Plant functional traits determine latitudinal variations in soil microbial function: evidence from forests in China

Xu, Zhiwei; Yu, Guirui; Wang, Qiufeng; Zhang, Xinyu; Wang, Ruili; Zhao, Ning; He, Nianpeng; Liu, Ziping

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3333-2019

Articles | Volume 16, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3333-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3333-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 17

Research article

|

04 Sep 2019

Research article |

| 04 Sep 2019

Plant functional traits determine latitudinal variations in soil microbial function: evidence from forests in China

Zhiwei Xu, Guirui Yu, Qiufeng Wang, Xinyu Zhang, Ruili Wang, Ning Zhao, Nianpeng He, and Ziping Liu

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Final revised paper (published on 04 Sep 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 24 Jan 2019)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review note - Plant functional traits determined the latitudinal variations in soil microbial functions: evidence from a forest transect in China', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 Feb 2019
- AC1: 'Response to RC1', Zhiwei Xu, 17 May 2019
- AC4: 'Response to RC1', Zhiwei Xu, 17 May 2019
- AC5: 'manuscript with changed', Zhiwei Xu, 17 May 2019
SC1: 'review of paper', Shona Irvine, 26 Feb 2019
- AC3: 'Response to SC', Zhiwei Xu, 17 May 2019
- AC6: 'manuscript with changed', Zhiwei Xu, 17 May 2019
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “Plant functional traits determined the latitudinal variations in soil microbial functions: evidence from a forest transect in China” by Zhiwei Xu et al.', Anonymous Referee #3, 28 Apr 2019
- AC2: 'Response to RC2', Zhiwei Xu, 17 May 2019
- AC7: 'manuscript with changed', Zhiwei Xu, 17 May 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (19 May 2019) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Zhiwei Xu on behalf of the Authors (21 May 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Jun 2019) by Yakov Kuzyakov

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (25 Jun 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (28 Jun 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Considering reviewers comments, some parts were improved. However, some parts still have unclear points I think. Please reconsider following comments.

General comments

1. In previous comment I mentioned that “Please set more appropriate and clearer hypothesis”. And in this version, numbers of hypothesis increased from 3 to 4. I think multiple hypotheses might cause complex or complicated discussion and conclusion even in case two. In this version, authors added “information about the relationships between soil microbial communities and their functions in natural ecosystems is urgently needed” as necessity of this research after presenting 2 conflicting hypotheses. I agree with the opinion of field data-oriented validation’s necessity. But simple hypothesis or aim to conduct 4 testing is required. Moreover, in case conducting 4 testing, relation between these testing must be described. For example, in section 4.2, hypothesis 1 seemed to be described as counter hypothesis of 2. And these hypotheses should be integrated in conclusion. I could not find any comment about latitudinal variations in conclusion.

2. Title of this MS include “latitudinal variations”. And I mentioned as “I could not know about latitudinal distribution in soil microbial functions but comparison between forest and forest types”. In this version authors mentioned that “plant traits have more influence on soil microbial functions than climate” and if it is correct, I think title of this MS can be “Plant functional traits determine soil microbial function”. However, in this case, careful discussion must be needed. Does only MAT represent variation of climate? How do authors count indirect effect of climate (at least climate condition regulate forest type)? Etc. For example, in the paper of Tu(2016), their conclusion was not “climate is not main regulator” but “This study suggests that even microbial subcommunities follow general biogeographic patterns”. And they used several indexes reflecting latitudinal gradient.

Technical comments

1. (P2,L36 37 38) Meaning of intensities are not clear.
2. (P2,L39) What index do authors use as Plant functional traits and climate ?
3. (P3) Abbreviations needs climate conditions.
4. (P17,L462) Contribution of silt content is totally common.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (28 Jun 2019) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Zhiwei Xu on behalf of the Authors (31 Jul 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (13 Aug 2019) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Zhiwei Xu on behalf of the Authors (14 Aug 2019) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

Plant functional traits have increasingly been studied as determinants of ecosystem properties. While the relationships between biological community structures and ecological functions remain poorly understood at the large scale, we found that there was considerable variation in the profiles of different substrate uses along the NSTEC. The soil silt content and plant functional traits together shaped the biogeographical pattern of the soil microbial substrate use.