The Effects of Localized Plant–Soil–Microbe Interactions on Soil Nitrogen Cycle in Maize Rhizosphere Soil under Long-Term Fertilizers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the authors did a wonderful job, but I expect them to address my comments above. I am looking for the objectives to be clearly stated and restated in the abstract, introduction, and conclusion sections of the paper. I have outlined by suggestions section-by-section and line-by-line. Looking forward to the second round of edits. 

TITLE: I would recommend changing the title, IF POSSIBLE AND MAKES MORE SENSE. For example: "The Effects of localized plant-soil-microbe Interactions on Soil Nitrogen Cycle in Maize Rhizophere Soil under Long-term Fertilizers."

ABSTRACT SECTION: The abstract is well-written, but need to add some few information to it. For example, on line 17, you can add the experiment site/location from the methodology section and write: “In this study, soil samples were collected from a long-term experimental site located at Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun City, Jilin Province, Northeast China. We then analyzed the response of the functional genes related to the N cycle under long-term fertilizer application and the effect of the plant‒soil‒microbe system on the N cycle using metagenomics and liquid chromatography analysis.”

- Also, what is the objective of the study? Is it clearly stated here in the abstract?

1. INTRODUCTION SECTION: Well written and cited section, but I suggest the following changes:

Line 36: add a comma after the word “growth”

Line 61-62: rewrite as: "in plants, and affects the enrichment of .......cycling genes[19,20].” Line 62-63: put at least three citations here to support this statement- “Although a large number of studies have shown that fertilization will affect the diversity and function of the soil microbial community [x, y, z], the regulation of…”

Line 65: insert a comma after the word “soil”

Line 66-68: Please put citations here to support this statement: “Studies have shown that

plant root exudates contribute to microbial growth, and microorganisms also

secrete some compounds, such as acidic components, hydroxyl ions, phenolic

compounds, and phosphatases.”

Line 86: Delete the word "Studies" and replace with "Past research" and it will read as:

"Past research have shown that nitrogen assimilation..." Line 91: Please clearly state the objectives of the study here at the end of the introduction section. This a “Must do” to support the manuscript.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS SECTION: Looks good and well presented. However, I made the following recommendations/changes for authors: Line 96-97: The authors wrote: “The maize field experiment was established in 1984” Is this correct

that you started the experiment in 1984? Can you explain/clarify for me please.

Line 106-107: Put a period sign after the word “study” here and start a new sentence: "The amount of fertilizer applications are listed in Table 1."

Line 108: close the gap and write “4oC”

Line 111: The table should be condensed or placed in the middle of the paper before publishing,

if accepted.

Line 112: leave a space between “the” and “P fertilizer” and write: “the P fertilizer is heavy

superphosphate”

Line 115: put a comma after the word “activity” Line 121: rewrite as: “Determination of microbial biomass carbon was performed by chloroform

fumigation extraction.”

Line 125: start a new paragraph here and write as: " In determining root exudates, the retrieved

plants were washed away from the soil...."

Line 145: insert a comma after the closed bracket.

3. RESULTS SECTION: Results are well presented. I made the following recommendations:

Line 182: put section 3.1.3 after figure 1, not before figure 1.

Line 184: Please make Figure 1 more visible / bold.

Line 224: Please make Figure 2 (including the legends) more visible/bold for your audience. Also

label the last box in Figure 2 as “g” like you did the others (a, b,c,d,e).

Line 254: Section 3.3 is double-spaced compared to the rest of paper. Why? Be consistent.

Line 281: Be consistent and rewrite as: "Figure 4" good job on the figure!

4. DISCUSSION SECTION: Authors have referenced/compared their research findings with that of others /past studies (good job!). I recommend the following changes:

Line 302-303: The authors did a good job here referencing their findings with that of others:

“This result is the same as that of Sun Ruijuan et al. [41]”

Line 311: Either rewrite “Past studies” as "Past research" or add one or two more citations to citation [46] to support your statement.

Line 321-326: Please break the sentence into two please, too long.

Line 333: Change the word “black” to “dark”

Line 337: insert a comma after the word “application” and before the word “but”

Line 337-342: Please break sentence into two sentences.

Line 373: Change the word “black” to “dark”

Line 385: The authors need to add one or more citations to citation [61, x,y] or delete the word

“Studies” and replace with “Past research” or otherwise.

Line 410: Authors wrote: “Studies have shown that changes in the soil environment also change soil enzyme activity [64].” You need more than one citation [64, x, y] to support this sentence, or change the word “Studies” to “Past research”

Line 412: insert a comma after the word “content”

Line 414: see comments above on line 410 and fix by adding more citations or replacing "Previous studies"

Line 423-424: Finally, you support your statement with two citations and that is why I was looking for all along. Thank you.

5. CONCLUSION SECTION: Well written, but I was expecting to see the objectives restated here somewhere, and you have tried to compensate for that in your concluding statemen: “However,

this paper analysed only the effects of plant‒soil‒microorganism interactions on the whole N cycle, and the effects on the specific reaction process need further analysis.”

6. REFERENCE SECTION: Why are the authors full names/last name capitalized? Is this required

by the journal?

** OVERALL COMMENT: Overall, the authors did a wonderful job, but I expect them to address my comments above. I am looking for the objectives to be clearly stated and restated in the abstract, introduction, and conclusion sections of the paper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The paper needs a very minor editing of the English language.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your comments! Your comments are really insightful and enable us to improve the quality of our manuscript greatly. In the following documents are our point-by-point responses to each of the comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

INTRODUCTION

The research objectives should be described in more detail. The authors cite the need for further study of the topic but not the goals of their research.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The authors must specify in this work all the methods used for soil analyses. In materials and methods they cite (LI Y, WANG C, CHANG H, et al. Metagenomics reveals the effect of long-term fertilization on 85 carbon cycle in the maize rhizosphere [J]. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2023, 14: 1170214. )[33]. In the text of the cited work (Li et al. 2023) another reference of the author is cited [Li, Y., Wang, C., Wang, T., Liu, Y., Jia, S., Gao, Y., et al. (2020). Effects of different fertilizer treatments on rhizosphere soil microbiome composition and functions. Land 9:329. doi: 10.3390/land9090329]. In this paper, the authors cite another work for the description of analytical methods [Cui, J.T.; Li, YN; Wang, C.Y.; Seok, K.K.; Wang, T.Y.; Liu, S. Characteristics of Rhizosphere Bacterial Community across Different Cultivation Years in Saline-alkaline Paddy Soils of Songnen Plain of China. Can. J. Microbiol. 2018, 64, 925–936]. I was not able to access the complete text of this last quote because it seems to be paid.

The reader should have an early knowledge of the methods used and should not search back in time.

For all the parameters analyzed in the work, the relative methods should be described in the text of the paper or at most in the first citation.

The description of the methods used for the statistical analysis of the tables in appendix A is missing. The tables lack the notes where the number of samples, the p level, the indication of the meaning of the letters used are specified. The authors should complete these sections as required.

The authors should add under all tables and figures the note with the statistical methods, the number of samples (n=...), the level of p, the meaning of the letters used in, including the tables in Appendix A

Lines 460-462 the authors should rewrite this statement more clearly

See attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your comments! Your comments are really insightful and enable us to improve the quality of our manuscript greatly. In the following documents are our point-by-point responses to each of the comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf