Effect of ‘Peatland-Use’ Type on Culturable Microbial Groups in Irish Peatlands in the Midlands

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript compared laboratory cultured microorganisms extracted from peat bog habitats. The study provides preliminary and limited information about microorganisms in different land use types. The topic is timely and has conservation significance. The data are important, however, the manuscript is poorly written and has many pieces of inaccuracy and incompleteness. However, after a major revision it could be published. I have many questions and suggestion detailed below.

I would like to ask the authors that if they response to one of my comments, please, add the line number of the modified text.

 

Abstract

Line 16: list the land use types!

Line 17: what is TSA?

Line 28: Write some conclusion!

 

Introduction

Lines 63-65: If there were several studies about peatland microbial communities, why did you emphasize the methanogenic organisms?

I really miss from this section the following information:

1. Why did you choose these microorganism groups? Why even PSB etc.? (line 88)

2. Why did you choose these land use types? You should write more about these habitats and about their relation to restoration.

Line 73: You write down a hypothesis but we still do not know, what you will study! At first, describe briefly the study, then you can hypothesize…

Lines 77-78: you are writing about restoration methods but you did not connect these processes with your study sites, land use types. Just do it!

Line 86-87: strange sentence

 

Material and Methods

The entire section is characterized by being very superficial and imprecise. There are many parts which must be completed.

Experimental setup and study sites: The study sites should be described more detailed. What is characteristic on these midlands (vegetation, precipitation, temperature, seasons etc.)?

The land use types or peatland use types should be described more detailed. What is a cutaway-rough grazing like? What are the main differences? Why are these types interesting?

Lines 99-100: this sentence is rather for the Introduction section. And line 101: a sentence with the same meaning.

Line 100: you should explain why you chose the April for sampling. You mentioned in lines 53-54 that season is an important factor for bacteria. Why April?

Figure 1: these pictures are about two land use types. Where are the other two one?

Line 129: these 10 strips cannot be seen in Figure 1.

Line 131: when the depth of soil was 0 cm, how could you take a sample?

Lines 144, 151, 162, 170, 184: agar or other medium plates must be described or cited from a resource. “Land” is not a microbiological journal, not all the readers know these media. But I think also in other journals, it is needed to describe the methods accurately. In this way, this method is not repeatable.

Line 146-147: You took 10 samples in each land use types. It summed 40 samples. Then you made 7 dilutions from each sample. When you counted the number of bacteria, you summed the bacteria from all these dilutions? How did you count? You should describe it! (At least at the statistical section!)

Line 154: “subcultured”: describe it more detailed!

Line 166, 188: Gram staining: what did you use?

Line 175: describe the halozone, why is it interesting?

Statistical analyses:

Line 209: what does “all the samples” mean? (see my previous related question!)

Line 209: what does “microbial data” mean? The number of determined groups? Describe it!

Lines 212-213: Consult a colleague who knows statistics!  ANOVA with Kruskal-Wallis?!

Line 213: what are “peat microbial data”?

Line 217: why did you use Friedman test?

 

Results

Table 1: You did not mention the results of the Table 1. You mentioned first in the Discussion section. If you have a relevant result, you have to mention it first in the Results section.

Line 221: cutaway or cut away?

Line 224: what number?

Line 226: you can write down the exact p-value.

Figures 2, 5, 6: it is not needed to write everywhere in the bar plot that “ns”. The asterisk is enough.

Line 364: This AB/TVB ration was mention here first. It should be also mentioned in Materials and Methods

Line 270: degraded

Section 3.3:  were these observations true for all the land use types? I cannot see here the comparisons between land use types.

Line 312: you can write down the exact p-value.

Lines 330-343: this part is a little bit strange in such a manuscript. This is a study about comparison of land use types based on number of bacteria and fungi, not a morphological description. If you want to leave this part in this manuscript, you should make some comparisons between the land use types.

Line 355: Figure

Line 359: you can write down the exact p-value.

Line 359-363: again: were differences between the land use types?

Lines382-385: these sentences are for the M&M section.

Line 386-387: it should be described earlier.

Line 402: why do you mention this iodine solution first time here? Why not in the M&M section?!

Section 3.7: the same problem as with the Section 3.3 and lines 330-343.

 

Discussion

Too long and containing much filler text!

Line 436-437: Table 1 contains information about sites not about laboratory cultures.

Lines 447-449: that is why it would be better to read about the characteristics of the four land use types…

Lines 459-460: lower than what?

Line 467: Did you know something about the organic matter of your study sites?

Line 469: more than others? Others what?

Line 470: yes, we also saw it in line 450.

Line 492: meaningless sentence.

Line 495: And?! Did you see something similar? You mentioned that the soil was 0-15 cm deep. Did you find some correlation between depth and fungi communities?

Line 498-501: this paragraph is about anaerobic conditions. Why do you write about aerobic microorganisms?

Lines 502-512: Did you find acetogenic or methanogen bacteria?

Line 519: It is very strange that we have to get to know just now that the semi-degraded bog is a Sphagnum rich site. Why not earlier?

Line 527-530: And do you plan any DNA based identification methods?

Line 534: redundancy…

Lines 531-539: what was the point of this paragraph?

Lines 540-543. These sentences are rather for the Introduction. We should read at first, why these groups are the focal groups.

Line 549: Discussion is not the section where new data should be written down. It is for Results. If you think this information important, take it into the M&M or Results section!

Lines 551-554: meaningless content… too much filler text…

Line 563: ecosystems

Lines 563-589: I do not think that this paragraph contain any relevant information for this manuscript… What can you tell about the Actinomycetes in your study sites? Why did you experience that pattern?

Line 590-598: and what kind of future studies can you imagine related to bog microbiology and restoration?

Lines 613-614: How? Give some specific ideas!

The English is okay.

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for the valuable suggestions and comments given. We have answered the comments and the response sheet is attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript named 'Comparison of culturable microbial groups present in selected peatlands in midlands of the Republic of Ireland: Effect of peatland use’ type on microbial consortia; a pilot study.' is well written. The result is interesting and make a contribtion to understanding the microbiota in peatlands.

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for taking the time to review our manuscript and giving wonderful feedback.

Reviewer 3 Report

 

Comparison of culturable microbial groups present in selected peatlands in midlands of the Republic of Ireland: Effect of peatland use type on microbial consortia; a pilot study

Dear Editor,

The authors have provided important information on the comparison of culturable microbial groups present in selected peatlands in midlands of the Republic of Ireland as well as effect of peatland use type on microbial consortia. Agronomic and ecological advantages can also be expected from this kind of work in organic farming which would be help to enhance the audience knowledge and minimize the study gaps regarding and protection of soil and plant health in terms of organic agriculture. The manuscript is organized and informative. But I am definitely will give some suggestions for the improvement of manuscript. I hope author will improve it. Anyway, authors needs some improvements and then accept it. 

General Comments

Ø  In overall manuscript, grammatical corrections are suggested. Furthermore, references are needed to be updated where required especially in the introduction part. In addition, unnecessary details of every portion in overall manuscript should be decreased keeping in mind the key points.

Comments:

1.      Abstract portion is quite good and informative. But I will recommend to author please add the few sentences in the start of the abstract as introduction, then leads to the objectives.

2.      Introduction need to improve with latest references. At this stage introduction is not enough and try to make more strengthen with peatlands studies, which is very important now days.

3.      Material and Methods: Author counted the fungal CFUs (colonies) after two or three weeks of incubation, how it’s possible, fungal colonies always overlap of damage after second week of incubation. Please check and verify again. (Line 153)

4.      In case of bacteria, I am not agreed with author, why author took too much time to count the bacterial CFUs, even for bacteria standard time is maximum 5 to 8 days in incubation at 25ºC. Please verify again and address my question (Line 164)

5.      Why author isolated only bacteria for phosphate solubilizing ability, and why not fungi. Even authors mentioned they got multiple Trichoderma spp. and Penicillium spp.  

6.      Results are almost fine, no need to change as per my knowledge.

7.      Some grammar and references should be updated in the discussion.

8.      Overall I am satisfied with the startup of discussion, but needs to add latest references and make better comparison.   

 

 

Best wishes 

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for taking the time to review our manuscript and giving valuable suggestions and comments which really shaped the revised manuscript into a better one.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript provides information on a specific study aiming to collect and compare data on culturable microbial populations from peatlands types and use them for peatland restoration measures.

The title partly expresses this content but even too wordy.

The article highlights a few national and international references relevant to the topic.

The manuscript is based on an extensive study, nevertheless, the practical justification of the demonstration of the possibility of microbial communities to act as an environmental measure for peatland restoration is not complete.

The study is quite complete, except for the description of the (peat)land use types. More accurate denomination of them is also essential.

The tables and figures are self-explanatory and well edited except for Table 1.

The discussion of the results is well structured and sufficiently detailed citing relevant references.

The Conclusion part contains statements based on own results as well as some duplication. I suggest to extend this section with another sentence mentioning more concrete possibility of the extension of the results to other areas.

I inserted some sticky notes with my specific comments, questions and corrections in the pdf file of the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Minor corrections are required.

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for the taking time to review our manuscript and giving valuable suggestions which shaped our revised manuscript to a better one.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

thank you for your conscientious and careful work in correction of your manuscript. I am satisfied with your corrections, however, I have some further small comments.

Materials and Methods:

Comment 4: I suggest to add this information to the manuscript: other seasons were also investigated and they will be seen in a later study or something like this.

Comment 7: Does it simply mean that the soil depth was 15 cm? Your wording is strange.

Results:

Comment 1: You ignored my comment. I still suggest to mention the results of Table 1 in the Results section!

Comment 8: you should also mention this information in the text. 

Comment 10: This is the second comment that the Authors ignored. 

Results

Comment 13: the described information should be added to the text. I think it is important information in this comparing study.

Discussion:

Comment 17: It is not a problem that you mentioned here this infromation. My problem was that you mentioned here at the first time. All the relevant results should be also mentioned in the Results section.

Thank you for your cooperation!

 

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for the time and consideration in reviewing our manuscript. It really shaped our manuscript into its best form. 

We appreciate your feedback!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx