PONE-D-24-08804Prescribed fire regimes influence responses of fungal and bacterial communities on new litter substrates in a brackish tidal marshPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dao,

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. Analyzing the manuscript and the revisions made from the two anonymous reviewers, I believe that the manuscript (ms) has good scientific quality to be published in PLOS ONE. However, the length of the ms turns its readability extremely hard and confusing. I recommend the reduction of size manuscript according to the suggestion of the reviewers. A completely agree that the methods section should be reduced considerable and due to the amount of data and the consequent interpretation, the merge of the results and discussion section will be very helpful.

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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: Yes

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: This is a very interesting study that deals with the changes in litter subtract dynamics, fire regimes and impact on microbial and fungi communities.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time those variables are sutided in coastal environmental.

The manuscript is scientifically correct and discussion and conclusions are inline with the obtained results.

My main concerns are not related with the science produced by the authors but with the readability of the manuscript.

I had to read it seven times for making this revision because the amount of data, and methodologies are so extended that the reader will lose very easily the fluidity of manuscript.

I believe that before this manuscript should be considered for publication, a profound revision should be done in order to reduce the length of the manuscript. !! pages of methods is undoublty to large. The number of figures and the length of the results section is enormous and this turns the discussion very confusing. I will suggest merge the results and discussion sections.

I will be happy to review the revised version of this manuscript.

The quality of the science deserves this revision.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled "Prescribed fire regimes influence responses of fungal and bacterial communities on new litter substrates in a brackish tidal marsh" by Dao et al. presented the effects of litter types in different fire regimes and litter loads on microbial community composition and changes over time in the context of frequent tidal inundation in a coastal brackish marsh.

This study investigates the impact of different fire regimes on microbial communities, specifically focusing on fungal and bacterial families, within coastal marsh ecosystems, and could be summarized in several key points:

1) Fire Regimes and Microbial Communities: Different fire regimes (e.g., frequency and intensity of fires) had substantial and similar impacts on both fungal and bacterial indicator families and their community compositions. The changes in microbial communities followed distinct developmental trajectories over time depending on the fire regime.

2) Disconnection from Plant Communities: Despite the influence of fire regimes on microbial communities, these changes were not directly correlated with variations in plant communities, indicating a decoupling of plant and microbial community responses to fire.

3) Role of Litter Loads and Tidal Inundation: Variations in litter loads due to different fire regimes led to differences in sediment accumulation, which is influenced by tidal inundation patterns. These sediment differences potentially affect microbial community structures.

4) Interaction with Tropical Cyclones: The study suggests an interactive effect between fire regimes and tropical cyclones, both of which contribute to substrate heterogeneities. Such substrate heterogeneities can alter the composition of microbial communities, which in turn may affect the accumulation of fine fuels and influence subsequent fire events.

5) Implications for Ecosystem Management: Understanding how microbial communities respond to fire regimes and tropical cyclones is crucial for the management of coastal marsh ecosystems. These insights can help in predicting and mitigating the impacts of fire and extreme weather events on these ecosystems.

In summary, the study highlights the significant influence of fire regimes on microbial communities and underscores the complexity of interactions between fire, cyclones, and tidal processes in shaping coastal marsh ecosystems. These findings are important for developing effective management strategies aimed at preserving the ecological balance and resilience of these environments.

However, the manuscript presented a vast study where several number of variables were studied at the same time, leading to an extremely big document to read. Therefore, readers may feel a little lost when faced with so many variables to be considered and discussed simultaneously. Sometimes it becomes difficult to read from beginning to end without getting lost in the middle. Maybe the authors should considered to reduce the manuscript (see comment bellow) in order to present a more easier reading and comprehensive one.

In general, the manuscript is very well written, and the sections are very complete according to the proposed. Material and Methods section is extensively well explained with all the sub-sections indicated very detailed. I suggest to reduce a bit this section in order to reduce the size of the manuscript. Too much detail is not necessary in the main manuscript and could be in a supplementary support file.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Prescribed fire regimes influence responses of fungal and bacterial communities on new litter substrates in a brackish tidal marsh

PONE-D-24-08804R1

Dear Dr. Dao,

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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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,

João Canário, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The manuscript was greatly improved with the revision. The authors made it smaller and focuses on the essential concepts, results and discussion. I still believe that the merge of the results and discussion session would make the work more readable but I accept the comments of the authors concerning this subject and the ok from both reviewers. 

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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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 authors made a strong effort to reduce the size of the manuscript and make it more readable. The revision version has much better quality that the initial one. I still feel that merging the results and discussion section would improve the fluidity of the paper but I accept the arguments from the authors.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript was successfuly updated and the improvements were very well done. Nevertheless, the authors created a support file with all the information that could be useful to readers but that does not necessarily need to be in the main text, which was a good choice. The new improved version of the manuscript presented a main text which has been reduced considerably and all suggestions, questions and doubts raised by the reviewers have been considered and responded accordingly.

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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

Reviewer #2: No

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