The Diversity and Composition of Soil Microbial Community Differ in Three Typical Wetland Types of the Sanjiang Plain, Northeastern China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments:
 Manuscript ID sustainability-1977078. Titled "Soil microbial community characteristics of different wetland types in a temperate wetland." for possible publication in sustainability.

This paper’s topic is interesting but authors have to proofread the manuscript and improve the English and remove grammar mistakes. The referencing inside the manuscript needs to be corrected in many places and authors must add new references. The abstract should be improved by adding current research gap on this topic also add quantitative data instead of irrelevant discussion. The introduction section also needs improvements by adding new work already published globally and in China. Materials and Methods section should be revised also. Moreover conclusion parts should be revised by adding novelty/innovation with possible suggestions for future researchers.

Specific comments:

1.      Title is not representing the research background. Title should be modified/revised completely.

2.      Abstract should be revised by adding some words about research gap. Also add quantitative data. Also add some words about your novelty and innovation.

3.      Introduction; please add global data and also add previous work done in china. Also add research gap in introduction section.

4.      Material and Methods; please add GPS of sampling sites.

5.      Material and Methods; Please write the quality control procedures adopted during sampling, handling, processing and analysis work in lab and in field.

6.      Results; make clear and readable figures. Revise figures Y-axis.

7.      Please include following details in Conclusion section.

·         Give quantitative data by comparing all wetlands. Also prove your results with solid justification.

·         Add some words about novelty and innovation.

·         Give your suggestions for future research work about this topic.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Associate Editor Beatrice Elena Stoica,

Dear Reviewer 1,

 

Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Soil microbial community characteristics of different wetland types in a temperate wetland (sustainability-1977078)”. Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our MS. According to your comments and suggestions, we carefully revised throughout our MS. Below you will find our point-by-point response.

 

Comments:

 

Manuscript ID sustainability-1977078. Titled "Soil microbial community characteristics of different wetland types in a temperate wetland." for possible publication in sustainability.

This paper’s topic is interesting but authors have to proofread the manuscript and improve the English and remove grammar mistakes. The referencing inside the manuscript needs to be corrected in many places and authors must add new references. The abstract should be improved by adding current research gap on this topic also add quantitative data instead of irrelevant discussion. The introduction section also needs improvements by adding new work already published globally and in China. Materials and Methods section should be revised also. Moreover conclusion parts should be revised by adding novelty/innovation with possible suggestions for future researchers.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript. We have improved this manuscript by a linguistic service company to avoid the grammar mistakes. We also corrected the format of references according to the template of this Journal, and added some new references according to your suggestions. Thirdly, the abstract was improved through adding the knowledge gap and also added some quantitative data according to your suggestions. Please see the section of abstract.Fourth, we revised the introduction, material and method, as well as conclusion of this MS according to your suggestion. Please see the annotation of manuscript.

 

Specific comments:

1. Title is not representing the research background. Title should be modified/revised completely.
2. Abstract should be revised by adding some words about research gap. Also add quantitative data. Also add some words about your novelty and innovation.
3. Introduction; please add global data and also add previous work done in china. Also add research gap in introduction section.
4. Material and Methods; please add GPS of sampling sites.
5. Material and Methods; Please write the quality control procedures adopted during sampling, handling, processing and analysis work in lab and in field.
6. Results; make clear and readable figures. Revise figures Y-axis.
7. Please include following details in Conclusion section.

• Give quantitative data by comparing all wetlands. Also prove your results with solid justification.
• Add some words about novelty and innovation.
• Give your suggestions for future research work about this topic.

 

Q1 Title is not representing the research background. Title should be modified/revised completely.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised our title as:

“The diversity and composition of soil microbial community differ in three typical wetland types of the Sanjiang Plain, Northeastern China”.

Please see the line 1-4.

Q2 Abstract should be revised by adding some words about research gap. Also add quantitative data. Also add some words about your novelty and innovation.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised our abstract as:

“Abstract: Sanjiang plain wetland has experienced intensive anthropogenic disturbance recently, and now the environmental characteristics of Sanjiang wetland changed obviously. Soil microorganisms play an important role in wetland ecosystem. However, the effects of different wetland types on soil microbial diversity and community composition remain largely unclear. Therefore, we assessed the effects of three typical wetland types (permanently flooded wetlands, seasonally flooded wetlands and non-flooded wetlands) on soil microbial communities in Sanjiang Plain, using phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) technology. A total of 56 different PLFA compounds identified, of which 10 are typically produced by uncharacterized bacteria, 15 by Gram-positive bacteria, and 11 by Gram-negative bacteria. In addition, 2 fungal groups could be identified, based on four PLFAs, and four PLFAs typical for protozoa were detected. High levels were detected for 16:0 (attributed to bacteria) and i17:1ω9c (produced by Gram-positive bacteria). The latter was exceptionally high in non-flooded（8407.15±2675.84 ng/g）. High levels of 18:1ω7c (methanotrophs) and 18:1ω9c (Fungi) were detected in permanently flooded wetlands and seasonally flooded wetlands but lower ranks were present in the drier non-flooded wetlands. The Shannon diversity decreased with permanently flooded wetland (3.05) > seasonally flooded wetland (3.02) > non-flooded wetland (2.12). Redundancy analysis showed that the two axes could explain total 94.48% of soil microbial communities. Soil water content, total and available phosphorus, total and available nitrogen correlated significantly with soil microbial communities of three wetland types. .Cluster analysis of correlations between individual PLFA biomarkers and soil physiochemical properties demonstrated the complexity of the community responses to the three different habitats. This study demonstrates that the microbial diversity and composition changed sensitively among the three wetland types, and soil moisture content was the key environmental factor to affected the soil microbial communities.”

Please see the section of abstract in MS.

 

 

Q3 Introduction; please add global data and also add previous work done in china. Also add research gap in introduction section.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised our introduction according to your suggestions. Please see the introduction.

Line 52-94.

 

Q4 Material and Methods; please add GPS of sampling sites

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have added the GPS of three wetland types in the section of Material and method according to your suggestions. Please see the Table S1.

 

 

 

 

Q5Material and Methods; Please write the quality control procedures adopted during sampling, handling, processing and analysis work in lab and in field.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive suggestion.

We have revised our material and method according to your suggestion. Please see section 2.2 in the line 111-122.

 

 

Q6  Results; make clear and readable figures. Revise figures Y-axis.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive suggestion.

We revised the figures in the MS. Please see them in the MS.

 

 

Q7Please include following details in Conclusion section.

• Give quantitative data by comparing all wetlands. Also prove your results with solid justification.
• Add some words about novelty and innovation.
• Give your suggestions for future research work about this topic.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive suggestion.

We have revised our results, discussion and conclusion carefully according to your suggestions. Please see the sections of results, discussion and conclusion in annotation format.

Reviewer 2 Report

I have carefully read the whole manuscript which is titled "Soil Microbial Community Characteristics of Different Wetland Types in a Temperate Wetland". The research is really nice and comprehensive. I think it will contribute to such studies. But the discussion part must be improved.

 

I showed my suggestions on the draft manuscript, and the authors could pay attention to them.  I think your manuscript will be suitable for publication after some little changes in line with the recommendations and English proofreading.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Associate Editor Beatrice Elena Stoica,

Dear Reviewer 2,

 

Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Soil microbial community characteristics of different wetland types in a temperate wetland (sustainability-1977078)”. Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our MS. According to your comments and suggestions, we carefully revised throughout our MS. Below you will find our point-by-point response.

 

Comments:

Q1: delete.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have deleted these words. We revised the title again.We have revised our title as:

“The diversity and composition of soil microbial community differ in three typical wetland types of the Sanjiang Plain, Northeastern China”.

Please see the line 1-4.

 

 

Q2: In this sentence, the sentence about the importance of microorganisms in the ecosystem is not complete. Why are microorganisms important to an ecosystem? Write a short sentence that answers the question.

 

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised our abstract as:We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

 

Q3: an essential

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

Q4: studying

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

Q5: The samples were from marsh wetlands, marsh meadows,s and meadow wetlands, with decreasing water tables

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

Q6: delete

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have deleted this word.

 

Q7: What is initial?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We are sorry to misunderstand this sentence; we revised this sentence as follow:

The latter (i17:1ω9c) was exceptionally high in non-flooded (8407.15±2675.84 ng/g).

Please see the abstract.

 

Q8: marsh meadow wetlands but lower ranks

Response:

We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

Q9: meadows

Response:

We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

Q10: and

Response:

We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

Q11: So???? need conclusion.

Response:

We have revised the abstract according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of abstract in the line 14-37.

 

Q12:the

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have deleted this word.

 

Q13: oil or soil which one?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the introduction according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of introduction in the line 41-95.

 

 

 

Q14: It should be better if you add some more related recent paper such as "Relationship between organic matter and microbial biomass in different vegetation types" and "Wattle fencing improved soil aggregate stability, organic carbon stocks and biochemical quality by restoring highly eroded mountain region soil"

 

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the introduction according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of introduction in the line 41-95.

 

Q15:Study site

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 97.

 

Q16: What about the general climate type? like Warm humid continental climate

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the material and method according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the material and method.

 

Q17:Can you add the nearest county to the study site?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the material and method according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the material and method in the line 110-114.

 

Q17:Three 10 m x 10 m locations 50 m apart were selected, representing marsh wetland (high water table), marsh grassland (seasonally waterlogged) and non-puddled meadow wetland, respectively.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the material and method according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the material and method in the line 116-128.

 

 

Q18:You should write this part in a little more detail. Was the land treated differently? have microbial soils been brought to 40-50% moisture level?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the material and method according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the material and method in the line 116-128.

 

 

Q19: the addition

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 131.

 

Q19:was served

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 134.

 

 

Q20:which previously did you described it in your text?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the material and method according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the material and method in the line 130-144.

 

Q21:g of soil,is it g or ml?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 138.

 

Q22:were

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 153.

 

Q23:the content of,as a percentage

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 161.

 

Q24: the chi-square

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the material and method according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the material and method in the line 173-174.

 

Q25:the lowest,meadows,wetlands

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the results according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the results in the line 191-234.

 

Q26:bacteria

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 221.

 

Q27:were

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 224.

 

Q28:a 5-fold

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 225.

 

Q29:figure 2 is not clear. can you make it little bigger and readable.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the results according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the results in the line 240-245.

 

Q30:pH, TN, TP, SOC are all soil chemical properties

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 259.

 

Q31:delete this

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the results according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the results in the line 284-286.

 

Q32:All is belong to results section.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the discussion according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the discussion in the line 311-397.

 

 

Q33:biology technologies

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have replaced it. Please see the line 396-397.

 

 

Q34:What future research can this study serve as a basis for?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

We have revised the conclusions according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the conclusions in the line 400-414.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

The work concerns an interesting topic related to the characteristics of the soil microbial community of different wetland types in a temperate wetland. The structure of the reviewed manuscript is correct. The chapters: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion were properly presented. The conclusions were correctly formulated.

However, the manuscript needs several improvements:

1.    Page 2, line 83; page 11, line 296: please change Calamagrostis Angustifolia to Calamagrostis angustifolia

2.    Page 3, lines 100, 104: I suggest changing KMnO4 to KMnO₄

3.    Page 4, Data analysis: have all assumptions (e.g. the normality of the means distribution) for the ANOVA been tested?

4.    Page 5, line 166; page 6, lines 186, 191; page 8, lines 209, 214, 217, page 9, lines 233-239; page 10, line 264: please change (P<0.05) to (p<0.05) or (P<0.01) to (p<0.01)

5.    Page 8, line 220: please change "Fig, 3" to "Fig. 3"

6.    Page 10, line 269: please change „Shannon index” to „Shannon-Wiener index”

7.    Page 11, line 303: I propose to delete the line "Differences in the structural composition of soil microorganisms" or write it in italics as a subsection.

8.    Page 12, line 337: please change „biolog” to „biology”.

 

For the rest, I have no other criticism to make. I believe that the article has great scientific value.

Author Response

Dear Associate Editor Beatrice Elena Stoica,

Dear Reviewer 3,

 

Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Soil microbial community characteristics of different wetland types in a temperate wetland (sustainability-1977078)”. Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our MS. According to your comments and suggestions, we carefully revised throughout our MS. Below you will find our point-by-point response.

 

Comments:

Dear Authors,

The work concerns an interesting topic related to the characteristics of the soil microbial community of different wetland types in a temperate wetland. The structure of the reviewed manuscript is correct. The chapters: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion were properly presented. The conclusions were correctly formulated.

However, the manuscript needs several improvements:

Q1. Page 2, line 83; page 11, line 296: please change Calamagrostis Angustifolia to Calamagrostis angustifolia

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.We have revised these mistakes according to your suggestions.

Please see the line 104.

 

Q2.   Page 3, lines 100, 104: I suggest changing KMnO4 to KMnO₄

Response:  

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.

We have revised these mistakes according to your suggestions.

Please see the line 131 and 135.

 

Q3.    Page 4, Data analysis: have all assumptions (e.g. the normality of the means distribution) for the ANOVA been tested?

Response:  

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.

We carefully checked the analysis and we revised our section of “Data analysis” according to your suggestions.

See as follow:

“The data was normalized of the means distribution for doing the further analysis.”

Please see the line 166-168.

 

Q4.    Page 5, line 166; page 6, lines 186, 191; page 8, lines 209, 214, 217, page 9, lines 233-239; page 10, line 264: please change (P<0.05) to (p<0.05) or (P<0.01) to (p<0.01)

Response:  

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.

We revised it through the MS according to your suggestions.

Please see the line 202,225,229,252,258,275,276,277 and 281.

 

Q5.    Page 8, line 220: please change "Fig, 3" to "Fig. 3"

Response:  

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.

We revised it according to your suggestions.

Please see the line 261.

 

6. Page 10, line 269: please change „Shannonindex” to „Shannon-Wiener index”

Response:  

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.

We revised it according to your suggestions.

 

7.Page 11, line 303: I propose to delete the line "Differences in the structural composition of soil microorganisms" or write it in italics as a subsection.

Response:  

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.

We revised it according to your suggestions.

We have revised the discussion according to you and other reviewer’s comments. Please see the section of the discussion in the line 311-397.

 

8. Page 12, line 337: please change „biolog” to „biology”.

Response:  

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments for your manuscript.

We revised it according to your suggestions.

Please see the line 396-397.

 

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors of “sustainability-1977078” studied the microbial community characteristics in wetlands across a gradient of water levels in Sanjiang Plain. Overall, the methods and data are solid. However, the aims of the study, as well as the results and implication have not been clearly presented. Here are several comments for this manuscript.

1.      The question of this study is not answered. In line 68-69, the author proposed that the aim of this study is to reveal whether soil water content was the main reason for the microbial differences, but there’s even no index of soil water content in this study. Although the samples were collected from wetlands with different water levels, but I did not find the specific data about the soil water nor water levels.

2.      In the abstract, the author state that the pH was positively correlative with soil microbial community structure. However, the RDA plot（Figure 3）the pH was at the second axis, which only explain 3% of the microbial structure. Moreover, the correlation tests did not show significant relevance between pH and microbial community (Table 4 and Figure4). Therefore, I do not agree that pH was a significant driving factor for microbial community in this study.

3.      The phrases “marsh wetland”, “marsh meadow” and “meadow wetland” were used to distinguish the three sites. However, I do not think the three words could present the site condition precisely. I suggest use the “permanently flooded”、“seasonally flooded” and “non-flooded” to distinguish the three sites.

4.      Line 78. There’s misunderstanding in describing the location of the investigated sites. The first sentence of this paragraph means the Sanjiang Plain located at the Institute of Nature and Ecology, Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Sciences? Obviously, the region of Sanjiang Plain is much larger than the Institute.

5.      Figure 1, Please show the pictures of the three site. Pictures can help readers understanding the difference of the three sites.

6.      Line 89 when did the soil sample? Which year and which season or month? What’s the difference of the vegetation among the three sites?

7.      Line 139, One-way ANOVA and Chi-square test are two different tests. What is “One-way ANOVA analysis with chi-square test”?

8.      Table S1, I encourage to use the stacked bar plot to present the PLFA composition at three sites.

9.      Discussion: this part has not been well organized, and the contents in this part is too general. Why there’s difference among the three sites? And what the contribution of soil water on these differences? The result showed that the PFLA are highly correlated to AP and TP (Table 4 and Figure 4), rather than other soil properties. Please explain why there were high relevance between the phosphorous and microbial community？

10.   The language of this manuscript needs to be improved.  

Author Response

Dear Associate Editor Beatrice Elena Stoica,

Dear Reviewer 1,

 

Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript entitled “Soil microbial community characteristics of different wetland types in a temperate wetland (sustainability-1977078)”. Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our MS. According to your comments and suggestions, we carefully revised throughout our MS. Below you will find our point-by-point response.

 

Comments:

 

The authors of “sustainability-1977078” studied the microbial community characteristics in wetlands across a gradient of water levels in Sanjiang Plain. Overall, the methods and data are solid. However, the aims of the study, as well as the results and implication have not been clearly presented. Here are several comments for this manuscript.

1. The question of this study is not answered. In line 68-69, the author proposed that the aim of this study is to reveal whether soil water content was the main reason for the microbial differences, but there’s even no index of soil water content in this study. Although the samples were collected from wetlands with different water levels, but I did not find the specific data about the soil water nor water levels.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We revised our introduction and hypothesis carefully according to your and reviewer1’s comments.

Please see the introduction in the line 52-62 and 72-94.

We also added the soil water content in the result and rewrote the results and discussion again.

Please see the section of 3.1 and 3.4.

 

 

2. In the abstract, the author state that the pH was positively correlative with soil microbial community structure. However, the RDA plot（Figure 3）the pH was at the second axis, which only explain 3% of the microbial structure. Moreover, the correlation tests did not show significant relevance between pH and microbial community (Table 4 and Figure4). Therefore, I do not agree that pH was a significant driving factor for microbial community in this study.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We carefully checked our abstract and we agree with your comments.

We, therefore, revised our abstract according to your suggestion. Please see the section of abstract.

 

 

3. The phrases “marsh wetland”, “marsh meadow” and “meadow wetland” were used to distinguish the three sites. However, I do not think the three words could present the site condition precisely. I suggest use the “permanently flooded”、“seasonally flooded” and “non-flooded” to distinguish the three sites.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We have revised these mistakes according to your comments for whole manuscript.

 

 

4. Line 78. There’s misunderstanding in describing the location of the investigated sites. The first sentence of this paragraph means the Sanjiang Plain located at the Institute of Nature and Ecology, Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Sciences? Obviously, the region of Sanjiang Plain is much larger than the Institute.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We agree with you and we revised this into “The study sites of the investigated wetlands in the Hohong national nature reserve,  Sanjiang Plain (47°42'18″–47°52'07″N, 133°34'38″–133°46'29″E′) (Fig.1).”

See line 97-98.

 

5. Figure 1, Please show the pictures of the three site. Pictures can help readers understanding the difference of the three sites.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We added the picture of research site in the section 2.1.

See the figure 1.

 

6. Line 89 when did the soil sample? Which year and which season or month? What’s the difference of the vegetation among the three sites?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We have revised our manuscript according to your comments.

See the line 113-123 and table S1.

“We selected three wetland types, representing PF (permanently flooded wetlands), SF (seasonally flooded wetlands) and NF(non-flooded wetlands), respectively. A random sampling method was used for this research. In July 2017, three 10 m x 10 m plots were set up in each wetland type, and the distance of each plot was far away > 50 m. After removed the litters, each plot was sampled at 10~20 soils in each plot and then mixed into one soil sample per point. The soil was collected from the top soil layer (0–20 cm) using a 5 cm diameter soil auger. The soil were passed a sieve (2 mm mesh size) in order to remove the sand, gravel and coarse plant material, and then placed in plastic bags on ice box and keep in 4 °C. When the soil samples were transported to the laboratory, we separated the soil samples into two parts, one part were stored into -20 °C for microbial analysis, and other parts were dried for soil’s physical and chemical properties.”

 

 

 

 

 

7. Line 139, One-way ANOVA and Chi-square test are two different tests. What is “One-way ANOVA analysis with chi-square test”?

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We have revised our manuscript according to your comments.

See the follows in the line 167-169:

“The data was normalized of the means distribution for doing the further analysis. One-way ANOVA analysis and Duncan test were performed using SPSS, and Origin 2018 was used for the analysis of bacterial, Gram-positive, Gram-negative, and fungal marker totals or ratios. ” 

 

 

8. Table S1, I encourage to use the stacked bar plot to present the PLFA composition at three sites.

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We have revised our manuscript according to your comments.

See the figure 2.

 

 

 

9. Discussion: this part has not been well organized, and the contents in this part is too general. Why there’s difference among the three sites? And what the contribution of soil water on these differences? The result showed that the PFLA are highly correlated to AP and TP (Table 4 and Figure 4), rather than other soil properties. Please explain why there were high relevance between the phosphorous and microbial community？

Response:

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your constructive comments.

We have revised our discussion according to your comments.

Please see the section of discussion.

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript “sustainability-1977078” has been significantly improved from the original version, and basically satisfied my concerns. Here’s are several small advises.

 1.      Line 112-133, the two paragraphs could be combined. The Sanjiang Plain was firstly mention in line 112, while the introduction of Sanjiang Plain was at line 123. Therefore, I suggest introduce the Sanjiang Plain firstly, and then list the studies of Sanjiang Plain.

 2.      Line 282-285, here are two sentences describe the climate feature of Sanjiang Plain. However, the range of the temperature and precipitation in the later sentence have not overlaid the average value in the former sentence.

 3.      Line 395, in the pdf, the sign of division was missed in the equation of Shannon-Wiener .

 4.      Line 397-400, as n1, n2 and n explained the meaning of the Brillouin equation, so pls move the notes after the equation of Brillouin.  

 

5.      Pls transform the “p” when presenting the p-value into italic format, e.g. “p < 0.05”