the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 29 Feb 2024
Coupling relationship between soil properties and plant diversity under different ecological restoration patterns in the abandoned coal mine area of southern China
Abstract. Understanding the effects of ecological restoration in abandoned coal mine on soil and plant is important to improve the knowledge of ecosystems evolution and facilitate taking appropriate ecological restoration management practices. This study aims to evaluate the coupling relationship between plant diversity and soil properties after ecological restoration in abandoned coal mine area. The plant diversity and soil properties were investigated in four sites of different ecological restoration patterns in Fengcheng county, a typical coal- rich area in the history of southern China. The results indicated that: 1) the PSR (Pinus massoniana and Schima superba gardn restoration) site had higher Shannon-Wiener index and Simpson index values than PR (Pinus massoniana restoration) site, and in herb layer, the plant diversity was significantly higher than other layers; 2) in the PSR site, the soil properties were improved more notably than that of PR and NR (nature restoration) sites, and the plant diversity were also better than PR site; 3) Clay, SOM (soil organic matter), and MBC (microbial biomass carbon) made a great contribution to the plant diversity. It was concluded ecological restoration patterns had significant effects on soil nutrient content and plant diversity, and there exists evident coupling relationship between plant diversity and soil properties. This study has important effects of ecological restoration and management in abandoned coal mine area.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-305', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Mar 2024
The authors aim to investigate the effects of different ecological restoration approaches on plant diversity and soil properties and the relationship between these. The design of the study is not valid as the authors compare different approaches with a "control" (unaltered natural vegetation) - and while the restoration approaches started 10 years prior to the sampling, natural vegetation has been growing for more than 20 years. Data from the starting point of the restoration is not available, therefore no information on the condition of the soils prior to restoration is given, this means it is not known how soil properties differed prior to the restoration.
In general, the quality of the English is not sufficient - the use of definite/indefinite articles and plural/singular is often not correct. Due to the lack of correct grammar, the meaning of sentences is several times hard to understand. The choice of references seems completely random (see details below for the Introduction). The authors need to carefully revise each single given reference and make themselves familiar with common citation rules. In addition, the authors neglect important publications in this context and do not reference basic literature. Taking all of this into account, I stopped my detailed review after the Material and methods-section as this is no scientifically sound work (see more details below).
As the study design is not appropriate, the English is not sufficient, and the referenced publications seem to be chosen randomly, I suggest to reject this manuscript.
Abstract
You should first clearly define the aims of your study and its setting, name your methods - and afterwards recap your results.
l. 17 Please check: "in AN abandoned coal mine" or "in abandoned coal mineS"
l. 20 What do you mean by "coupling relationship"? This is redundant.
l. 23 What do you mean by "in the history of southern China"? Please be precise.
l. 24 It is common to first write out the complete term and then introduce the abbreviation in brackets afterwards.
l. 24 Do you mean Schima superba gardn. & champ.? Please be precise.
l. 26/27 The plant diversity was higher than other layers or was it higher than in other layers?
l. 29 What do you mean by "plant diversity were (sic) better..."?Introduction
l. 39/40 What do you mean by "the exploited of coal accounts for one-third..."?
l. 40 Goa et al., 2021 is not a valid reference here.
l. 41 "China is the largest country..."? - Do you mean "China is the largest producer of coal?
l. 41 "the mainly energy source"?
l. 43/44 These references investigate restoration after coal mining - they do not study resources and China's role.
l. 45/46 Again, the references do not fit here. For instance, the paper of Babi Alenar et al (2019) "investigates and selects landscape ecology techniques that can be used by planners to assess the effects in terms of changes in habitat loss, fragmentation and ecological connectivity due to expected land use changes." - there is no investigation of the effects of coal mining.
l. 51/52 Ahirwal and Maiti (2018) investigated the effects of revegetation.
l. 53 Xie et al. (2023) do not investigate economic development and/or dependencies of coal mining, but the effect of coal mining on soil microorganisms.
l. 55 Wang et al. (2022) themselves give another source for this information and are not a valid reference here.
l. 57 Same here, please reference the original sources.
l. 59 "...is a main measure to maintain the stability of the ecosystem"? How should it be possible to maintain something that was destroyed by coal mining?
l. 61 If this point has been highly valued by many researchers, name more than one study. Moreover, the study of Ismaeel and Ali (2020) deals with eco-rehabilitation plans for cultural heritage buildings and has no connection to mining areas.
l. 70 Neither the work of Kaiser-Bunbury et al. (2017) nor of Lu et al. (2022) is related to coal mining areas.
l. 72 Pathak et al. (2020) name specific sources for this claim and Sun et al. (2021) do not investigate aesthetic value or social economic benefits.
l. 73 Which property?
l. 75/76 Which soil properties are conducive to the maintenance of plant diversity? Be precise. And give a more basic reference - the connection between several soil properties and plant diversity is known for far longer than since 2019.
l. 78-80 Same here: give basic publications in this context. The given examples are highly specific and not useful in this general statements.
l. 83 Soil nitrogen and phosphorus limit the growth of vegetation?!
l. 88 Why do you give a reference here that deals with imaging spectroscopy and not with the underlying science of the soil-plant-connection?
l. 89/90 The given references do not fit here.
l. 91 While the references do not fit here, this statement is just not true.
l. 95 You should give a basic reference for each index here.Materials and methods
The applied methods need to be described in more details, more references (and fitting ones) are needed.
l. 129 Pietrzykowski (2014) works with Pinus silvestris and none of the named species. The respective species are even not named in his publication.
l. 132 What do you mean by "same vegetation restoration year"? Please be precise.
l. 139 "ground vegetation inv"?
l. 140-143 This description needs to be more precise.
l. 153 What do you mean by "quartet method"? Please explain.
l. 155 What kind of sieve? Which physical and chemical properties? How?
Table 1 You have ten years of restoration for any treatment, but more than 20 years in the so-called control. How do you deal with this?
l. 161 Zhang et al. (2011) is not the original source.
l. 190 Liao et al. (2014) name Bao (2000) as the respective source for their method for the determination of available P - and it is a different method.
l. 192 Dong et al. (2018) is not a valid reference for this method - the authors did not even apply chloroform fumigation.
l. 197 This should be "Pearson's..."
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-305-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-305/egusphere-2024-305-AC1-supplement.pdf
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-305', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Apr 2024
The authors aim to evaluate the coupling relationship between plant diversity and soil properties after ecological restoration in abandoned coal mine area. The plant diversity of arbor, shrub, and herb layers, and the soil properties were investigated in four sites of different ecological restoration approaches. The manuscript is meaningful and can give some lights on the ecological restoration of abandoned coal mine. But there some specific point that need to be resolved.1. The authors should further refine the language as there are some typos and grammatical errors present, such as line 139, line 197....2. The abstract should explain the research method and then discuss the research results.3. Line 83: Soil nitrogen and phosphorus limit the growth of vegetation? Please verify the accuracy of this description!4. Materials and methods: the experimental investigation design needs to be more detailed.5. All abbreviations used in the manuscript should be defined in full at their first appearance, regardless of whether they are commonly recognized. 6. Line 430-433: the words “abandoned coal mine area” are repeated and should be deleted.7. The “Discussion: 4.3 Coupling relationship between plant diversity and soil properties” lack of depth, the relationship between soil properties and plant diversity can be discussed in detail.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-305-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-305/egusphere-2024-305-AC2-supplement.pdf
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-305', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Mar 2024
The authors aim to investigate the effects of different ecological restoration approaches on plant diversity and soil properties and the relationship between these. The design of the study is not valid as the authors compare different approaches with a "control" (unaltered natural vegetation) - and while the restoration approaches started 10 years prior to the sampling, natural vegetation has been growing for more than 20 years. Data from the starting point of the restoration is not available, therefore no information on the condition of the soils prior to restoration is given, this means it is not known how soil properties differed prior to the restoration.
In general, the quality of the English is not sufficient - the use of definite/indefinite articles and plural/singular is often not correct. Due to the lack of correct grammar, the meaning of sentences is several times hard to understand. The choice of references seems completely random (see details below for the Introduction). The authors need to carefully revise each single given reference and make themselves familiar with common citation rules. In addition, the authors neglect important publications in this context and do not reference basic literature. Taking all of this into account, I stopped my detailed review after the Material and methods-section as this is no scientifically sound work (see more details below).
As the study design is not appropriate, the English is not sufficient, and the referenced publications seem to be chosen randomly, I suggest to reject this manuscript.
Abstract
You should first clearly define the aims of your study and its setting, name your methods - and afterwards recap your results.
l. 17 Please check: "in AN abandoned coal mine" or "in abandoned coal mineS"
l. 20 What do you mean by "coupling relationship"? This is redundant.
l. 23 What do you mean by "in the history of southern China"? Please be precise.
l. 24 It is common to first write out the complete term and then introduce the abbreviation in brackets afterwards.
l. 24 Do you mean Schima superba gardn. & champ.? Please be precise.
l. 26/27 The plant diversity was higher than other layers or was it higher than in other layers?
l. 29 What do you mean by "plant diversity were (sic) better..."?Introduction
l. 39/40 What do you mean by "the exploited of coal accounts for one-third..."?
l. 40 Goa et al., 2021 is not a valid reference here.
l. 41 "China is the largest country..."? - Do you mean "China is the largest producer of coal?
l. 41 "the mainly energy source"?
l. 43/44 These references investigate restoration after coal mining - they do not study resources and China's role.
l. 45/46 Again, the references do not fit here. For instance, the paper of Babi Alenar et al (2019) "investigates and selects landscape ecology techniques that can be used by planners to assess the effects in terms of changes in habitat loss, fragmentation and ecological connectivity due to expected land use changes." - there is no investigation of the effects of coal mining.
l. 51/52 Ahirwal and Maiti (2018) investigated the effects of revegetation.
l. 53 Xie et al. (2023) do not investigate economic development and/or dependencies of coal mining, but the effect of coal mining on soil microorganisms.
l. 55 Wang et al. (2022) themselves give another source for this information and are not a valid reference here.
l. 57 Same here, please reference the original sources.
l. 59 "...is a main measure to maintain the stability of the ecosystem"? How should it be possible to maintain something that was destroyed by coal mining?
l. 61 If this point has been highly valued by many researchers, name more than one study. Moreover, the study of Ismaeel and Ali (2020) deals with eco-rehabilitation plans for cultural heritage buildings and has no connection to mining areas.
l. 70 Neither the work of Kaiser-Bunbury et al. (2017) nor of Lu et al. (2022) is related to coal mining areas.
l. 72 Pathak et al. (2020) name specific sources for this claim and Sun et al. (2021) do not investigate aesthetic value or social economic benefits.
l. 73 Which property?
l. 75/76 Which soil properties are conducive to the maintenance of plant diversity? Be precise. And give a more basic reference - the connection between several soil properties and plant diversity is known for far longer than since 2019.
l. 78-80 Same here: give basic publications in this context. The given examples are highly specific and not useful in this general statements.
l. 83 Soil nitrogen and phosphorus limit the growth of vegetation?!
l. 88 Why do you give a reference here that deals with imaging spectroscopy and not with the underlying science of the soil-plant-connection?
l. 89/90 The given references do not fit here.
l. 91 While the references do not fit here, this statement is just not true.
l. 95 You should give a basic reference for each index here.Materials and methods
The applied methods need to be described in more details, more references (and fitting ones) are needed.
l. 129 Pietrzykowski (2014) works with Pinus silvestris and none of the named species. The respective species are even not named in his publication.
l. 132 What do you mean by "same vegetation restoration year"? Please be precise.
l. 139 "ground vegetation inv"?
l. 140-143 This description needs to be more precise.
l. 153 What do you mean by "quartet method"? Please explain.
l. 155 What kind of sieve? Which physical and chemical properties? How?
Table 1 You have ten years of restoration for any treatment, but more than 20 years in the so-called control. How do you deal with this?
l. 161 Zhang et al. (2011) is not the original source.
l. 190 Liao et al. (2014) name Bao (2000) as the respective source for their method for the determination of available P - and it is a different method.
l. 192 Dong et al. (2018) is not a valid reference for this method - the authors did not even apply chloroform fumigation.
l. 197 This should be "Pearson's..."
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-305-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-305/egusphere-2024-305-AC1-supplement.pdf
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-305', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Apr 2024
The authors aim to evaluate the coupling relationship between plant diversity and soil properties after ecological restoration in abandoned coal mine area. The plant diversity of arbor, shrub, and herb layers, and the soil properties were investigated in four sites of different ecological restoration approaches. The manuscript is meaningful and can give some lights on the ecological restoration of abandoned coal mine. But there some specific point that need to be resolved.1. The authors should further refine the language as there are some typos and grammatical errors present, such as line 139, line 197....2. The abstract should explain the research method and then discuss the research results.3. Line 83: Soil nitrogen and phosphorus limit the growth of vegetation? Please verify the accuracy of this description!4. Materials and methods: the experimental investigation design needs to be more detailed.5. All abbreviations used in the manuscript should be defined in full at their first appearance, regardless of whether they are commonly recognized. 6. Line 430-433: the words “abandoned coal mine area” are repeated and should be deleted.7. The “Discussion: 4.3 Coupling relationship between plant diversity and soil properties” lack of depth, the relationship between soil properties and plant diversity can be discussed in detail.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-305-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2024/egusphere-2024-305/egusphere-2024-305-AC2-supplement.pdf
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Wenbo Chen, 30 Apr 2024
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