Understanding the Responses of Soil Bacterial Communities to Long-Term Fertilization Regimes Using DNA and RNA Sequencing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This research paper, by Li et al., compares responses of soil bacterial communities to long-term fertilization regimes using DNA and RNA sequencing.

Overall, the topic is of interest to Agronomy (MDPI). However, there are some minor issues the way they presented their results and how they interpreted the results in the discussion section.

I suggest some minor revisions before this manuscript is acceptable for publication.  I have clearly indicated all my opinions and suggestions below.

 

Major comments:

Would be great if the authors discussed the hypothesis behind comparing the bacterial diversity in 16S ribosomal DNA and reverse-transcribed 16S rRNA libraries. We are still looking at functional diversity based on a small region on 16S. Although this was alluded in the discussion section, will make the experimental design strong if this was discussed in the introduction section.

The phylum level comparisons are discussed throughout the paper. Would be good to have a higher resolution to bring out subtle differences in diversity between the DNA and RNA based community diversity.

Many results were discussed using the supplementary figures (S1, S2 and S3). I didn’t have access to those figures for review. I would recommend including them in the manuscript.

 

Minor Comments:

The manuscript requires minor English edits and typos. I have pointed a few

Ln 117: “conducted” -initiated?

Ln 245:  “were”

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments.

Minor revisions are needed:

In methodology, there is a misunderstanding about soil sampling, 

• Do you get the first 20 cm or different sections between them?
• (Line 137). 

Line 172: misundestanbding. It should be written. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx