PONE-D-22-17572Rotations improve the diversity of rhizosphere soil bacterial communities, enzyme activities and tomato yieldPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Jiang,

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. 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 paper is interesting but there are few points that should be revised before publication. The authors should indicate which statistic test they have used to analyze the results (indicate p value also). In general the paper is written in a good English, but more references could be added to support the text. In particular, references in English would add value to the paper. There are ten references in Chinese, please find and include other references in English to support your sentences.

In the discussion section, you should not repeat the results without further discuss them. I think you should revise the discussion section trying not to repeat onlythe results (for example, have a look at lines 311-315)

Keywords: I suggest to use keywords that are not included in the article title. In this way it is probable that more people are reading your paper.

Line 31: “Lysobacterium” is rarely used in the literature. In order to avoid misunderstandings I suggest to replace it with the more used and known “Lysobacter”.

Line 74: please add references about tomato-rice and tomato-xerophyte crop rotation.

Lines 75-77: add references to support this sentence.

Lines 158-159 Specify the concentration of the sodium phenol solution and of sodium hypochlorite solution used.

Figure 4: if possible, please insert a bigger legend to the figure. The current legend is too small and difficult to read.

Lines 258-259: “TY3 had the highest level of activity.” What are you referring to in this sentence? Are you referring to catalase or sucrase? Please specify.

Lines 260-261: “[…] indicating that the arrowhead-tomato rotation could increase soil fertility.” I think that this sentence should be part of the discussion session. Moreover, you should include more data supporting this sentence to be able to arrive at this conclusion.

Lines 267-269: These sentences should be part of the discussion section.

Table 2: Please specify what are the numbers in the table and if they have a unit of measurement. In addition, I suggest to represent the table graphically. This would help the reader to understand quickly the results. Please, specify also the statistic test you used to analyze the data.

Figure 5 and Figure 6: Please specify which statistic test you use to analyze the data.

Figure 6: What is the difference between (e) and (f) ? They are both “Total soluble sugar content”.

Line 325: replace “benefit” with “beneficial”.

Lines 341 - 345: Can you find references to support these sentences that are not in Chinese language?

Lines 356 – 357: “Nitrate is an important quality indicator of vegetables.” Please include references to support this sentence.

Lines 361 -363: This sentence assumes that sucrase is an indicator of soil fertility. Please include references that support your assumption (possibly in English).

Lines 367 -368: I do not understand how this sentence correlates with the rest of the text. Please rephrase and add a reference in English.

Reviewer #2: Rotations improve the diversity of rhizosphere soil bacterial communities, enzyme activities and tomato yield

The agronomic crop rotation technique involving alternating different agricultural species on the same plot of land to rebalance the cultivated soil's biological, chemical and physical properties is crucial, especially with the increase in soil marginality.

The work presented concerns the experimentation of two types of plant species cultivated in alternation with tomatoes. The authors focused their activity on evaluating variations in microbial communities, soil enzyme levels and tomato yield in monoculture compared to rotation with eggplant and arrowhead.

General comments:

The manuscript is well structured. Both materials and methods and the results/discussion are detailed and precise.

Specific comments:

ABSTRACT

Lines 24-26: …" tomato-tomato continuous cropping (TY1), eggplant-tomato (S. melongena) rotation (TY2) and arrowhead-tomato (Sagittaria trifolia-Solanum lycopersicum) rotation (TY3)." Please standardize the descriptions. For example: tomato-tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) continuous cropping (TY1), eggplant (Solanum melongena) -tomato rotation (TY2) and arrowhead (Sagittaria trifolia)-tomato rotation (TY3).

Lines 37-39: "Altogether, compared with the tomato monoculture, the rotations of tomato with eggplant and arrowhead shifted the rhizosphere bacterial communities and improved the yield and quality of the vegetables." Does the increase in yield refer to all three species?

Experimental design

It would be very interesting to insert some pictures of the crops. Is it possible?

Line 128: …" Among them, arrowhead was grown in moist culture." What do you mean by moist culture? In hydroponics? Also, it would be helpful to have pictures of the growths.

Soil sampling

From the description of the sampling, it seems to me that the rhizospheric soil was considered but not the roots. Haven't you considered evaluating endophytic bacteria as well?

RESULTS

Line 244: "3.3. Distribution curves of soil microbial abundance among different planting modes". Perhaps the paragraph number should be removed?

Fig. 4: The legend at the top right in figure 4 is too small and hard to read.

Fig. 6: The graphs e and f (Total soluble sugar) appear to be a duplicate of the same data. Is that so?

And also, I suggest better detailing the caption

Final comment:

Even if English is good, I suggest a language revision to fix some problems.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Elisabetta Franchi

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Rotations improve the diversity of rhizosphere soil bacterial communities, enzyme activities and tomato yield

PONE-D-22-17572R1

Dear Dr. Jiang,

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.

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Kind regards,

Raffaella Balestrini

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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

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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: Yes

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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: Yes

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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: (No Response)

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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

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