Changes in Soil Properties, Bacterial Communities and Wheat Roots Responding to Subsoiling in South Loess Plateau of China
, Dasheng Zhang 1,†, Jiuxing He 3, Lijuan Wang 2, Jiameng Ren 4, Shuantang Zhang 1, Wenbo Bai 3, Jiqing Song 3, Guohua Lv 3,* and Jiusheng Li 2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Abstract should be improved by providing more research findings
Generic name and other taxonomic names should be italic in font.
The sentences should not start with abbreviations.
Some of typographical mistakes has been highlighted.
Authors are requested to cite more recent papers and avoid old paper.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
In this article, the authors study the effect of loosening on the bacterial community of cultivated soils, as well as the properties of these soils and the density of the length of winter wheat roots. The work has undeniable fundamental and applied significance. The advantage of this work is the study of not only soil microbiological parameters but also indicators of plant well-being, since negative changes in the soil microbiome are not always reflected in cultivated plants. Unfortunately, the presentation of the material somewhat complicates its perception, therefore, it needs significant improvement.
General Comments: The manuscript contains a significant number of typographical errors. It is necessary to check the entire text carefully, paying attention also to the case of letters (for example, lines 239, 291, 308, 332, 415) and the correct spelling of bacterial taxa.
specific comments.
1. Line 16. Abstract. The authors talk about the “influence of different tillage regimes”, but in fact, only the effect of loosening the soil is being studied, it is worth clarifying the proposal.
2. Line 38-152. The «Introduction» chapter is too long and unstructured, it needs to be rewritten more concisely and concretely, divided into separate paragraphs. There are few references to research in such generalizing phrases as “Studies have shown that long-term rotary tillage can worsen most soil quality indicators. These indicators include soil bulk density, water-stable aggregates, microbial biomass and extractable organic carbon, soil respiration and related eco-physiological indicators (lines 72-75) and further when describing the negative effects of long-term rotary tillage
3. Line 143-152. Rewrite this paragraph, it is unclear from it what was used for what. Perhaps some sentence is missing?
4. Line 153 "2. Materials and Methods". It is necessary to restructure, lower-order sections should be included in the main list (for example, 2.1 Test Design, 2.2 Collection of wheat root and soil samples, 2.3. Determination of soil physical and chemical properties, 2.4. Extraction and PCR amplification of soil microbial total DNA, and so on). Check the numbering of the sections.
5. Line 293 "2.1 Soil physical and chemical properties of different treated soil profiles (0~100 cm)" and further throughout the chapter "3. Results" - correct the numbering of subsections.
6. Line 338-340. Perhaps it is better to put Figure 2 in Supplementary Materials
7. Line 369. "2.3. Soil bacterial diversity index of surface layer (0~20 cm) under different treatments" Usually, when describing a bacterial community, first describe the structure of the community, and then the diversity. Perhaps it would be better to swap the sections "2.3 Soil bacterial diversity index of surface layer (0~20 cm) under different treatments " and "2.4 Bacterial community composition in surface layer (0~20 cm) of different treatments "
8. Line 385. " Principal component analysis was used to compare the diversity of soil bacterial community β between samples under two tillage methods, as..." it is better to write "β-diversity"
9. Line 399. "Table 1. Comparison of alpha diversity parameters in different treatments " change to α -diversity
10. Line 408 . " At the bacteriophylum level, a total of 44 bacterial groups were detected in all the..." Instead of «bacteriophylum», it's better to just «phylum»
11. Line 420-421. "However, the relative abundance of Acidobacteria, Spomonas, Fusobacteria, Verrucomicrobia and firmicutes was significantly..." check the spelling of phylum names. Is there a mistake in the word "Spomonas"?
12. Line 463. "68/5000" - what do these numbers mean?
13. Line 470, 474, Table 2, 515 – the names of bacterial genera (Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Serratia) should be written in italics.
14. Line 503 Table 3 In my opinion is not very informative. It must either be removed or moved to Supplementary Materials
15. Line 531, Table 4. Presenting information in the form of a heat map would make the information presented more visual.
16. Line 562 "4 Discuss" - "Discussion" would be better. Correct the numbering of the subsections. In addition, here you can add the authors' opinion about the prospect of using subsoiling in practice, about the possible negative/positive consequences of its long-term use.
17. Line 684. "5 Conclusion". Remove the division into paragraphs, rewrite more concisely, summarizing the general conclusion from the entire work.
18. The reference part should be checked carefully and use the consistent format.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
