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Thank you for addressing all the reviewer comments. One reviewer and myself agreed that it is ready for publication.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Dezene Huber, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
We've received three helpful reviews for this article. Please respond to each of their concerns, especially around some of the framing of the article. There are good suggestions for how to have better alignment between questions and methods here.
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-Lines 76-84: These information are quite broad. Please provide the specific studies which mentioned about undisturbed soil cause more stable of soil bacteria community. For example, this study [doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1285445] [doi: 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2019.101020].
- Methods section is lacking several data. For example, soil physical and chemical properties (only soil texture is no enough), weather data, cultivated field (What crops were cultivated?), and so on. How depth of soil samples were taken for texture analyzing? and for soil bacteria? How many soil samples were collected for each analysis? What method was used to determine soil bacteria?
-Lines 285-287: What kind of grasses tolerate to high disturbance?
-Lines 287-293: Please explain more details about grasses and soil properties. Moreover, grassland was the most soil erosion-resistant and high organic carbon content [doi:10.1007/s11104-004-0907-y] [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2022.106595]. Please also add more discussion.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
- Please do not use “we” in the academic papers. Revise throughout manuscript.
- Conclusions section is missing.
- Key words are missing.
The paper provides valuable insights into how past land-use practices and mowing affect plant diversity in old fields. The paper is promising but requires revisions.
Abstract
Briefly summarize the key findings and emphasize their novelty. For instance, you could highlight how your study clarifies the differing legacies of grazing vs. cultivation on plant community diversity and succession.
The author work emphasizes biodiversity and reforestation, it might be useful to briefly connect your findings to broader ecological themes like ecosystem services or resilience in the face of climate change.
Introduction
Clarify the concept of "passive reforestation" early in the introduction to ensure all readers understand its significance to your study.
Link disturbance regimes to agricultural practices more directly, explaining how past land use influences successional trajectories in abandoned fields.
Strengthen the transition between theoretical succession models and your study by emphasizing how your research contributes to understanding land-use legacies in temperate forest ecosystems.
Methods
Provide more detail on how the 60 m² plot was chosen and the criteria for selecting sub-plots. Were the sub-plots randomly distributed, or was a systematic sampling method used?
The technique for estimating the number of plants in the Poaceae family could be described more clearly. For example, state how many plants were counted in a quarter of the sub-plot and why this specific approach was chosen (e.g., for accuracy or efficiency).
For the NMDS analysis, it would be helpful to mention any transformations or data standardization applied before ordination, and to briefly explain why these methods (e.g., Bray-Curtis distance, ANOSIM) were chosen.
Results
The results mention Poa spp. as the most common plant at both sites. It would be helpful to explain why Poa spp. is important in the context of succession or disturbance, especially since its abundance appears central to your findings.
In the NMDS section, it would be helpful to briefly explain the biological or ecological significance of the clustering results. For example, you could mention how the closer clustering of grazed site sub-plots suggests less variation in plant community composition compared to the cultivated site.
Discussion
While you mention that mowing may exacerbate land-use legacy effects, it would be helpful to explicitly highlight how mowing acts as a disturbance that either slows or arrests succession. Consider revising to something like: "Our results suggest that annual mowing, by reducing pioneer species and limiting woody plant recruitment, may inadvertently reinforce land-use legacies and prevent natural succession from advancing."
The broader ecological implications of your findings could be more directly tied to global change issues. Consider ending the discussion with a statement like: "Given the increasing prevalence of disturbance regimes under global change, understanding their impact on old field succession is critical for land management strategies, particularly in regions where biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration are key priorities."
The authors present a well written manuscript, clear and concise, aiming at understanding the influence of historical agricultural practices on plant communities of old fields. The overall structure of the manuscript corresponds with the format of the journal. Authors did a good job synthesizing results from relevant literature.
However, the manuscript has the following issues regarding the scope of the study:
The most important aspect I observed is the inconsistency between the main topic, the hypothesis and the data availability. The main topic presented in the introduction is the effect historical practices on forest recovery. However, the studied sites are still treated as agricultural fields, mowed every year. Given that fields are mowed every year it does not seems logical to expect progress toward forest recovery. One suggestion to improve the manuscript is to clarify why are the fields still mowed and to focus the introduction and the whole article on grassland communities and less about forest recovery.
Also, reconsider your Hypothesis in lines 106-108, to align with your aim and data. Your hypothesis focuses on the historical practice (cultivated site has experienced more intensive soil…., compared to grazed sites). However, based on your study, your hypothesis is a historical fact that could explain differences between fields, but you do not have data to test that hypothesis. Your hypothesis should be stated regarding differences in successional trajectories of the two fields. Also, reconsider the alternative hypothesis that forest resilience overshadows past legacies. If sites are mowed, it does not seem possible to consider forest recovery as an alternative hypothesis.
You could provide additional information regarding species that you would expect to observed in a site that is under recovery, from existing literature. Are the species you found , non-native invasive shrub and invasive vine, good indicators of that?
Please check the use of simple present and simple past active voice. Authors used both interchangeably. It would be good to pick one for consistency.
The main question and study design is clearly stated (see my comment above regarding the focus of the manuscript). The authors compared plant communities of two old fields. One site was historically used for grazing and a second site was historically used for cultivating annual crops (hay and corn). They established 16 (0.25 m2) subplots as study units in each field to collect species richness and abundance. They also established soil type, elevation, drainage from existing maps.
One big flaw of the study design is that the authors used subsampling plots as study units. These study units are technically replicates of one study unit for each treatment, one grazed and one cultivated field. This has major limitations for statistical analysis as well as to consider the influence of other environmental variables, which most were found to have no influence.
Therefore, I suggest reconsidering this study as a case study, not a research article, if considered for publication in this journal or elsewhere.
The methods for analysis are reasonable for the purpose of the article of comparing two plant communities. However, in all the analysis performed here there are limitations given the study design, namely using subsample as study units. Also, I could not find the results of the generalized linear models.
I made smaller comments in the pdf attached.
Most of the information was provided. However, there are mayor flaw in the design that should be reconsidered. Also, I could not find results of generalized linear model (line 199-201).
I have concerns regarding the main result that grazed site have made better progress in forest succession that cultivated ones. Most of the species they found are pioneer, intolerant species, non-native invasive plants, typical of old pastures and crop fields in both studied sites. Therefore, it seems risky to discuss the implication of their result on forest recovery, or succession trajectories (for example, in line 272, authors stated that mow may have been low enough to allow succession to proceed). However, there are no single species present that would suggest progress toward forest recovery. All the woody species found were two non-native invasive shrubs (Frangula alnus, typically invading grasslands and prairies of the US), and Vitis vinifera, and an invasive native vine. It seems most appropriate that the author discussed their finding regarding grasslands communities.
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