction
The hypotheses should be separated formally from the rest of the introduction, in order to clarify the manuscript's division between the text at first review.
Furthermore, the first hypothesis looks a little general to me. I propose to make this hypothesis more concrete and to adapt it later in the manuscript.
Method and materials
Why was monitoring every 5 years chosen? Give an explanation please!
I find that improvement should be made to the quality of Figure 2, where the Asian continent map is, because it is difficult to read.
Line 150: were, correct the whole paragraph.
Lines 192-194: legend of the formula would be better in the list format.
Results
The results in tables 1-2 should be explained in more detail in the text.
The references to figures out of order in the text interfere with the logical line of reasoning while reading. Please reorganise.
Discussion and Conclusion
Line 383: reformat according to the formatting requirement.
Although there is a reference to the limitation of the results at the global level in the conclusion, I suggest a more detailed, site-specific description.
References
Please revise the bibliography and adapt it to the formal requirements.
Author Response
Dear reviewers, we have revised the manuscript based on the comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
