Response of Aquatic Plants to Extreme Alterations in River Morphology
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review the text of the manuscript, with the detailed comments, where the following is highlighted:
- - Some errors in scientific names: no italics
- - Some paragraphs require more attention in the wording and/or meaning
- Line 131. I suggest estimating this index (Shannon y Simpson) according to how it was corrected by Jost (2006).
- Line 180. I suggest that you estimate the effective number of species (Jost, 2006) instead of Shannon or Simpson
- - In some paragraphs if it is necessary to write the plant genus again to facilitate reading
- Line 249. I suggest that you estimate the effective number of species (Jost, 2006) instead of Shannon or Simpson. That is, from both indices.
- Line 263. I suggest that you estimate the percentage of completeness of the inventory as a way to have greater certainty of the expected species richness.
- Line 279. Under what conditions would there be more or fewer species of bryophytes, according to other similar studies?
- In References: There are several errors, please review editorial guidelines
Detailed comments appear in the text of the manuscript
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID: water-1993728
Title: Response of aquatic plants to extreme alterations in river morphology.
The manuscript presents an interesting study of changes in morphologically altered rivers. The fact is that in European watercourses where the pollution with waste waters have been considerably well addressed and solved with WWTP, the regulations of the watercourses have become major problem. In many cases the ecological quality is poor despite the prevention of pollution. Moreover, in some countries further regulations of rivers are still planned. The publications dealing with the effects of alterations are needed. I recommend publication of this contribution, but after the corrections in accordance with provided comments.
I suggest explanations of the gradients displayed in the Figure 2. All three significant parameters displayed in the biplot are not exactly defined. Details are described below.
The findings about most frequent macrophytes are not clear. How is it possible that Lemna was so frequent in altered rivers, which usually have higher current velocities? This is also in the contrary with the abundance of rheophilic mosses discussed in the next paragraph. Were there two or more types of altered rivers- e.g. fast flowing watercourses with concrete substrate and wider channels with slow water?
Other comments:
Ln 15: scientific names are not in italics
Ln 18-20: Correct the second part of the sentence – it contains the word “and” three times.
Ln 41: I suggest inclusion of another recent work reporting the influence of alterations on macroinvertebrates: Zelnik & Muc 2020, Relationship between Environmental Conditions and Structure of Macroinvertebrate Community in a Hydromorphologically Altered Pre-Alpine River. Water doi: 10.3390/w12112987
Ln 43: geometry à morphology
Ln 50: light-tolerant is not suitable term for plants. Please correct. (e.g. heliophile)
Ln 50: the terms used for parameters are not in standard forms. I suggest corrections in the table and in the text:
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Correct form: |
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P-PO4 |
PO4-P |
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P-total |
TP |
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N-NO3 |
NO3-N |
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Nitrate is not equivalent to NO3-N |
Nitrate N |
|
N-NH4 |
NH4-N |
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N-total |
TN |
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Ammonia is not equivalent to NH4-N |
Ammonium N |
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|
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Ln 172: Elodea canadensis
Figure 2: All three significant parameters displayed in the biplot are not exactly defined. These gradients / parameters need additional explanations:
»Phosphorus pollution« ? Is this concentration of TP or PO4-P like it is presented in Table 1 ?
»Channel dimensions« ? Is this channel width ?
How is the parameter »Habitat modifications« defined ? Was this HMS ?
Ln 234: … 153 macrophyte taxa
Ln 266: … Phalaris arundinacea , Cladophora (italics)
Ln 266: How is it possible that Lemna was so frequent in altered rivers, which usually have higher current velocities? Do you have any measurements or estimates of velocity?
this is also in the contrary with the abundance of rheophilic mosses discussed in the next paragraph. Were there two or more types of altered rivers- e.g. fast flowing watercourses with concrete substrate and wider channels with slow water?
Ln 311: … early spring
Ln 329: … greater role… . I suggest: greater impact
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The text still has a few typing errors: italics and hyphens in the references, but after these minimal corrections for me the authors made the changes properly
