Changes in Soil Properties and Enzyme Stoichiometry in Three Different Forest Types Changed to Tea Plantations
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Row 19 - filed must be field I hope
Introduction
Maybe it is good to start with tea production changes and after that to continue with C, N, P and enzyme stoichiometry as in Results.
Discussions
297-299 Maybe with the change of a soil bulk density, too when organic matter content is decaying. But it is not enough for the 40 times increasing.
Conclusions
420-422 After the conversion from three types of forests to tea plantation, there was a significant decrease in soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, as well as their stoichiometric ratios (except for a significant increase in TP).
It is not clear total P is increasing (as in Fig 1) or is decreasing
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The work is devoted to the soil after the conversion of forests to tea plantations.
The topic has been relatively little studied, which is why it is interesting.
Unfortunately, there are typos and logical errors in the manuscript. The authors should take into account the comments made by the reviewer. Also, the authors should carefully rework their material themselves and check whether there are similar errors in the text.
Line 34. Keywords: enzyme activities; Soil nutrient; nutrient limitation…
Is it correct that "Soil nutrient" is written in capital letters?
Lines 142-143. After removing the surface humus, mixed samples were collected by a 7 cm diameter soil auger.
«surface humus»?
What do the authors mean by "surface humus"? Is it forest floor (i.e. the thin organic horizon at the surface) or the mineral humus horizon?
Line 238. Table 2. Stoichiometric ratio of soil enzymes in forest and tea garden
Line 239. Pinus massoniana forest; PM_tea: Pinus massoniana forest converted into tea plantation
Why is the term "tea garden" in the table header, and under the table «tea plantation»? Is there a difference in these terms?
Lines 283 and 290. “leaf litter”?
The above ground litter fall consists not only of leaves, but also of branches, bark and plants of the ground cover.
The average (Line 304) C/N ratios (15.69, 13.30) of the three forest types and tea plantation in the study area are 305 higher than the national average for China (11.9) [33] and the global average (13.3) [34], 306 indicating that the organic matter decomposition rate in the soil is relatively high, and 307 organic matter mineralization is slower, which is conducive to maintaining soil fertility. 308
The phrase (lines 304-308) doesn't make sense. Decomposition and mineralization denote the same process. That is, the degradation of the litter. Decomposition can go to intermediate products, mineralization goes to carbon dioxide, water and mineral salts. The authors need to correct this sentence.
Table 2. Stoichiometric ratio of soil enzymes in forest and tea garden.
Table 3. Correlation coefficient between soil enzymes，enzymatic stoichiometry and soil properties
Table 2 showed that there are no differences in most of the indicators. What is the point of finding correlations in Table 3?
After the (Line) 420 conversion from three types of forests to tea plantation, there was a significant decrease in soil 421
carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus
The statement is incorrect. Figure 1 showed that the phosphorus content has increased.
Abstract (Lines 24-25) shows the same as Figure 1/
“The results showed that soil TC and TN decreased significantly（P<0.05）, TP increased significantly”
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Changes of soil carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and enzyme stoichiometry in three different forest types changed to tea plantations
In my opinion, the subject matter dealt with by the authors is very interesting. The manuscript is very well written and structured. However, having thoroughly reviewed the manuscript presented to me, I have some major comments and suggestions, which I present below:
1. The manuscript suffers from mistakes in referencing and needs very careful review and editing.
2. The title of the manuscript mainly focused on soil C, N, P and enzyme activity in forest soil. But the Introduction is dominating with on enzyme activity. No focus was given on C, N and P cycling and factors influencing these nutrient cycling in forest soil.
3. How many soil samples were collected from each site?
4. What was the depth of soil sampling?
5. The basic properties of the soil are missing. Which are very important to understand the data obtained.
6. Why the authors measured only total N and P? What about the available forms of P and N?
7. The author did one way ANOVA considering plantation type. Why they did not include forest type as a factor in analysis?
8. The lettering of Fig. 1 b and c for tea plantation is bit confusing and seems wrong. Please double check it.
9. In line 299, the author explained that the increase in total P is due to addition of fertilizer P. Please include the land management history here. What about N management?
10. Line 421 and 422 is confusing and misleading, there was no decrease of P in this study.
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors did a wonderful job. The paper is very logical, coherent, and scientifically sound. Methods and results are clearly demonstrated, properly and adequately cited. I fully recommend publishing your work once my recommendations are addressed line-by-line. See my attached comments.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you very much to the authors for addressing all the issues raised. I think the quality of the manuscript has been improved significantly to be considered for publication in Forests.
