Drivers of Macrophyte and Diatom Diversity in a Shallow Hypertrophic Lake

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript Drivers of Macrophyte and Diatom Diversity in a Shallow Hypertrophic Lake deals mainly with macrophyte assemblages and a range of environmental factors in a hypertrophic fishpond Dehtář, but also with diatoms. Diatoms and water samples in three different parts of the fishpond while macrophytes were mapped in a total of 30 segments. Along with the assemblages, environmental pressure on macrophytes and diatoms was also studied. The main resultshighlighted disturbance caused by intense wave action as a critical factor allowing species with different nutrient requirements to coexist under hypertrophic conditions. This manuscript does an excellent job of demonstrating the importance of studying shallow waters, hypertrophic systems, and fishponds in a changing environment. The paper is well written and focuses on the main results, clearly conveying the importance of the main results as presented. The paper fits the scope of the journal and I strongly support the acceptance of the manuscript for publication. The only, but extremely important, comment is on the length of the paper. It is extremely too long. There is a lot of room for abridgment and my only recommendation is to make it shorter and allow the reader to focus on the main findings and the most important contribution of such tremendous work.

Author Response

Please, see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer comments: Manuscript Number: Water-1200136

Title:  Drivers of Macrophyte and Diatom Diversity in a Shallow Hypertrophic Lake

Overall impression:

Abstract: A few grammar issues should be addressed for the reading to flow. For example:

• “…and a range of environmental factors in a large, lake resembling hypertrophic fishpond…” it might be better “…and a range of environmental factors in a large hypertrophic fishpond (or lake)…
• Perhaps “ Spatial diversity was considered when collecting diatoms…” might be better?
• “…assemblages of these groups of autotrophs.”
•  

 

Aim: It is defined.

Keywords: ten keywords?

Introduction: A bit difficult to follow which is due mostly to the grammar used. There is a tendency to use adverbs unnecessarily which in some cases are inappropriate or unnecessary adding confusion to the reader. The language tends to be imprecise. Each paragraph should start with a main idea to develop within that paragraphs and supported by subsequent secondary or tertiary ideas. 

First paragraph: Among the aquatic habitats with the status of high eutrophy to hypertrophy belong also many of the fishponds from more than 20 000 of these artificial water bodies occurring in the Czech Republic, a country which nearly lacks natural ..

                Why is  “nearly” used in that sentence?

• How to do you define or on which criteria shallow lake is defined?
• What does the following sentence mean? “…i.e. sites with typically low biodiversity and a lack of threatened species” ?
• Why are the lakes important ornithological sites? IS it because of the vegetation? What bird species visit them?

Second paragraph:

• First sentence talks about small fishponds. How small are the fishponds? How small is small?
• Second sentence switches to talk about large ponds.

In the end the paragraph that starts introducing small ponds talks predominantly about large ponds. Please revise paragraph structures. Third paragraph:

Please review first sentence.

Fourth paragraph:

• How large is the lake?

The aim is overly ambitious and vague because the reader has to take the word of the authors because there is not literature presented to illustrate what has been done on the topic, partially of course, because it is clear the authors have set out the research to do something different but compared to what, is missing. 

Materials & Methods:

More issues with the grammar and language:

2.1 Study Site

• “…which with its size of 238 ha and volume of 5,167,710 m3, belongs to ten largest fishponds of the Czech Republic and corresponds to the definition of a shallow lake.

The reader does not understand if the lake belongs to the ten largest fishponds or if it is a shallow lake. There is a huge contradiction or lack of clarity to explain it. Numerical data of the morphology of the lake illustrate that it is a shallow lake.

• Criteria to define which are the values used to define the trophic level of the river is necessary, even when it is mentioned that is according to OECD, from which year? There are tables and values from various years with some modifications. It is not valid, just to point the reader towards further reading. This is the work of the authors, why four references? Why are you selecting these references for the trophic value?
• The description of the lake/ fishpond Dehtář although interesting should be improved for brevity.

2.2 Methods

This section is clearer and illustrate the work undertaken by the authors, however, it is confusing in some parts.

For example, in section 2.2.3 Vascular plant data recording: “1 – rare (up to ten individuals in a segment), 2 – frequent throughout the segment but dominant, 3 – dominant, forming its own stands.” What does “frequent throughout the segment but dominant means? Is it dominant? Is it frequent? How was this qualitative scale defined?

Also, what does the following sentence mean? “The data were collected monthly, cumulatively throughout the growing season of a particular year (IV–IX 2014, III–IX 2015, III–IX 2016).” Cumulatively is unnecessary.

2.2.4 Diatom sampling and processing

There is too much information that does not add much to the text. 

Results:

Interesting results, but not all figures are of good enough quality. Most ordination diagrams are of poor quality, in particular Figures 9 and 15. Although in this section the narrative flow improves, authors should opt for brevity. 

Discussion

Good flow that awakens the reader and highlights the value of the paper. However, it seems the authors answered more questions than the three they set out to answer.

Conclusions: Good.

Author Response

Please, see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript contains very interesting and applicable results, however a lot of the key results and data is hidden among a lot of text. Throughout the manuscript, there needs to be substantial refining to improve the readability, especially to help keep focus on the main results which align with the aims. I would consider condensing the figures further, as there are currently 17 main figures, most of which are boxplots/bar charts. The in-depth environmental analyses are interesting, however I feel they could have been presented and interpreted differently to really bring out the key results.

 

Specific comments

 

Page 2, paragraph 1 could use some refining – paragraph 2 on this page should be the main focus, not the history

 

Page 3, study site – formatting error with bolded sentence

 

Methods section – the methods section is very long. I would suggest moving some content to supplementary and refining considerably

 

Figure axes need formatting (capital letter at start and in legends)

 

Consider removing tables for NMDS plots as a figures are much better for visualisation

Author Response

Please, see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you to the authors for addressing the issues found in the manuscript during the revision. The manuscript has certainly improved, with the remaining issue of being a bit too long to keep the attention of the reader.  Less is more, and better if it is focus on one or two aims.  I feel there are too many results that clutter rather than clarify the importance of your results. 

Please review manuscript for misspelled words, e.g. section 4.5 somewhout