Eco-Engineering Improves Water Quality and Mediates Plankton–Nutrient Interactions in a Restored Wetland
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript (water-3028444) titled with “Eco-engineering improves water quality and mediates plankton-nutrient interactions in a restored wetland” further investigated the water quality parameters and plankton communities in national wetland park to confirm the mechanism behind the changes in plankton community structure and their ecological networks before and after the restoration process. The authors collected the samples over a long period of time and found the water quality improved greatly as well as the metazooplankton diversity. Overall, the manuscript is well written and organized and the data was collected and monitored for 3 years which adds value to this work. I recommend accepting this manuscript after minor corrections.
Comments:
1. Please summaries more recent research related to the same topic. Introduction needs improvement.
2. Please clearly state the novelty of this work in introduction.
3. Figure 1 is not clear at all, and the font size is too small. Please improve the quality of the image.
4. The conclusion should be improved with clear quantitative findings.
5. References formatting is wrong please check it all.
6. Please explain by details how the collected samples were analyzed (experimental section)
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required
Author Response
Dear professor, we have carefully revised according to your revision suggestion, please review and correct, thank you. See the document for details.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The Authors carried out an interesting project. Its results are worth publishing, but require some more work on the data. I would suggest taking into consideration the following points, listed in order of appearance in the text:
-
ll. 74-84: The description of restoration/eco-engineering activities is not described in sufficient detail.
-
ll. 102/103: “… large seasonal temperature difference …” — data in table S2 do not support such a statement.
-
l. 109: “… water quality purification …” — How is it possible to purify water quality?
-
ll. 130ff: The Authors claim to have calculated Trophic Level Index according to Carlson (1977). Their description, however, is too vague.
-
Their formula differs from that of Carlson,
-
The description of the estimating zero points at each scale is missing.
-
The meaning of “weight of nutritional status” has to be elucidated.
-
-
ll. 136 & 137: not j parameter, but jth parameter.
-
l. 145: “hydrophore” does not fit here (see e.g. Wikipedia).
-
ll.148/149: “… Metazooplankton samples were collected by filtering 20 L water through a filter net …” — information, how the water was collected (what apparatus, what depth) would be welcome.
-
ll. 157ff: Abbreviations/symbols in formulae throughout the chapter 2.2.4 are not properly explained/described.
-
ll. 181ff: in the chapter 2.3 most of the statistical software used by the Authors (SPSS, R-core, igraph package, Amos) has not been properly cited. Gephi is a positive exception. I would suggest the Authors visit respective help systems/web pages and find proper ways of citing the software.
-
ll. 188/189: “stability between the two species was considered if Spearman” – something is missing between “considered” and “if”.
-
l. 202: “were selected for the model through literature generalization” – the literature should be cited!
-
l. 208: I would not insist, but the Authors may consider turning the table S2 into a graph.
-
l. 216: Is the “V level” the same as the “V category” from table S1? This should not be left for readers to decide.
-
l. 238, and elsewhere in the text: use Cyanobacteria rather than Cyanophyta,
-
l. 281: The Authors adopted fairly idiosyncratic way of calculating dominance, resulting in very small numbers. Usually dominance is expressed in percent scale, which adds up to 100. Using the latter method and the figure S2, one finds that the Authors’ claim that after the eco‑engineering, group consisting of Cyanobacteria+Bacillariophyta was substituted by group consisting of Bacillariophyta+Chlorophyta, is not very strong. Before the eco‑engineering, the dominance was, respectively 45.7% (Cy+Ba) vs. 75.0% (Ba+Ch), after the eco‑engineering it changed into 47.7 vs. 79.3. The numbers add up to more than 100, because Bacillariophyta are counted in both groups. I suggest the Authors reconsider the entire problem of dominance.
-
In Table 1 there are empty cells and cells with a slash. What is the difference?
-
-
l. 401/402: “dominant phytoplankton species changed from Cyanophyta Cyanobacteria to Bacillariophyta after the eco‑engineering” – figure 2 contradicts this statement.
-
ll. 429-432: the sentence starting: “In this study, we found …” is very unclear and requires re-phrasing.
-
ll. 443/444: “The interactions between strong and weak organisms …” — how do Authors define “strong” and “weak” organisms?
-
ll. 450/451: unnecessary repetition of “community stability”.
-
ll. 470-472: the statement: “The main factors affecting the phytoplankton community changed from before the eco-engineering to after the eco-engineering, …” says precisely nothing, and could have been written before start of the research project.
-
l. 497: The information given under the heading “Conflicts of interest” is irrelevant.
-
Figures:
-
All the figures are too small, which makes them next to illegible!
-
-
In particular, figure 1b should be markedly enlarged and connected with, as yet insufficient, text describing the restoration/eco-engineering actions and outcomes.
-
The part of the figure 1a depicting localisation of sampling sites should be somehow connected with figure 1b to illustrate connection between the sites and the eco‑engineering constructions.
-
Symbols in figure 5 should be enlarged even more than the graphs as a whole.
-
Figure 7
-
lines (edges) are too thin. Establish decent width for the thinnest one, and go up from there.
-
“red for positive and green for negative” is a bit unusual. One would expect the reverse, so perhaps the Authors could explain the reason.
-
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Generally, English is acceptable. The Authors sometimes have problems with grammatical number, and tend to use "may" instead of "may be".
Author Response
Dear professor, we have carefully revised according to your revision suggestion, please review and correct, thank you. See the document for details.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript described the interaction between water quality and the plankton community before and after Eco-engineering. This manuscript was well-written and structured. All methods used could support the objectives. I commend the authors for their patience and dedication in compiling samples over an extended period. Below are some minor comments and questions for consideration:
1. In the introduction, It would be great if the authors could provide a brief introduction to the eco-engineering system for the readers.
2. The authors should define what before and after eco-engineering are. I guess that they mean inlet and outlet eco-engineering water samples because the authors did not give any information on the sampling point in Figure 1.
3. In Figure 5, what is the year (before and after) and year R=05658 P=0.001?
4. Nan et al. (2018; https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-018-0999-6) also studied seasonal and spatial variability of water quality and nutrient moval at the same location as this manuscript, from 2014 to 2016. The authors could discuss and compare the changes in water quality or nutrient content from the perspective of the extended periods in this study.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Overall, the English writing in this manuscript is fine. However, I recommend having a native English speaker proofread the manuscript.
Author Response
Dear professor, we have carefully revised according to your revision suggestion, please review and correct, thank you. See the document for details.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript has been considerably improved. There are some points, however, in need of further fine-tuning:
-
l. 105: In their response to my remark in previous review, the Authors explain that “… large seasonal temperature difference …” mentioned in the text is not reflected in the data in Table S2 because the table reports water temperature measured during spring – autumn season, while the “seasonal differences” refer to annual range of air temperature. This should be explained in the text, and the annual range of air temperature given.
-
l. 111/112: “… water quality purification …” — here a misunderstanding has occurred. My remark concerned language used. One can purify water, but cannot purify quality. The latter can only be improved, perhaps also enhanced. Anyway, the addition in l. 113ff. is welcome.
-
Figure 1: enlarging the map of eco-engineering works has been a welcome move. What is missing is the connection between this map and the map showing sampling points.
-
Please note that in the legend to 1b “sluice” is spelled correctly, while on the map itself, there is a misspelling: “slice”.
-
-
Trophic Level Index: In the first version of the paper, the Authors did not indicate that they took Chl-a as a reference parameter. In Carlson’s original paper, it was Secchi Disk depth. As Carlson writes: “the zero point on the scale should be located at a Secchi disk (SD) value greater than any yet reported”. Since the publication of the paper in question, new records of SD were published, hence the necessity of amending original Carlson’s formula. If the Authors prefer Chl-a over SD, fine, but I would suggest justifying the choice.
-
The matter of dominance remains murky. The Authors should explain how they understand the difference between frequency and abundance, and between dominance and relative abundance.
The explanations sent after the first review suggest that the changes in dominance actually occurred within the main phytoplankton groups (different species within Cyanobacteria, Bacillariophyta, Chlorophyta changed their dominance), not between them (entire groups taken as a whole did not change their dominance significantly). This would explain discrepancy between the text in subchapter 3.2.3 (ll. 288ff.) and the figure S2. Table 1 seems to support this view.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
one problem mentioned above
Author Response
Thank you for your careful review of the manuscript. We admire your excellent research attitude and it is worth learning from you. We have seriously considered and modified it.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
