Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper considers relatively novel but important topic and presents it in a clear way.

Some small technical mistakes are noted below:

Line 77: Dolichospermum, Aphanizomenon should be in Italic

Line 146, Line 180: Microcystis should be in Italic

Line 318: 0.55 km2 - 2 should be in superscript 

Author Response

 

Line 77: Dolichospermum, Aphanizomenon should be in Italic
Authors reply: Done

 

Line 146, Line 180: Microcystis should be in Italic
Authors reply: Done

 

Line 318: 0.55 km2 - 2 should be in superscript
Authors reply: Done

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of the manuscript ‘Is a central sediment sample sufficient? Exploring spatial and temporal microbial diversity in a small lake’ submitted to Toxins.

This manuscript investigated the variation in cyanobacterial and bacterial species and populations identified through 16SrRNA sequencing across a lake. This timely study is well-written, interesting and easy to read.

I only have a few minor edits to suggest:

Line 13: ‘Bacterial community differed significantly between surface sediment sites (p < 0.001) but the majority of bacterial amplicon sequence variants (88.8%) were shared.’

Without the context of reading the manuscript this sentence is a little unclear what this means, whether it means abundance or species identified.

Line 46 – 48. This paragraph seems out of place and doesn’t fit in the narrative flow. I’m not sure it’s really needed so could be deleted. Or, added to the following paragraph around line 66.

Line 62. New paragraph here?

Figure 2: can this Venn diagram be made more proportional to the numbers inside the sections?

Line 314. delete last sentence.

Author Response

Line 13: ‘Bacterial community differed significantly between surface sediment sites (p < 0.001) but the majority of bacterial amplicon sequence variants (88.8%) were shared.’ Without the context of reading the manuscript this sentence is a little unclear what this means, whether it means abundance or species identified.
Authors reply: Was changed into “Bacterial community, based on relative abundances, differed significantly between surface sediment sites (p < 0.001) but the majority of bacterial amplicon sequence variants (88.8%) were shared.”

 

Line 46 – 48. This paragraph seems out of place and doesn’t fit in the narrative flow. I’m not sure it’s really needed so could be deleted. Or, added to the following paragraph around line 66.
Authors reply: As suggested, paragraph was inserted in line 63

 

Line 62. New paragraph here?
Authors reply: New paragraph was inserted

 

Figure 2: can this Venn diagram be made more proportional to the numbers inside the sections?
Authors reply: Font size was increased for Figure 2

 

Line 314. delete last sentence.
Authors reply: Sentence was deleted