PONE-D-25-20429Season, wind speed, and seasonal rain are major drivers of a regional sediment transport modelPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kulmatiski,

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.

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

Dear Authors,

We have received two reviews of your manuscript, both highlighting minor revisions to be made. The primary concern raised by the reviewers is the need for more detailed explanations in the Methods section.

Additionally, we encourage you to strengthen your argument in the Discussion and Introduction sections, particularly in emphasizing the novelty of your contribution.

Please ensure that all necessary corrections requested by the reviewers are incorporated into your revised manuscript.

We look forward to receiving your updated submission.

Sincerely,

Academic Editor

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

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 05 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.

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PLOS ONE

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8. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.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:

Dear Authors,

We have received two reviews of your manuscript, both highlighting minor revisions to be made. The primary concern raised by the reviewers is the need for more detailed explanations in the Methods section.

Additionally, we encourage you to strengthen your argument in the Discussion and Introduction sections, particularly in emphasizing the novelty of your contribution.

Please ensure that all necessary corrections requested by the reviewers are incorporated into your revised manuscript.

We look forward to receiving your updated submission.

Sincerely,

Academic Editor

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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:  Summary: in this study, the authors tested several statistical models to explain the variance observed in a dataset of aeolian (horizontal) sediment fluxes measured from 2004 to 2018 in a network of 52 masts of sand traps located on the Colorado Plateau (USA). They showed that the use of a random forest statistical model instead of a regression tree allowed explaining 91% of the variance in sediment transport vs. 58% before. Increasing sample size (adding 4 years of measurements) did not improve the results so does adding information on soil moisture, grazing condition or soil roughness. The random forest model developed by the authors allow classifying the parameters that explain the variance observed in the dataset with wind speed being the primary determinant of sediment transport, followed by soil moisture.

Major comment:

The study proposed by Kulmatiski et al. is of interest because it discusses the interest of using random forest statistical models to explain the variance observed in large dataset and gives insight on how to optimize its use. It also gives advice on the requirements of future networks to analyse aeolian sediment transport at landscape scale. The manuscript is well organized and written. All findings are supported by the results presented in the study. However, some clarifications in the Materials and Methods section are needed.

For all these reasons, I recommend to consider the publication of the present manuscript submitted to PLOS One after questions listed below have been addressed.

• Minor comments:

Title and running title should be revised to precise that sediment transport concerns only wind erosion.

ABSTRACT

l. 42-44: Not sure to understand the sentence. The word “and” should be removed, shouldn’t it? Please revise.

INTRODUCTION

l. 62-65: the authors are imprecise. Wind speed is not an aerodynamic force. Here, the authors must refer to drag or lift. In the same way, soil moisture, soil crusts and vegetation structures are not forces that oppose soil particle removal. Here, the authors must refer to cohesive forces such as capillary forces or chemical binding forces. This sentence must be revised.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.2 Sediment Transport Monitoring

l. 144-145: the authors chose to use two levels, 50 cm and 100 cm. In Flagg et al. (2014), it is stated that “We report sediment flux additively as the sum of sediment flux at 50 and 100 cm.” Is it the same here? Please specify.

l. 149-151: in Flagg et al. (2014), it is stated that “Sediment samples were sometimes collected with de-ionized water if the traps were filled with water, and later freeze dried to remove the water. Samples were weighed to within 0.001 g (Denver Instruments Microscale, Denver, CO)”. Here, another protocol was used. Please explain why or correct.

2.5 Soil Moisture Modeling

l. 191-192: why did the authors assign a value of 50 cm for plant height and a value of 1 for leaf area index. Please explain.

2.5 Data Analyses

Section number is incorrect and must be changed to 2.6

l. 212: the authors should refer to Table 1. Please verify.

l. 224: please define VIMP.

RESULTS

3.1 Sediment Transport

l. 241: why did the authors average data at 50 cm and 100 cm whereas Flagg et al. (2014) summed the values? Please explain.

l. 242: what is the interest to present the averaged value of sediment transport on 11 years and 52 sites considering the large scales of variations both in time (meteorological conditions) and space (different landscapes)? Please explain.

3.3 Random forest and regression tree models

Section number is incorrect and must be changed to 3.2

l. 273-274: the authors state from Figure 6 that “sediment flux increased as soil moisture at 30 cm increased.” Please, elaborate: give numbers, is it significant?

DISCUSSION

l. 300-305: the authors should temper their words as the model they had designed is specific to the region where it was developed. Please, rephrase.

REFERENCES

l. 408-411: this reference is misplaced and must be moved after Ballatyne et al. (2011).

l. 419-421: Belnap et al. (2009) is not cited in the text. To be removed. On the other hand, Belnap et al. (1997) cited l. 365 is missing and must be added in this section.

l. 446-447: Crawley and Nickling (2003) is not cited in the text. To be removed. On the other hand, Crawley et al. (2003) cited l. 342 is missing and must be added in this section.

Flagg et al. (2023) cited l. 84 is missing and must be added in this section.

l. 461-462: Floyd and Gill (2011) is not cited in the text. To be removed.

Fryrear (1986) cited l. 132-133 is missing and must be added in this section.

l. 468-469: Gillette (1979) is not cited in the text. To be removed. On the other hand, Gillette et al. (1997) cited l. 75 is missing and must be added in this section.

l. 474-476: Goldstein et al. (2010) is not cited in the text. To be removed.

l. 488-491: this reference is misplaced and must be moved after Hoover et al. (2021).

l. 492-494: please check the spelling of Hoffmann, written Hoffman when cited l. 102.

l. 510-517: Lemos and Lutz (2010), Li et al. (2007), and Li et al. (2013) are not cited in the text. To be removed.

Miller et al. (2006) cited l. 160 is missing and must be added in this section.

l. 546-548: Saha (2003) is not cited in the text. To be removed.

Simunek et al. (2008) cited l. 181 is missing and must be added in this section.

l. 558-559: Tchakerian (2014) is not cited in the text. To be removed.

l. 572-573: Webb & Strong (2011) and Webb et al. (2019) are not cited in the text. To be removed. On the other hand, Webb et al. (2011) cited l. 60 is missing and must be added in this section.

FIGURES

Figures 2 to 4: please add ticks on the y-axis for clarity.

- Some typos:

l. 160: replace “eta al.” by “et al.”.

l. 299: replace “Bruiec” by “Brieuc”.

Reviewer #2:  The authors used 52 horizontal sediment flux and tested several approaches to compute sediment transport induced by wind and correlated with other variables such as soil moisture and land cover. They used random forest statistical analysis to improve results and made comparisons against a previous study using a regression tree.

The authors presented a good introduction, establishing what limitations they wanted to overcome and what goals they wanted to achieve. As a continuation of previous works, the authors have given the correct credits, but sometimes they forgot to provide more details of the methods. The results are consistent with the methods, but the presentation can be improved. Also, in the discussion part, more detais are needed to clarify the results.

Comments:

• Line 109: Include the reference to Fig 1 after “study area”,

• Line 122: Remove the link

• Lines 191-192: You need to explain why you made those assumptions.

• Line 198: “(F1,3813 = 3382, p < 0.05, R2 = 0.47).” what are these variables and what do they mean?

• Line 202: “While we primarily rely on random forest analyses”… It is important to give some brief explanation about these methods cited in this paragraph.

• Line 242: “of 6.96 ± 26.09”... What happens when we have 6.96 – 26.09? is it possible? What means this large SD?

• Line 247: 3.1 and 3.3, what about 3.2?

• Lines 262-265: what is the log sum? what is the partial dependence plots?

• Lines 327-332: References! Is it possible that when soil moisture at 30cm is increasing the soil moisture at 5cm is decreasing? Do you also reflect that simulated soil moisture presented a low R2 and the uncertainty is higher than the correlation between sediment transport and soil moisture?

• Figures 2-4: What is A, B, C D, etc.?

• Figure 6: I did not understand it. Figure 6 - wind (could be 'a') peak occurs for 2.5. You need to explain what are the axis putting units. Overall, the figures and their captions are not self-explanatory.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-25-20429R1Season, wind speed, and seasonal rain are major drivers of a regional aeolian sediment transport modelPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kulmatiski,

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 Oct 16 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.

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: 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,

Jamil Alexandre Ayach Anache

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

1. If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 

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:

Please, check Reviewer #1 final comments.

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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)

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

**********

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

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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: I thank the authors who answered all my comments convincingly.

However, there is still a mistake in the manuscript in l. 146 and in l. 248. Indeed, in Flagg et al. (2014), it is stated that “We report sediment flux additively as the sum of sediment flux at 50 and 100 cm.” In the answer the authors made to one of my question in the first round of review, they confim that they used the sum of 50 and 100 cm measurements, as in Flagg et al. (2014). Unfortunately, in l. 146 and l. 248, it is still written that the authors used the average of sediment transport from 50 and 100 cm heights. This must be corrected before the manuscript is suitable for publication in PLOS One.

Reviewer #2: (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

Reviewer #2: No

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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.

Season, wind speed, and seasonal rain are major drivers of a regional aeolian sediment transport model

PONE-D-25-20429R2

Dear Dr. Kulmatiski,

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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager®  and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support .

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,

Jamil Alexandre Ayach Anache

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

**********

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: (No Response)

**********

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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