PONE-D-20-33362

Effect of Land-use Practices on Species Diversity and Selected Soil Property in Somodo Watershed South-Western Ethiopia

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hailu,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Please incorporate the followings before I invite reviewers on the revised version of your manuscript

(i) Provide the site characteristics including slope, aspect, vegetation characteristics for each of the land-uses selected for the study.

(ii) Provide the original reference for the IVI

(iii) Correct the spelling of Jackson 1958

(iv) Provide the axis title for the Figure 3.

(v) Add a new section on the implication of the study

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 21 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Arun Jyoti Nath

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

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PONE-D-20-33362R1

Effect of Land-use Practices on Species Diversity and Selected Soil Property in Somodo Watershed South-Western Ethiopia

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Gemechu,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR:

A major revision has been suggested by the reviewer. Please revise it accordingly.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 03 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Arun Jyoti Nath

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript titled “Effect of Land-use Practices on Species Diversity and Selected Soil Property in Somodo Watershed South-Western Ethiopia” was reviewed and found that the authors have not written it with clarity. Grammatical and typographical errors are numerous to list. Scientific names of plant species need to written in italics. The manuscript is not suitable for publication in its current form. Authors are advised to revised it critically and resubmit. The following observations may also be addressed adequately while revising the manuscript.

P1 L10: “the” land-use practices.

P1 L12: ‘trail walk’ or ‘transect line’ instead of ‘transect walk’, (10 ×10) m2.

P1 L13, 14 & 15: “were sampled from plots exhibiting different land-use practices found in the watershed in order to evaluate species richness and diversity. Soil samples were also collected from each plot. The soil samples were analysed following standard laboratory procedures.

P1 L15:shows showed.

P1 L16:between among.

P1 L17 & 18: Coffea arabica was dominant in homestead gardens and natural forests while Giravilia robusta showed had maximum richness in plantations and farm forests in Somodo Waatershed.

P1 L19-21: There is a lack of clarity in interpretation and presentation of major findings of the study. Abbreviations need to be explained and results must appear before moving on to deductions. Please write full form of OC, TN and C:N in the abstract or in its first appearance. The abstract is completely descriptive, it requires to be written highlighting the key findings on species diversity, richness and soil parameters analysed in the study.

Comment on L 10-25: The abstract requires a grammatical check. Proper data-oriented results should lead to deductions and conclusions.

P2 L 26:several degrees various extents.

P2 L37:

• exacerbates aggravates

• This implies that the reversal of land degradation through better understanding of local proximate and underlying drivers.

P2 L40: to different degrees.

P2 L36-44: Implications of words like “that”, “these” are not clear. It shall be better if it is replaced by scientific terminologies or methodologies as the case may be.

P3 L 61: “in” the upper part of Dhidhesa catchment.

P3 L 72:account accounting.

P4 L 73 & 74:and the pH of the soil is rated as strong acidity. while the pH is found to be strongly acidic.

Figure 2: The content of the ‘description of study area’ do not reveal clear correlation between rainfall and temperature. Therefore, it is advised to use two separate frequency line graphs depicting patterns of annual rainfall and temperature (max & min).

P4 L 77 & 78: What is meant by “and agro-forestry practices”? It needs to be clarified in context to the prevailing land use practice.

P4 L 82: Capitalize ‘several’ to ‘Several’.

P4 L82-87: The paragraph requires careful grammatical check. The words ‘dominated’ and ‘conquered’ have been interchangeably used, which makes it unclear. Use of proper punctuations at the correct places is advised, the lack of which renders the sentence a different meaning.

P5 L 90:Maize maize.

P5 L94 & 95:their main source of income is gained from the selling of their main source of income is obtained from the sale of crops, fruits and livestock. The use of coordinating conjunctions is not clear in this paragraph.

P5 L 96-109:

• Field observations were held along a transect line with plots measuring (10 × 10) m2. was established along the transect line as the land-uses appear.

• Namely should be replaced by ‘viz.’

• Soil sampling technique using augar should follow some protocol.

P5 L 111: Since the term, ‘soil reaction’ has not been used before this; it is advisable to write it as ‘pH of soil’.

P6 L 114: This line mentions processes which require citation.

P5 L119: The use of “the” needs to be checked.

P5 L 121:‘Microsoft’ Excel ‘version?’.

P5 L122: General linier model generalised linier model.

P5 L 124: What is meant by “for windows”?

P5 L124: LSD is Least significant difference not list significant difference.

P5 L125: when they are significantly different (p≤0.05).

P 5 L 128:characterized categorized.

P 5 & 6 L 127-137:

• Scientific names need to be written in italics following taxonomic norms.

• Use of proper punctuations is required.

P 6 L 138-145:

• Proper framing of sentences coupled with the use of proper punctuations and a grammatical check is suggested.

• Also, look into the plagiarism of this paragraph.

• Singular and plural forms should be properly deployed.

Figure 3 should be better represented with a pie chart.

P 8 L 149-157:

• Grammatical check for this paragraph is suggested.

• Comparisons from figure 3 are not clear. Thus, proper use of wordings and punctuations are suggested.

P 8 L 158 – 164:

• Please mention the significance level of testing in line number 158-159.

• Use of proper punctuations is desirable in case of comparison statements.

P 8 L 165: Kindly mention the significance level for hypothesis testing.

P 9 L 173 & 174: Total Nitrogen (T.N.) did not exhibit significance difference (at level of significance?) among various land-use practices in the study watershed.

Table 1: Please maintain uniformity in alignment of data in table.

P 9 L 190:coffee ArabicaCoffea arabica.

P 9 L 191:Concerning this In contrast/ Compared to this.

P 10 L 197 – 198: Please write scientific names in italics following taxonomic norms.

P 10 L 204: The study suggests This study suggest.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-20-33362R2

Effect of Land-use Practices on Species Diversity and Selected Soil Property in Somodo Watershed South-Western Ethiopia

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Gemechu,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR: Please consider the reviewer comments and revise the manuscript accordingly

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 03 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Arun Jyoti Nath

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The revised version of manuscript ID PONE-D-20-33362R2 was reviewed and found that authors have improved it upto a significant extent possible. Authors are advised to correct scientific name of plant species in Figure 3 as well. All names must be written in italic.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Krishna Giri

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Effect of Land-use Practices on Species Diversity and Selected Soil Property in Somodo Watershed South-Western Ethiopia

PONE-D-20-33362R3

Dear Dr. Gemechu,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Arun Jyoti Nath

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: