Post-Extraction Novel Ecosystems Support Plant and Vegetation Diversity in Urban-Industrial Landscapes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a good article on very interesting theme and in process of development. Please check references. Summary could be complemented, it does not indicate the all conclusions of the article. I think the article can be approved with major revisions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

• Please add paragraph related to vegetation diversity in the introduction.
• Material and methods are not clear, how did you collect the data, is there any reference? like author just mentioned Based on the published data and own records, the lists of species covering the mineral post-excavation site were prepared.
• Figure 4 is very confusing please mention the X-axis (title) and y-axis (title), because author mentioned T, R, etc which are ambiguous. Please revise.
• Line 265; The assemblages of living organisms, not separated species individuals, are directly interacting with the abiotic habitat patchy conditions. Diversity species composition of the diverse community patches reflects the complexity and nested one within another plays a crucial role 268 in enhancing resistance to habitat disturbances and biotic transformation such as invasion 269 of alien species, please strengthen with recent and potential references like DOI: 1007/s11356-021-12649-8 and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.117957.
• Please revise the conclusion section.
• Please split the conclusion.
• Please mention the limitations of the study.
• Please provide complete acronyms.
• Revise all grammar issues, comprehensive English proof-read required and revise the references.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Introduction:
The introduction section is relatively good; however, there are some spaces for authors to enhance its quality further, which are as follows:

Improve the introduction by inserting more information about the changes in the surface of the landscape sites left after the mineral resources excavation and why it provides specific mineral oligotrophic habitats for plant species and vegetation.

 

Materials and Methods

In this study, the plant species and vegetation records have been recorded during the study focused on the analysis of the diversity of spontaneous vegetation patches on post-coal mine heaps and sedimentation pools.

Therefore, it must determine the plant species and vegetation that recoded on post-coal mine heaps and sedimentation pools?

 

Results

Figures 2 and 3 are not apparent to the reader.

The authors did not mention the species of agriculture weeds, salt marsh, fringe vegetation, grasslands and forests that are founded in heaps, subsidence reservoirs and sedimentation pools. They only mentioned the percentage.

 

 

 

Discussion

The discussion section must be presented under certain subtitles as the authors did for results. As the authors presented their results under certain subtitles in Results, they suggested developing subtitles under the Discussion section.

But my main concern is that the authors did not explain why the dominant species in socio-ecological groups within the heap area.

 

conclusions

It is very long, and must insert the main findings

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper by Woźniak et al. highlights the importance of new ecosystems after excavation for maintaining plant and vegetation diversity in the urban-industrial landscape. In general, the paper is correct, the writing is easy to understand, especially in the introduction and discussion sections.
In my opinion, few minor corrections will be necessary before the manuscript can be considered for publication:

1- Change the format of Figure 4, if there would be another way to represent the information it will be much better. There are too many graphs and the information to be conveyed is not well understood.

2- Use a standard in the references, for example there are some dates that are in bold and others not. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

 The authors improved the paper according to my comments.