Trends in Research on Soil Organic Nitrogen over the Past 20 Years

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments to the author(s)

Manuscript id.: forests-2551387

Title of the manuscript: Trends in Research on Soil Organic Nitrogen in the Most 20 Recent Years

There are some comments, which are to be incorporated in order to improve the manuscript, as given below:

Introduction

*Hypothesis of the work is not well formulated in the ‘Introduction’ section. The authors did not present a novel justification for carrying out this study. What is the hypothesis of the present study?

*It is insufficient and needs more improvement.

*The novelty of the work must be identified and stated more carefully. The authors have to try to explain why this paper is relevant to the wider readership.

*Authors should show the limitations of previous papers.

Materials and Methods

*In data collection author only gave emphasize on five countries. Which may mislead the objective of the paper? Consider at least two countries from each continent for better understanding.

Results

*Figure number should be given carefully. Figure 2 is missing.

*The image quality of figure 3, 4 and 5 should be improved.

*Result should be written in concise way.

Discussion

*Need more improvement. It is too superficial and not a meaningful discussion. Author should try to strengthen the discussion part.

Conclusions

*Authors need to rephrase the "Conclusions" section.

*Add some limitations, underscore the scientific value added of your paper, and/or the applicability of your findings/results and future scope of study.

*Overall, the manuscript needs extensive language editing and formatting. There are so many typography mistakes in the manuscript.

Recommendation: Major revision and extensive language editing.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Sincerely, we would like to express our great appreciation  for your valuable suggestions and comments on the manuscript entitled "Trends in Research on Soil Organic Nitrogen in the Past 20 Years" (ID: forests-2551387, ,by Shiyou Chen, ,Chunqian Jiang, ,Hui Wang et al.). The revised manuscript has been refined  as a result of your constructive advice.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In my opinion, such an article does not bring anything new to science. If it is to be published, the discussion of results and conclusions should be improved. What does it mean:,,Through a comprehensive analysis of the literature on SON research in the past 20 315 years, we show that SON research has entered the mature development period"?

The main research institutions are the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Uni- 17 versity of Chinese Academy of Sciences, United States Department of Agriculture, University of 18 California System, China University of Geosciences, and Helmholtz Association. (3) The leading 19 international journals are Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Science of the Total Environment, Biogeochemis- 20 try, and so on. (4) -ranking totally unnecessary in the abstract.

Author Response

Sincerely, we would like to express our great appreciation  for your valuable suggestions and comments on the manuscript entitled "Trends in Research on Soil Organic Nitrogen in the Past 20 Years" (ID: forests-2551387, ,by Shiyou Chen, ,Chunqian Jiang, ,Hui Wang et al.). The revised manuscript has been refined  as a result of your constructive advice.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I recommend that the paper be accepted in its current form for publication in the journal.

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing the manuscript, which has been very helpful in improving it.

Reviewer 2 Report

 The results indicated that: (1) the number of published papers on SON research showed a 14 wavy growth from 2000 to 2022 and the research has entered the mature development period; 15 China has been increasing its number of publications and has long been in the lead. (2) the most 16 productive institutions and authors in this subject area are in the USA and China, with the Chi- 17 nese Academy of Sciences being the key institution performing such research; (3) In the sample, 18 Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Science of the Total Environment, Biogeochemistry are the leading 19 international journals and have played a key role in the evolution of the field and laid a solid 20 foundation for future research; (4)  -remove from the abstract and the summary

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing the manuscript, which has been very helpful in improving it.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx