Estimation of Carbon and Nitrogen Contents in Forest Ecosystems in the Background Areas of the Russian Arctic (Murmansk Region)
, Ekaterina Ivanova and Irina ShtabrovskayaRound 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease check the attachment
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. Line 9. Change to “In this study an estimate was made…”
2. Line 24. What is interbiogeocoenotic?
3. Line 40. What do you mean by “a minor amount of undergrowth?”
4. Line 44. What do you mean by “phytocoenoses”?
5. Line 46. What do you mean by ”low ash content of plant litter”?
6. Line 48-49. What about the broadleaved species litter? Is it an important factor?
7. Line 53. Why is carbon the main component? Is it because of its large mass or what?
8. Lines 116-117. You describe three types of collection: below the crowns, between the crowns and open area. However, in the text you describe only the below the crowns and between the crowns. What about the open air?
9. Line 128. What do you mean by “five folds”?
10. Line 149. Describe briefly the Tyurin method.
11. In the Materials and Methods section, insert a paragraph describing the statistics used and what exactly you compared.
12. Some information about the soil pH should be given/
13. In Table 1. Insert the units of C and N measurements.
14. Line 212. What do you mean by the “most conservative component”?
15. Line 219-220. Values such as 0.72% and 0.67% are characteristics of poor organic C content and not rich!
16. In Table 2. What do all these numbers stand for? .For example, the numbers in the OL horizon 50.92, 1.42, 1.08, 0.03. 47.48, 1.48 stand for what?
17. Lines 259-260. Not clear what you want to say.
18. Lines 260-261. When you describe the stocks of C and N in tn per ha, you have to give information about the soil depth.
19. Likewise in Fig.4.
20. Lines 343-344.
21. Table 5. What do you mean by perennial needles?. Are there immortal needles?
22. Table 5. What do you mean by brown needles?
23. Lines 343-344. The C content of plant tissues worldwide is a little lower than 50% (Ma et al. 2018. Biogeosciences 15, 693-702). You cannot have such high values as 68%. They are probably outliers that you have to remove.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe language is OK. Minor corrections are needed.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsLong term ecological studies have the especially high value. Therefore this manuscript, which is devoted to the description of a long-term ecological study in the North European conifer forests, attracts particular attention. The article must be published because obtained data are unique and have a high scientific significance.
However the manuscript has no synthesis of obtained results. It's like it's over in half a word.
I propose to the authors writing a conclusion section with a graph/conceptual chart of C and N pools and flows in these ecosystems, actually of their functioning (or main components/drivers of functioning). The authors have all necessary data: rates of C and N inputs and outputs in/from the ecosystems, pools of C and N in soil and crown (they can be calculated using data in Fig. 4 plus additional data on needle biomass that is not too difficult to find or calculate), flows from litter and soil with leaching of C and N, etc.
The article will be published in the special issue on “Monitoring of Forest Ecosystems…” Therefore I recommend the authors performing some additional editing of the text to point out this thematic circumstance.
Additionally, the MS needs to be thoroughly corrected and stylistically edited because presence of many technical errors and heavy style of the text.
Specific comments
Title: In present form, the manuscript is just a “description” but not an “estimation” of the authors’ experimental data.
Introduction has no state-of-the-art on the same research in boreal forests both in their country and abroad.
Material & Methods
L 84. Please add a short climate description.
L94-106. It shall be here a description of all research sites with some detail: landscape pattern, stands (tree species age, H/DBH, density: trees per ha), ground vegetation, soil morphology (minimally horizons’ thickness and texture, maximally with some chemical properties). Majority of readers has no idea what represent forests in Murmansk region.
Fig.1 has a very poor quality.L 129-130. Are soil samples individual or mixed?
Results &Discussion
L 179. Table 1:i. Title: please add units of measured values.
ii. What means PMP?
iii. TN: please use one abbreviation for nitrogen: you use below in the text both TN and N.
iv. Format “numerator-denominator” in the tables looks not good. Please correct.
L 196. Fig.2. It will be better to use uniform scale for all concentration axes.
L 207. Fig.3. Correct please dimension of concentrations (by g m-2 yr-1 and use this formate in the whole text).
Ls 214-216. The text on these lines seems to be excessive.
Ls 318-321. This sentence needs to be stylistically edited as many other throughout the text.
L 38 Table 4:
a) columns 4 and 5 has the same names; correct please.
b) “Critical Nminconcentration limits” - please correct and add a published source for these limits (in M&M or in a note under Table 4) with some explanations.
L. 342. Section “3.4. Carbon and…”:
a) Please change in the title and in text below “litter” by “litter fall”;
b) Add please a short discussion on elements’ decreasing during leave/needle senescence.
The manuscript has a poor discussion in a frame of united section R&D. The discussion with other researches on the similar subjects is absent.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
The quality of the paper has been significantly improved. It should be published.
best wishes,
Johan Neirynck
Author Response
Dear reviewer, Thank you for your review and valuable comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. In Fig. 3 and 6 correct the units. -2 and -1 should be superscripts.
2, You should include in the cover letter the location of corrections. For example, "the correction sugested by the reviewer was inserted in lines xxx-xxx". It seems that the authors have made the corrections preferentially. The rule is that if they do not make corrections at some point they have to justify the reason.
3. Regarding the Table 5 and the 57% of C in litter, the authors should mention something. I have seen valuse such as 53% but not that high. I sugest the authors write sometning such as " the value of 57% is rather high according to literature and in the future research shoud be carried out to examine the possible reasons"
Comments on the Quality of English Language
The quality is sufficient.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
