Dear Dr. Ruan,

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:  The study is interesting while the manuscript has some problems as suggested by the reviewers. The authors should respond to the comments of the reviewers one by one and revise the manuscript accordingly. The revised manuscript would be sent to the reviewers for further reviewing.

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

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Academic Editor

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?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #1: This study was designed to study the impact of N deposition on urban forest soil respiration and soil properties. The authors selected two sites in a city in China, and measured soil respiration and its components, along with other soil properties under three N addition rates (to simulate N deposition) over one year. They reported these values and found that N additions significantly influence soil respiration but had different impacts in summer and winter. N addition influenced soil nutrient status, thus, influenced soil heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration.

I this this study provides some useful data for soil respiration in urban forests, as these data were relatively less reported compared to natural or managed forests. However, the manuscript was poorly written, with many awkward sentences. It was verbose and lengthy and needed to be thoroughly revised. I strongly suggest the authors to find a native English speaker or an editing company to edit the manuscript. The tables and figures need to be self-explanatory. Detailed captions should be provided. I recommend the authors read some published papers and see how the Results section was written. I recommend Major revision.

Specific comments:

The manuscript lacks line number and page number. It would help reviewer to review it by adding page and line numbers.

Please use past tense to describe the results from this study.

Abstract:

The major results were not clear. Adding N increased soil nutrients is not new and important. Please provide new and important results from this study.

Change nitrogen concentrations to nitrogen addition rates

The addition of high concentration nitrogen …: how about the soil respiration change under this condition?

“… and the results were significantly different”. It is not clear here. Significantly different among N additions?

The correlation coefficient R2: R2 is not correlation coefficient, but coefficient of determination.

Introduction:

At present, some studies believe that NA can promote soil respiration and thus reduce soil carbon

Content: I think the general consensus was that N addition could reduce soil respiration, mostly due to reduction in soil pH.

Han Y analyzed: Was this correctly cited? Han (****)?

“Li Xet” should be “Li X et”

Host roots?

Molaei A M. et al. … to research parameters: land use and land use efficient. Why discuss land use change here?

End of introduction: Please add objectives of this study, and hypotheses.

The average temperature is maintained: how to maintain temperature?

NA (Nitrogen addition): NA is not a common abbreviation. I suggest just using “N addition”.

Materials and methods:

Research site:

Two sites were selected. Please use a table to illustrate the similarity and differences between them.

Fig. 1: This map is not very useful. Please move to Supplemental document.

Experimental area design: (how to design an area), change design to selection?

How were 50 gN m-2yr-1 and 100 g N m-2 yr-1 determined?

“the study area was divided into outer suburbs and outer suburbs.”: ?

“The measured respiration heterotrophic (RH) of the soil is subtracted from the soil environmental measurement value to accurately determine the root respiration value of the soil”: this sentence is not correct. What’s soil environmental measurement value?

Dividing the tree roots with plastic cloth: separating the roots?

The soil moisture was measured by drying method: Drying method is not a correct term for the method. It is called the gravimetric method.

“Statistical analysis is conducted by using software such as Excel, SPSS, and MATLAB. First, the collected statistical testing data are organized, using Excel software for data entry, preliminary organization, and basic descriptive statistical analysis. Then, SPSS software is used to perform correlation analysis, regression analysis, and analysis of variance on the data. Finally, the MATLAB software is used to model and visualize the data.” This part is data analysis and should be moved to Data analysis below.

“LSD (minimum significant difference method)”: Least Significant Difference. Please used the correct term.

3. Results

Tables 1 and 2. If p value is shown, there is no need to label * or **. What are factor 1 and factor 2. Please add notes to the tables.

Fig. 10: please add notes for the abbreviations.

Table 6: I don’t understand these values. How were these correction coefficients calculated between soil properties and N addition (3 values)?

Reviewer #2: This work assesses the effect of N addition (simulating atmospheric N deposition) on soil respiration. The effect of soil properties is also studied. All this in an urban forest. This has been widely studied in non-urban forests and, therefore, the novelty of the work is precisely the location of the study area. In this sense, the work could provide more knowledge of the functioning of the forest ecosystem in these areas subjected to greater anthropic pressure.

I had to make my revision in the file, as the manuscript lacks continuous line numbering and it is impossible to refer to any part of the document without a line number. All these comments and some more are included in the file attached to the authors.

General comments:

There are many comments and doubts that should be resolved before the manuscript is published. The material and methods section should be improved, regarding the number of samples used and measurements made, a better description of the soil, some correlation analysis is not well explained; in the results section, there is no table with the measured soil values (only the p-value is used), the properties of the soils of the sampling zones are not contrasted; the discussion of the results requires a greater contrast with the works of other authors.

All these comments and some more are included in the file attached to the authors.

- There are no working hypotheses

- The doses applied to simulate N deposition are very high compared to those used in other similar work (e.g., see Mo, J., Zhang, W. E. I., Zhu, W., Gundersen, P. E. R., Fang, Y., Li, D., & Wang, H. U. I. (2008). Nitrogen addition reduces soil respiration in a mature tropical forest in southern China. Global Change Biology, 14(2), 403-412).

- I suggest a more thorough review of the bibliography, since there are references closely related to the study that have not been used, and could be useful for a better discussion of the results obtained in this work.

Specific remarks:

- see attached file

**********

what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-51919_reviewer.pdf

Dear Dr. Ruan,

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:   The revised version has been improved a lot.  But the manuscript still has some little problems as suggested by the reviewer.

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

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 30 2025 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.

• 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 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: https://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,

Jian Liu

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.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #1: The authors made efforts and addressed most of my concerns. I find that English/presentation still could be further improved. For example, both past tense and present tense are still used to describe the results in this study and in the Materials and Methods section. A few suggest changes are listed for the abstract. I recommend minor revision.

L13: change “low-concentration nitrogen” to “low nitrogen addition rate”? replace all concentration to addition?

L14: decreased it

L15: delete “and the results were significantly different (p<0.05)”?

L17: decrease significantly

L19: change “Under these conditions” to “As a result”? delete the

L20: “high concentration nitrogen” is not a current term.

L22-23. Had. Delete “the coefficient of determination. R2 is close to 1”.

L25-28: This sentence needs to be revised. There is also a logic issue here. How could N addition influence soil heterotrophic and autotrophic respirations by affecting soil respiration, as soil respiration is the total of them?

L28. Missing “.”

L164-165: NH4NO3: subscripts. May be errors?

Fig. 1: Experimental design. It seems that Latin Square design was used in this study. But it is not clear whether this design was considered for ANOVA.

Reviewer #2: There are some small issues that remain to be clarified.

- Lines 19-20: units are wrong; missing per unit of surface (µmol m-2 s-1)

- Line 23: determination R2

- Line 58 – 59: Nitrogen addition

- Line 72: Hu et al.

- Lines 96 - 99: This sentence is similar to the one in lines 110-113; it would be convenient to unify both in a single paragraph.

- Line 124: kilometers

- Line 135: 18.52 kg ·ha-1·yr-1.

- Line 165: NH4NO3

- Line 175: Is the soil brought to the same bulk density as the soil was before excavation? How is it restored to its original structure? Some explanation in this regard should be provided.

- Lines 199 – 202: Revise this sentence because neither porosity, soil particle size, soil moisture nor bulk density are chemical properties of soil; they are physical properties.

- Line 212: Check this data because it seems strange that the soil has 80% organic carbon.

- Lines 222 – 223: although the two soil were similar texture, they showed significant differences in soil thickness, nutrient content, microbial community structure, and pH value

- 288: Results

- Figure 2: y-axis legend: �mol m-2 s-1 (also in figure 8).

- Line 341: figure b y-axis: Soil temperature �C

- Line 353: Table 2. Columns 3 (Water content) and 4 (Soil moisture), what is the difference between them?

- Line 381: figure 4, y-axis: pH

- Table 4: NO3NH4 orNH4-N?

**********

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

**********

[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

Dear Dr. Ruan,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 28 2025 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.

• 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 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: https://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,

Jian Liu

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

The revised version has been improved a lot.  But the manuscript still has some problems as suggested by the two reviewers. The authors should respond to the comments of the reviewers one by one and revise the manuscript accordingly.  

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #1: The manuscript still has many grammatic and presentation issues. Both past tense and present tense are still used to describe the methods in the Materials and Methods section and results in this study. I found that ANOVA might not be correctly conducted, as one-way ANOVA was used (L276), but Latin Square design was used in this study (L171). There are also many other issues such as units and style. I just listed a few below. The authors need to carefully check the whole manuscript and make substantial revision.

Specific comments:

L20: high nitrogen addition

L22-23: “, the coefficient of determination”: Delete this part.

L25: change “can promote” to promoted

L25-28: This sentence is too long. Please revise it.

Please check units and use them consistently. For example, meter or m, Kg /hm2 or kg hm-2.

L113: km or kilometers?

L116: mm?

L137: why 10 m not 10 meters?

L145: “Licensing Agency: Nanjing Forestry University)”: I don’t understand this part. Delete it.

L150-151: why both g per square meter per year and g m-2 yr-1 were used?

Please use past tense to describe the methods and results of this study.

L162: After removing …

L163: change are to were.

L163-171: please change to past tense.

L172: change are to were.

L172: “where the levels of each factor are systematically assigned to the experimental units,”: I don’t think this is a correct description for Latin square design.

L200: “Soil temperature was … using the Li-8100 respirator”: which sensor was used for soil temperature measurement? Li-8100 is for soil CO2 measurements, not temperature.

L228: “A respiration apparatus (Li-8100 produced by Li Cor in the United States)”: This is not a correct description for soil respiration instrument. Please check a published papers on the use of Li-8100 and company.

L273-273: this sentence was duplicated (L270-271).

L269-283: The data analysis is a mess and needs to be totally re-organized.

L284: 3. Results. Delete analysis.

I did not check the other parts. The authors need to thoroughly check the whole manuscript.

Reviewer #2: I thank the authors for their responses to my comments and doubts about some aspects of their work. After this first review, a few minor changes are listed:

- Lines 19-20: The units are not correct. Please, use the following: µmol m-2 s-1.

- Line 20: The results indicated that high addition of nitrogen had a…

- Lines 21-23: Soil moisture content and temperature had significant effects on soil respiration rate, especially in the suburban test site.

- Lines 105-106: the following hypotheses were proposed: 1) N-addition has different effects 106 on RS in different seasons, and 2) N-addition can affect soil pH a…

- Line 198: the pH value, soil moisture and nitrogen content of the pre-treated soil sample should be evaluated.

- Line 268: In this section you should include the factors to be analyzed and the levels of each factor.

- Figure 3 a) y-axis: express it as soil moisture or soil water content.

- Table 2: Add units to water content and soil moisture.

- Lines 351-354: In my opinion, this paragraph is not well understood. Please rewrite it to make clear the difference you make between water content and soil moisture.

**********

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

**********

[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

Influence of nitrogen addition on soil respiration and soil properties in urban forests in Hefei city in China

PONE-D-24-51919R3

Dear Dr. Ruan,

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.

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Kind regards,

Jian Liu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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