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Dear Dr. Wang,
It was a pleasure to see all the modifications and effort the authors made reviewing this very interesting work on C, N, and P concentrations and stoichiometry of tree, shrub, herb, litter, and soil pools in secondary forests in the Qinling Mountains. I reiterate here along with the two reviewers the positive recommendation they made about it. This paper meets now the criteria to be published in PeerJ.
Sincerely,
Gabriela Nardoto
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Dezene Huber, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
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The authors have incorporate changes to reflect most of the suggestions provided by the reviewers. It is accepted to be published in PeerJ.
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The author modified some problems in the manuscript and improved the quality of the manuscript. The revised manuscript meets the requirements and criteria of the Journal.
Dear authors,
This manuscript reports C, N, and P concentrations and stoichiometry of tree, shrub, herb, litter, and soil pools in secondary forests in the Qinling Mountains. The three reviewers were quite positive about the manuscript. Most of the reviewers’ concerns were related to the English editing, some literature updating and the presentation of the discussion.
Therefore, whether the authors would be able to provide a new version of the manuscript that incorporates the reviewer's concerns they will have an improved version of it potentially being a well worth paper to be published in PeerJ.
Here are some specific points stressed below that should be seriously taken into account:
1. The objectives proposed and the scientific significance of the manuscript need to be further condensed and summarized along with the text.
2. please improve the way the data were presented. It needs a more robust analytical treatments.
3. the whole discussion section could be improved.
4. please take into consideration every minor comment made by reviewers 1 and 2 in the pdf files attached.
5. Every other specific point highlighted by the reviewers should be carefully addressed.
Sincerely,
Gabriela Nardoto
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review comments are addressed in a rebuttal letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. It is a common mistake to address reviewer questions in the rebuttal letter but not in the revised manuscript. If a reviewer raised a question then your readers will probably have the same question so you should ensure that the manuscript can stand alone without the rebuttal letter. Directions on how to prepare a rebuttal letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/ #]
This article reports C, N, and P concentrations and stoichiometry of tree, shrub, herb, litter, and soil pools in three secondary forest types in the Qinling Mountains of central China.
The results presented were not particularly novel, so I felt that some of the background/context was over-explained.
The authors pointed out in the introduction that these types of studies are often done on only one stock or in only one forest type, and effort should be made to make connections between these, but I think the authors could have done a better job of tying it all together themselves.
The hypotheses given were so vague; it made this seem like an exploratory study.
The results could be better articulated.
The figures and tables were good.
I don't think that specific, valuable hypotheses were given with a solid reason for this study.
I did have some questions as I read the methods, but they seemed generally well thought-out.
The authors may want to provide a citation or more detail about lab methods to facilitate reproducibility.
I think this article might benefit from embracing the fact that these results are not presenting a lot of new information. By couching these results in similar results from around the world, in different species, in different ecosystems, this study could advance us towards finding global patterns.
The conclusions given were just a recap of the discussion. I think this section could use some work.
Please see attached document for additional general and specific comments.
This manuscript cited from references in relevant field. I found several format mistakes in the references: genus and species names should always be italicized, the authors did well in the Material & Method section, as well as in the supplementary material, but the authors should double check the format in the References section.
The raw data is presented in a very neat way, please format the ‘percentage’ in Tables 2,3,4. The first letter of ‘Net’ were hidden in Tables 3 and 4.
Explain what are ‘DBH’, ‘BM’, ‘BCM’, ‘CM’ abbreviation for in caption for table.
Some terminologies should be checked, for example, ‘storage characteristics’ in the Background section; ‘plant layers’ in line 30; ‘stoichiometric characteristics’ in lines 89-90, 'undersoil' in line 270.
Some grammatical errors and inconsistency issues could be corrected, for example, “stoichiometric ratios’ and ‘storage’ in line 22.
The objectives are clear and the experimental design fulfil the requirements in order to achieve them. However, the two hypotheses should be revised. Additionally, the third objective in this manuscript is the implication of the result, rather than the objective.
The introduction section is not attractive enough, the novelty should be highlighted, for example, this study maybe the first study to compare stoichiometry ratios and concentrations of C, N and P in different component in three forest types. I use 'maybe' because I don't have expertise in forest research.
My suggestion for the data analysis is to do liner regression or Pearson’s correlation to see C, N and P in plant organs are stoichiometric correlated with C, N and P in soil or not. This would improve the novelty of this manuscript, and to me, it’s more related to Ecological Stoichiometry Theory.
Please add references in the Method section.
In the results section, present with quantitative data. Also, summarize the results section, and please highlight just the significant difference, for example, in line 234, ‘no notable difference’ means significant or non-significant?
In the Discussion section, avoid repeating results, for example, in lines 332-334, lines 358-360.
I found a couples of long sentences in this manuscript, it's not easy to understand, it’s better to shorten into simpler ones, for example, in lines 325-328, lines 447-451.
The article entitled “C:N:P stoichiometry and nutrient storage at the ecosystem level in different secondary mixed forest types in the Qinling Mountains, China” is an interesting study about the stoichiometry ratios and stocks of carbon and nutrient in different component at the ecosystem level, and the study were conducted at three secondary mixed forest. However, to my view, the data presented was insufficiently treated and the discussion and could be improved. Still some comments present in the attached PDF file. For these reasons, I can only refer this work for publication after major revision.
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The references of physical and chemical index determination methods should be supplemented
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Based on the Qinling Mountains, this paper studies C, N, and P concentrations and nutrient storage in trees, understory plants, litter, and soil layers in three mixed forest secondary forest , which can provide important theoretical basis for the rational management of secondary forest.The experimental design of this paper is reasonable, the data is detailed and reliable, the analysis is rigorous and the discussion is clear, but there are still some problems.
1.The three research objectives proposed in the introduction are simple, and the scientific significance of the article needs to be further condensed and summarized.
2.Relevant references should be supplemented for the temperature, precipitation and other parts in the study site description.
3. Is the collected litter sample decomposed?
4.Why the soil samples were not collected according to the occurrence layer of forest soil?
5.The meaning of the letters in the charts in the supplementary materials shall be explained, such as Fig. S1 and table S2
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