Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: NFIB PROMOTES THE MIGRATION AND PROGRESSION OF KIDNEY RENAL CLEAR CELL CARCINOMA BY REGULATING PINK1 TRANSCRIPTION
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The plots of 1H and 1I should be in the same format as they represent the same kind of data. In addition, 1I y axis says percent when the values shown are fractions

Line 263. How do the results “strongly imply strongly implied that NFIB promotes KIRC metastasis and progression by regulating the promoter of PINK1”? The authors should tone down and use terms like “suggests”
Experimental design: How did the authors perform batch correction for the RNA seq analysis?

How was the promoter transcription factor binding site analysis done? How was a promoter defined? For only the reference transcript or isoforms were also included? Was PINK1 the only gene showing NFIB binding sites? What is the “bioinformatics analysis” that showed the pathways enriched for PINK1? All of these should be in the methods and results section

Authors should also note that regulation goes beyond promoters, for example enhancers have not been analyzed
Validity of the findings: For figure 1B, I would suggest the authors use a color annotation to show the dataset of origin for each sample. This will also show if there is a batch effect if samples from the same dataset cluster together
Additional comments: Overall, the manuscript has improved. I would recommend that the authors improve the methods section to be more precise


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS IN QILIAN MOUNTAINS NATURE RESERVE OF EASTERN QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. Basic Reporting

The English used for writing this manuscript requires improvement. The authors conducted out this research in a scientifically accepted way; however, it lacks international interest. The finding reported are mostly of local interest. There are some differences with the commonly accepted definitions used in the western world. For instance, the concept of Soil Fertility that is included in the title does not matches with the concept studied in this paper..
.

The manuscript presents a list of appropriate references titled. However, most of then are in Chinese, and this reviewer could not confront them.
Professional article structure, figures, tables. Raw data shared.
The structure of the article conforms to a commonly acceptable format for reporting this type of research.

Figures are relevant to the content of the article; however, the resolution is not sufficient for publishing.  Figures titles are adequate.

The manuscript does not formally present the description of the hypotheses. They are self-contained in the objectives.
Experimental design: The research fulfills the scope of the journal. However, as previously indicated, its interest is located mainly in the area where the authors experimented.
Research question definition, relevance, and importance.

The research questions are relevant and meaningful for the local environment. It is explicit and legitimate, trying to understand the reason how the prairie soil fertility changes with position in the landscapes and affects its development and performance.  However, its interest is limited to the experimental zone and can hardly be extrapolated.  The most interesting aspect, that is, the use of the Nemerow method, no commonly used for soil fertility studies, it is not well explained.

The experimental procedures described are usually the ones employed in this type of research.  There is not an indication of unethical practices if conducted as described.

The chemical methods applied for conducting the soil analysis are not described at all (like avaialable-P)  or the described techniques are not those employed to study soil fertility.  It appears the authors  are using the total content of N, P, and K as soil fertility indicators incorrectly. The entire content of these nutrients is soil fertility indicators of the potential amount, but they are not of the indexes of the available source for plant growth.

This reviewer considers that the sampling procedure was not the appropriate one.  The spatial soil variability requires a more comprehensive sampling method.  If we take into consideration the size of the experimental units, more samples must be taken to have a complete picture of the spatial variability of the soil.
Validity of the findings: The impact and novelty of the reported findings are described, however the authors thinks that all potential lectors are familiarized with some of the Chinese developments.  These aspects has to be clearly explained.  The authors require to improve the discussion of some of their results.  In addition, The English .must be improved.

The statistic used is simple but appropriate.  A different planning of sampling activities could have improved the scope of the work.

There is not a good agreement between the objectives planned and the conclusions.  See comments on the attached letters to the Editors and the authors with commentaries.
Additional comments: Review
Soil fertility evaluation and spatial distribution characteristics of grassland in Qilian mountain nature reserve
Qiang Li Corresp., 1 , Junying Yang 1 , Wenhao Guan 1 , Zhigang Liu 1 , guoxing he 1 , Degang Zhang 1 , Xiaoni Liu 1

Comment 0  Line 1.  Soil fertility...... Please review the title. The parameters described are not commonly used to evaluate soil fertility.  Total N, P, and k are parameters used to describe the chemical characteristics of the soil
Comment 1.  Line 3. Check the way you wrote the name of one of the authors (guoxing he 1).
Comment 2: Line 10. Total N, total K, total P, and available K were graded at level 2 (high) or above with content of 4.99-131.52, 0.63-4.97, 15.36-21.72, 0.81-1.69 and 0.21-1.06 g kg-1 respectively for most regions. ………… For assessing actual soil fertility, the total content of any essential elements for plant growth prefers the use of the available fractions.  The purpose of determining the full content of a soil chemical component is mainly for chemical characterization. They are not directly related to nutrient availability for plants.
Comment 3. Line 14. The soil comprehensive fertility index was in a ranking order of Temperate steppe >Alpine meadow > Alpine steppe >Upland meadow >Alpine desert>Lowland meadow>Temperate Desert Steppe >Temperate Desert and the areas with high, medium and low soil fertility accounted for 63.19%, 34.24% and 2.57% of the total grassland area of Qilian mountain soil fertility for different grassland types had different main limiting factors.  …………  Hard to read sentence.  Plese rewrite or split the sentence into two and remove unnecessary words.  Use the active voice if possible.
Comment 4. Line 17. The grassland soil fertility of Qilian mountain was generally at the mid-upper level ……. The chemical tests performed are not the best indicators of soil fertility. Therefore, it is not easy to draw this conclusion.
Comment 5. Line 18.  Considering the main limiting factors of different type grasslands and spatial distribution, the typical pastures and meadows may need to apply acidic phosphate fertilizers, and desert grasslands to apply compound fertilizers of nitrogen and phosphorus to improve soil comprehensive fertility to improve grassland productivity………… Please consider phrasing this sentence in the following way:     The main limiting factors found in the different types of grasslands and spatial distribution, the typical pastures and meadows may need to apply acidic phosphate fertilizers, and desert grasslands to apply compound fertilizers of nitrogen and phosphorus to improve comprehensive soil fertility to improve grassland productivity
Comment 6.  Line 33. Soil organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, soil density, and pH are important components of soil fertility, while their content and spatial distribution directly affect grassland vegetation productivity (Wuest, 2015; Li et al., 2014)………. This reviewer only partially agrees with this sentence.  Even though N, P, and K are related to soil fertility, are their available forms which the authors must consider as directly related to an active concept of soil fertility.
Comment 7.  Line 33.  ……nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium…. available nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium….total content are part of the capacity component of the system.
Comment 8.  Line 33….. soil density and pH are important components of soil fertility, while their content… Please, revise
Comment 9.  Line 331-334. Hu S J, Hu R, Pu Y L, et al. 2018. Influence of ecological restoration on soil biological fertility in desertified 332 grassland[J]. Pratacultural Science. 333 Hua S, Li X, Jinting Z, et al. 2018. Evaluation of Heavy Metal Pollution in the Soils around the Brownfield Based 334 on the Modified Nemero Index Method[J]. Environmental Protection Science. …..   Incomplete citations.
Comment 10.  Line 291-292. Bao Y X, Xu M G, Li F T, et al. 2012. Evaluation Method on Soil Fertility Under Long-Term Fertilization[J]. scientia agricultura sinica,.  Incomplete citation and erroneous form to cite the authors.
Comments 11  Line 398- 300.  Wang G H, Ren J Z, Zhang Z H. 2001. A Study on the population diversity of plant community, in Hexi mountain399 oasis-desert area: General features. ACT A PRATACULTURAE SINICA, 10(1): 1-12….. You must be consistent in the way of citing.
Comment 12  Line 38   …… index method has been well recognized due to it it can avoid the influence…. Check your writing.
Comment 13  Line  289    An K, Xie X P, Zhang H Z, et al. 2015. Spatial pattern and impact factors of soil fertility in West Lake Scenic Area. 290 Chinese Journal of Ecology, 34(4): 1091-1096. (in Chinese) DOI: 10.13292/j.1000 -4890.20150304.020  ….. Too many articles in Chinese.  Cannot be checked properly.
Comment 15  Line  47-48.  Grassland ecosystem is the  largest ecological system in Qilian mountain natural reserve. …..   How large?
Comment 14  Line  52.  There are many types of grasslands in Qilian mountain… this sentence does not give much information.  Be specific.  which types of grasslands
Comment 15  Line  58. …….the aims of this study were to investigate the soil of  different type ???  grasslands in Qilian mountain natural reserve, 2) to analyze the distribution characteristics of soil fertility index ????, and 3) to determine the limiting factors for grassland soil fertility in Qilian mountain nature reserve, which can help to provide scientific insight for improving grassland ecological services.
Comment 16  Line 272.     Conclusions. The results of soil nutrients???? and their spatial distribution of grasslands in Qilian mountain showed that, except for the low-available P content, other nutrient indicators ????? had reached level 2, and above in China's second soil census standard, while soil bulk density was relative low and pH was relatively high (soil nutrient???). The soil comprehensive fertility index was in a ranking order of TS > AM > AS > UM > AD >LM > TDS > TD  (Do not use abbreviations in the Conclusions), and the areas with high, medium and low  soil fertility accounted for 63.19%, 34.24% and 2.57% of the total grassland area of Qilian mountain. The different type grasslands soil fertility had different main limiting factors ?????? The grassland soil fertility of Qilian mountain was generally at the mid-upper level  ??????. The appropriate management methods ????? should be adopted to improve soil fertility combining with the main limiting factors, to improve grassland ecological service function. …….These conclusions are not informative and are not quite in line with the objectives or aims proposed.
Comment 17  Line 88 .. 1.3 Sample analyses………………. Poor descriptions of the chemical methods.  If anybody would like to replicate this experiment could hardly replicates the same procedures.  Good description of the experimental condictions is the base of the good science.
Comment 18   Line  66 ….in the order of forest, shrub, grassland and desert. …… in the following  order forest, shrub, grassland and desert.
Comment 19  Line 67… At vertical direction, from low to high altitude…….. Provide the altitudes.
Comment 20  Line 68  The main types of soil are mountain gray cinnamon soil, subalpine meadow soil, alpine meadow soil and alpine cold desert soil. …….. Use WRB o Soil Taxonomy and the equivalent soils.
Comment 21  Line 77   The sampling time….. The soil sampling time???
Comment 22  Line 77   The central points……The central area…….???
Comment 22 Line 80.   ..…. each sample spot using soil drill at a…….. each sample point using soil drill at a…. Do you mean an auger or an electric drill??
Comment 23  Line 81  at a depth of 0-10 cm, 10-20……..do you mean at a depth increments of 0-10 cm, 10-20
Comment 25  Line 85   The four soil samples from each layer were mixed as one sample for that layer…. The four soil samples from each depth increment were mixed to compose one sample.
Comment 26  Line 79-84  Please rewrite your sampling desing. It is not clear.
Comment 27  Line 94   Total P was measured by Mo-Sb colorimetry ………  Error. The indicated colorimetric method measures the color of any form of P in solution.  This method does not measure total P.  For measuring total P you mast first destroy the soil matrix to place the P in solution.  The method you mention is for developing a color that is associated, according with the intensity of the blue color developed,  with the P concentration in a solution.
Comment 28  Line 96-98   Available P was determined by the Mo-Sb-Ascorbic acid colorimetric method after acid digestion (Nelson and 97 Sommers, 1996)………. Your concept of availability es erroneous.  You are not indicating a method to measure available P and you are reporting available P data ?????
Comment 30  Line 106   Table 2. Classification criteria used for soil nutrients …..  Soil C is not a nutrient.  You did not mention any method for determining organic carbon.  What you measured was readily oxidizing organic matter and estimated the organic C from these data.
Comment 31 Line 116   The improved Nemerow index method was used to…….  The authors do not provide the original paper with the method description.  Impossible to check..  Instead of information on users of the methods is presented.
Comment 32  116  Line The improved Nemerow index method was then used to evaluate the grassland comprehensively…..  Does the  previous sentence imply that other interpretation methods of soil fertility are not comprehensive?  The author must explain why they argued that the proposed way is better than the traditional ones.
Comment 33  Line 41.   This method is more accurate than many other interpolating methods and can also effectively avoids systematic errors……….. The authors should explain why this method is more accurate.
Comment 34  Line 144     There is note here… (Provide a reference here).
Comment 35.  Line 160   The total porosity was 35.36-58.83%... Provide significant figures only here and throughout the text.
Comment 36  Line xxx   The available P was 6.79-24.27 mg kg-1, with an average value of 12.81 mg kg-1 and a CV of 43.09%. The available K was 0.21-1.06 g kg-1, with an average value of 0.40 g kg-1 and a CV of 68.00%...... Information on how did you measured these parameters must be provided. The figures reported do not have any meaning if the method of determination is unknown.
Comment 37  Line 172   The soil fertility index for different type grasslands were shown in Table 5……. are shown…..
Comment 38  Line       Consider presenting the information given in this paragraph differently.  The present way is tedious and does not help to the understanding of the paper.
Comment 38  Line 189   2.3 Soil physical and chemical spatial distribution….. the maps are a nice way of presenting the results.
Comment 38  Line  202  The soil comprehensive fertility index…… the meaning of the soil comprehensive fertility index should be clearly explained.
Comment 38  Line 234.   Soil organic matter is closely related to soil fertility and soil health. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium provide essential nutrients for plant growth and development, and are the main components of soil nutrients……..   Soil organic matter content is closely related to soil fertility …… The available forms of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium provide essential nutrients…….
Comment 38  Line 236   The content of soil organic matter, total N, total P and available K were graded as level 2 (high) or above for Qilian mountain grasslands according to the classification of China second soil census standards… If the authors do not explain clearly the meaning of the Chinese classification, this information has scarce meaning. Is an arbitrary classification or is based on some previous correlation studies with planta productivity?
Comment 38  Line 236   The content of soil organic matter, total N, total P and available K were graded as level 2 (high) or above for Qilian mountain grasslands according to the classification of China second soil census standards, with content of soil organic matter, total N, total P and available K of 4.99-131.52, 0.63-4.97, 0.81-1.69 and 0.21-1.06 g kg-1 for most regions．Available P was graded as level 4 with the contents of 6.79-24.27 mg kg-1. ,,,,,,,,, This sentence is hard to read.
Comment 38  Line 240   Ours study found that the……..  Our study……. or our studies
Comment 38  Line  242   …..which means there was a background difference in the distribution of soil nutrients ….. there was a background difference does not have a clear meaning.
Comment 38  Line 245   The average soil bulk density of grassland in Qilian mountain was 1.01 g cm-3, with most of the area between 0.75-1.14 g cm-3. The grassland soil comprehensive fertility index of Qilian mountain decreases ……. This asseveration requires an interpretation.  Think on the role of root density in the grassland.
Comment 38  Line 251    The results of ours study indicated… …. The results of our studies indicated…….
Comment 38  Line 253-294.   Improve English.   There too many passive voices.  The passive voice is no incorrect, but most Editors prefer not to use this voice in scientific writing.
Comment 38  Line 255    More important than ranking the different types of vegetation is explaining why occurred the differences.
Comment 38  Line 251    The rational construction of comprehensive evaluation factors was the key content of comprehensive evaluation of soil fertility, which directly determined the rationality and objectivity of evaluation results …..   Wordy sentence.  Please review it.
Comment 39  Line 251    See Commrnt 16.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS IN QILIAN MOUNTAINS NATURE RESERVE OF EASTERN QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The article reports the results of a good study, but it needs improvement in many parts and would greatly benefit from English editing. In particular, the introduction, methodology, and results and discussion need to be revised and supported with more scientific literature.
Experimental design: The research question is relevant. Moreover, the design and methodology of the study are valid. However, the methodology needs to be added with more details. Specifically, the steps of the soil fertility evaluation need to be clearly stated. Also, more details should be given on the relatively less known Nemerow index which basically assigns ratings to selected soil properties. The study appears to have been carried out well.
Validity of the findings: The data appear to be of good quality although the interpretation should be improved. Likewise, the conclusions need to be revised to answer the objectives of the study. The results are relevant not only for the management of the grasslands in the Tibetan Plateau but also for our understanding of grassland ecosystems.
Additional comments: Comments:
Line 1: The title may be revised to “soil fertility evaluation and mapping of the grasslands in the Qilian mountain nature reserve in the Tibetan Plateau”.
Lines 6-23: The Abstract needs to be revised after the manuscript has been improved.
Line 30: This needs improvement. The authors may cite literature on the topic such as the paper by Wardle et al. 2004. Science 304: 1629-1633.
Line 32: Delete the word “reconstruction” which appears not appropriate
Line 35: Change soil density to soil bulk density
Lines 37-40: The widely recognized methods of soil fertility evaluation are soil test, plant tissue test, nutrient deficiency symptoms, etc. Please see Foth 1990. Fundamentals of Soil Science (8th edition).; Marschner. 1995. Mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants (2nd edition).; Jones 2013. Plant Nutrition and Soil Fertility Manual (2nd edition).
Lines 40-44: The Nemerow index is an indicator of soil fertility based on the soil test method. Correlation coefficient and principal component analysis are not methods of soil fertility evaluation.  Since the Nemerow index is not widely known and the reference cited Bao et al. (2012) is not easily available, it is important for this index method to be described in terms of its origin, principle, applications.
Lines 47-50: There have been a lot of publications on the use of GIS for soil evaluation. Aside from the Chinese studies cited, it would improve the quality of the manuscript if other international publications are cited. The authors may read Brevik et al. 2016. Geoderma 264; Liengsakul et al. 1993. Geoderma 60; Miller 2017. In: Soil Mapping and Process Modeling for Sustainable Land Use Management.
Lines 72-80: There is a need to include information on geology, soil classification (USDA or WRB), climate classification according to Koeppen.
Line 87: Is this grassland classification from China or is it an international one? Please cite references.
Lines 88-89: Change “sample line” to transect; change “sample site” to sampling sites; change “sample spots” to sampling points.
Lines 96-97: In Table 1, some scientific names have no authors; some authors of scientific names are inconsistently written (example: L. or Linn.). The names of authors of scientific names should not be italicized.
Line 111: Evaluation of soil fertility. There is a need to describe clearly the steps of the evaluation method used in the study. Please explain how the individual indicators are related to/used in the comprehensive evaluation. Please describe clearly the steps of the Nemerow index method so that the readers will be able to follow it.
Line 112: Is it soil organic matter (SOM) or soil organic carbon (SOC) as shown in Table 2?
Line 118: In the last column of Table 2, the “comment” should be changed to “interpretation”
Line 121: What is the “improved” Nemerow index method?
Line 124: “to eliminate the dimensional differences between the parameters” is not clear. What does it mean?
Lines 150-151: What is the basis or reference for these classes? (low, medium, high)
Lines 162-170: There is no need to mention all the values in Table 4. Just focus on the highlights or the most important results.
Lines 175-184: It would be more meaningful if it is stated clearly what grassland type has the lowest values of bulk density, etc., which have the highest values. Using all the symbols such as AM, UM, LM, etc. is not easy for the readers to understand.
Line 187: In Table 5, the note at the bottom should be in the same “column” not row.
Line 223: To identify the limiting factor, what should be the value of Fi in Table 6? Is it below 2.0? Is it below 1.5? Or is it just the lowest in a particular grassland type?
Lines 236-297: In the Discussion, there is a need to explain the choice of the soil properties selected. Why are total P and total K included although these two parameters are weakly correlated to their availability to plants? Please cite references to support discussion. There is also a need to explain all the trends found. For example, there is a need to discuss why some grasslands have high or low SOM values, low or high pH values, etc. Please support discussion with citations, if possible from international publications (in addition to the Chinese publications already cited).
Lines 298-307: Conclusions should be revised after the whole manuscript has been improved. The conclusions should answer the objectives of the study.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS IN QILIAN MOUNTAINS NATURE RESERVE OF EASTERN QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: I am not able to assess the English used in this paper
Literature references are sufficient
The introduction is very scarce
The structure is correct
Figures are not sufficient
Experimental design: The research fits within the objectives and scope of the journal
The methods are not described in sufficient detail
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: In my opinion, it is necessary to improve the writing of the paper and on the other hand, it is necessary to incorporate, if possible, climate data to reach more precise conclusions. Before publication, the paper needs profound transformation.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS IN QILIAN MOUNTAINS NATURE RESERVE OF EASTERN QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors considered most of the suggested modifications..  I  marked in colours a few items that must be checked again.  In addition, the Summary was reviewed and a better English was introduced.
This reviewer suggest to authors to give the manuscript to a native English professional translator for improving the written language.
Check some of the new references introduced.  i found at least one mistake.
Experimental design: It is OK
Validity of the findings: It is OK
Additional comments: The authors need to improve the English.
See colored marks in text.
Check the new literature introduced in the manuscript


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS IN QILIAN MOUNTAINS NATURE RESERVE OF EASTERN QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: As in my previous review, the article reports the results of a good study but it needs improvement in many parts and would require English editing.
Experimental design: The methodology is scientifically valid but requires a major improvement as I clearly indicated in the comments. Unfortunately, most of my comments were ignored during the revision of the manuscript.
Validity of the findings: The data are valid.
Additional comments: Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLAND IN QILIAN MOUNTAIN NATURE RESERVE-TIBETAN PLATEAU

I have carefully reviewed the revised manuscript, but unfortunately, most of my comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript were either ignored or not satisfactorily addressed by the authors. These are as follows (line numbering is based on the original manuscript):

Lines 40-44: The Nemerow index is an indicator of soil fertility based on the soil test method. Correlation coefficient and principal component analysis are not methods of soil fertility evaluation.  Since the Nemerow index is not widely known and the reference cited Bao et al. (2012) is not easily available, it is important for this index method to be described in terms of its origin, principle, applications.

Lines 72-80: There is a need to include information on geology, soil classification (USDA Soil Taxnomy or World Reference Base system), climate classification according to Koeppen.
(The soil names like cinnamon soil, meadow soil, etc are not acceptable soil names).

Line 87: Is this grassland classification from China or is it an international one? Please cite references.

Line 111: Evaluation of soil fertility. There is a need to describe clearly the steps of the evaluation method used in the study. Please explain how the individual indicators are related to/used in the comprehensive evaluation. Please describe clearly the steps of the Nemerow index method so that the readers will be able to follow it.

Line 121: What is the “improved” Nemerow index method?

Line 124: “to eliminate the dimensional differences between the parameters” is not clear. What does it mean?

Lines 150-151: What is the basis or reference for these classes? (low, medium, high)

Lines 162-170: There is no need to mention all the values in Table 4. Just focus on the highlights or the most important results. (If you mention all the values in the text, then the Table is not necessary. It is redundant and not good scientific writing).

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS based on the revised manuscript:

Lines 83-85: It is not clear if clod samples or core samples were collected for bulk density determination. What is “ring knife method”? How is it different from the core method?

Line 89: “small scale” Kjeldahl should be changed to micro Kjeldahl

Lines 92-94: HF-HNO3-HCl04 is not for available P or available K

Lines 151-154: It says that the bulk density values ranged from 0.75 to 0.94 g/cm3 and the total porosity of 50 to 60%. If you calculate total porosity from the bulk density values obtained and the standard particle density of 2.65g/cm3, the total porosity would range from 64 to 72%. The point is this: bulk density values below 1.0 g/cm3 indicate a very high soil porosity.

Finally, this reviewer humbly suggests that the manuscript be edited by an English editor, preferably a native English speaker before it is re-submitted.

Recommendation:
This reviewer recommends that the manuscript be returned to the authors for major revision.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS IN QILIAN MOUNTAINS NATURE RESERVE OF EASTERN QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The paper has certainly improved. Possibly English need to be revised
I recommend the publication of this paper.
Experimental design: The description of the methodology has also improved.
Validity of the findings: The conclusions are well established and linked to the results.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SOIL FERTILITY EVALUATION AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GRASSLANDS IN QILIAN MOUNTAINS NATURE RESERVE OF EASTERN QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Please see previous comments
Experimental design: Please see previous comments
Validity of the findings: Please see previous comments
Additional comments: Comments

This second revised version of the manuscript is very much improved and incorporates most of the reviewers’ comments and suggestions. I commend the authors for exerting much effort in improving the manuscript. However, the manuscript still needs minor improvement in its technical content (please see specific comments below). Moreover, the manuscript needs further English editing preferably by a professional English editor to make it more understandable to Peer J’s global readers. In particular, there are several vague and inconsistent statements in the Methodology and Discussion portions that need to be corrected.

Specific comments:

Line 12: change “soil comprehensive fertility index” to comprehensive soil fertility index.
Line 20: change “may demand acidic phosphate fertilizers” to may require phosphate fertilizer application
Line 23: add in the keywords Nemerow Index and soil fertility index
Line 47: give the full meaning of AHP
Line 54: this statement needs to be improved. It is difficult to understand
Lines 55: “ law of limiting factor”. Are you referring to Liebig’s Law of the Minimum?
Line 99: please indicate the references/authors of the methods used for available P and K.
Line 121: “soil worst attribute”. Do you mean the most limiting soil fertility attribute?
Lines 120-125: this statement needs improvement to make it clearer.
Lines 197 and 202: change “decided” to “determined”.
Line 213: “residual organic matter”. Do you mean organic residue?
Line 222-223:” law of the smallest factor”. Do you mean Liebig’s Law of the Minimum?
Lines 243-245: there is a need to improve the conclusion. Specifically, it needs to indicate the limiting soil fertility factors (please see the Abstract where it is much better stated).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PORPHYROMONAS GINGIVALIS LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE PROMOTES T-HEL PER17 CELL DIFFERENTIATION BY UPREGULATING DELTA-LIKE LIGAND 4 EXPRESSION ON CD14+ MONOCYTES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This article meets the standard.
Experimental design: This study need to determine many cytokines but, the method which was used ie, PCR or western blot were not adequate to  prove the cytokine activity.

I suggest to change the cytokine determination method to be ELISA.
Validity of the findings: According to the cytokine determination methods were not suitable so, the results in this part still not adequate to conclude.
Additional comments: In general, this article is very interesting in the field of inflammation and oral disease. If the author can improve the point as my suggestion, it will increase validity of this study.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PORPHYROMONAS GINGIVALIS LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE PROMOTES T-HEL PER17 CELL DIFFERENTIATION BY UPREGULATING DELTA-LIKE LIGAND 4 EXPRESSION ON CD14+ MONOCYTES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. The manuscript should be sent to proofed reader who is a native speaker because I found some grammatically errors, but they are not a big issue. Such as line 224 (relatively instead of relative), line 270 (Nevertheless, the latest instead of Nevertheless, latest)

2. Please rearrange the methods in the abstract. The authors mentioned mRNA expression lastly in the abstract (line 48), but it is not the last method that you used in your experiment and also in your manuscript.

3. Please explain more about the roles of Th17 in the progression or severity of periodontal diseases to highlight the importances of your finding.

4. Please add the full name of RORC when the authors first mentioned it (line 215). They first mentioned the full name of RORC at line 513 which is in the figure legends.

5. Please add the full name of NIH (National Institutes of Health) (line 200).

6. The authors should recheck the reference format such as line 378 and 420.
Experimental design: 1. The authors should divide the co-culture from Transwell assays (non-contact co-culture). When they included both experiments in one topic, it's difficult to understand that those are separate experiments. And also, it will be highlight the impact of contact co-culture to the result.

2. Please explain more detail why did the authors add PMA, ionomycin and brefeldin A for the last 5 h of contact co-culture between monocyte and T cells (line 146).

3. For line 182 and 183, please mention the cytokines in numbering order (IL-1B, IL-6, IL-17A, IL-23 and TGF-B) as mentioned at line 220 and 291.

4. Please add the state name of Cell singling Technology company (line 195).

5. The authors should also highlight that the CD14+ monocyte cells were washed 3 times with PBS to remove excess LPS before co-culture with CD4+ T cells in material and method section, not only in the discussion part (line 273-274) .
Validity of the findings: The most important thing that the authors should be concerned is statistical analysis that they have used. For example,

1. When the author has mentioned that they set the significant level at p<0.05. That's enough and there is no need to show the significant level at p<0.01 or p<0.001.

2. The authors should mention that they used T-test when they compared the mRNA expression between unstimulated (control) and LPS stimulated group (Figure 1) only between the same proportion. Because when they demonstrate many proportions (6 bars) in one graph, the audience will be confused about how to interpret the data.

3. The authors should also mention that ANOVA is used to demonstrate the significance when there are more than 3 groups in the same experiment. When the authors found that ANOVA showed any significant, they should further run the post-hoc comparison, to compare the differences between groups or the difference between any test group to control (figure 5).

4. Please add more detail about is there any study that demonstrated the same result as your study (increased in expression only for Dll-4, but not Jagged-1, line 324).
Additional comments: -


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PORPHYROMONAS GINGIVALIS LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE PROMOTES T-HEL PER17 CELL DIFFERENTIATION BY UPREGULATING DELTA-LIKE LIGAND 4 EXPRESSION ON CD14+ MONOCYTES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript meet the standard of the journal in general.
Experimental design: The experimental design is able to address the research question.
Validity of the findings: This study provides a novel findings with standard validity of results and conclusion.
Additional comments: This manuscript has been improved in all issues that suggested by the reviewers.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PORPHYROMONAS GINGIVALIS LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE PROMOTES T-HEL PER17 CELL DIFFERENTIATION BY UPREGULATING DELTA-LIKE LIGAND 4 EXPRESSION ON CD14+ MONOCYTES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: After revision, this article meets the standards.

Noted: please correct the spelling of the word "background" in the abstract.
Experimental design: After revision, the design and methods are much more clearer than the first version. I really appreciate for the authors contribution.
Validity of the findings: After revision, this article meets the standards.
Additional comments: Overall, I really appreciate for your effort to improve the quality of the manuscript. The revised version is really impressive. Thank you very much for your time and contribution.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: RE-POSITIVE OF SARS-COV-2 TEST IS COMMON IN COVID-19 PATIENTS AFTER HOSPITAL DISCHARGE. DATA FROM HIGH STANDARD POST-DISCHARGE QUARANTINED PATIENTS IN MACAO SAR, CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I have no objection to this section.
Experimental design: I have no objection to this section.
Validity of the findings: Without exception, all the given values of the statistical significance p of frequencies were made with errors, however, the results of correct calculations do not contradict the conclusions of this article.
The correct values of p are given in my letter as a reviewer.

There are no comments or comments on other points in this section.
Additional comments: 1) The significance p of the frequency differences in the tables below is calculated incorrectly and should be corrected. The correct values are given in my reviewer letter.
2) This article gives the frequency of long-term presence of the pathogen COVID-19, which is very different from the estimates, published in other articles. It might also be appropriate to discuss laboratory diagnostic errors as a possible reason for such unexpected results.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: RE-POSITIVE OF SARS-COV-2 TEST IS COMMON IN COVID-19 PATIENTS AFTER HOSPITAL DISCHARGE. DATA FROM HIGH STANDARD POST-DISCHARGE QUARANTINED PATIENTS IN MACAO SAR, CHINA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Basic Reporting criteria generally fulfilled. A few grammatical errors were spotted (eg. "...before they (are) back to the Macau community."). Tenses should be past whenever appropriate (eg. "Here we reported the re-positive rate..." instead of "Here we will report the re-positive rate..."). I suggest authors to do a checking on these before re-submission.

I found the link to Ref 14 is dead. I suggest authors to do a checking on these before re-submission.
Experimental design: This report is a case-series of re-positive COVID19 cases in Macau, which fulfilled aims and scope of the journal. Ethical requirements were fulfilled.

I understand from the Guidelines cited in Ref 14 that 2 negative results of RT-PCR are required for discharge. This should be emphasized in the manuscript.

Having Ct values of the 12 re-positive cases would add value to this paper.
Validity of the findings: What do the authors mean by "...residual viruses in vivo cells."? If this means living cells, the authors themselves admitted that no cultures were taken to prove living virus, and subsequently infectivity. I strongly suggest modifications to all statements in the manuscript that may lead to proposition that the re-positive cases demonstrated nucleic acid amplification from living virus.

I think the findings are valid, within its limitations. The manuscript has added to previous reports of re-positive COVID19 cases post-discharge, without providing substantial additional impact/novelty.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: RE-POSITIVE OF SARS-COV-2 TEST IS COMMON IN COVID-19 PATIENTS AFTER HOSPITAL DISCHARGE. DATA FROM HIGH STANDARD POST-DISCHARGE QUARANTINED PATIENTS IN MACAO SAR, CHINA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: All my comments on this article, expressed in the first review, have been completely eliminated.
Experimental design: All my comments on this article, expressed in the first review, have been completely eliminated.
Validity of the findings: All my comments on this article, expressed in the first review, have been completely eliminated.
Additional comments: I read your article with great interest. I am sure that others will find it very interesting and useful.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: RE-POSITIVE OF SARS-COV-2 TEST IS COMMON IN COVID-19 PATIENTS AFTER HOSPITAL DISCHARGE. DATA FROM HIGH STANDARD POST-DISCHARGE QUARANTINED PATIENTS IN MACAO SAR, CHINA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Acceptable. Concerns on grammatical errors and dead link were addressed adequately.
Experimental design: Appropriate. Concern adequately addressed.
Validity of the findings: Appropriate. Concerns addressed.
Additional comments: No further comment.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION STUDY OF THE ACE2 RECEPTOR WITH SCREENED NATURAL INHIBITORS TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DRUG CANDIDATE AGAINST COVID-19
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: In my opinion, this manuscript has serious issues and cannot be published in its current form:
1) The authors do not provide any rationale under the necessity to inhibit the ACE2 receptor to fight COVID-19. Are ACE2 receptor inhibitors safe? Why inhibition of ACE2 is preferred in comparison with inhibition of SARS-CoV-2? It is not clear from the text of the manuscript.

2) The authors prepared the models of protein (ACE2 receptor), then they prepared the molecular docking and molecular dynamics of the complex protein-inhibitor. So if there is a low resolution of the model, therefore, the results of molecular docking and molecular dynamics are not characterized by high accuracy. I think the better strategy is, to use ligand-based methods, or at least to try to obtain the training set of known ACE2 receptors inhibitors and to make a conclusion whether the ligand-based drug design is suitable in this task.

3) The paper has many typos and unclear phrases:

"Coronavirus contains a genome of approximately 30kb and consists of a 5' cap structure and 3' poly(A) tail that allows it to act as an mRNA for the translation of the
replicase polyproteins. At the beginning of each structural or accessory gene, there is the
 presence of transcriptional regulatory sequences (TRSs) which are essential for the expression of each of these genes." Is this phase related to the general idea of the text?

"The available 2D & 3D structures of compounds were retrieved from the PubChem database (Ref)"   Is it correct reference here?

"(Palmitoyl Oleoyl Phasphatidyl chlorine" - there is a typo
etc.
Experimental design: 1) The authors do not provide any rationale under the necessity to inhibit the ACE2 receptor to fight COVID-19. Are ACE2 receptor inhibitors safe? Why inhibition of ACE2 is preferred in comparison with inhibition of SARS-CoV-2? It is not clear from the text of the manuscript.

2) The authors prepared the models of protein (ACE2 receptor), then they prepared the molecular docking and molecular dynamics of the complex protein-inhibitor. So if there is a low resolution of the model, therefore, the results of molecular docking and molecular dynamics are not characterized by high accuracy. I think the better strategy is, to use ligand-based methods, or at least to try to obtain the training set of known ACE2 receptors inhibitors and to make a conclusion whether the ligand-based drug design is suitable in this task.

3) It is not clear why the authors chose Autodock 1.5.6 for molecular docking.
Validity of the findings: 'no comment', please see "1. Basic reporting" field
Additional comments: Dear authors,
you have presented the results regarding the search for the potential ACE2 receptor inhibitors as the potential compounds for treatment COVID-19. Despite the fact, that in general, the idea is interesting, I'd recommend you to provide the answers to the comments given in the "1. Basic reporting" section. In particular, the main question is why the authors decided to model the ACE2 receptor and to find its inhibitors. What are the advantages of such a method? Some more comments are provided in the "1. Basic reporting" and "2. Experimental design" sections, I've copied and pasted it below for the convenience:

1) The authors do not provide any rationale under the necessity to inhibit the ACE2 receptor to fight COVID-19. Are ACE2 receptor inhibitors safe? Why inhibition of ACE2 is preferred in comparison with inhibition of SARS-CoV-2? It is not clear from the text of the manuscript.

2) The authors prepared the models of protein (ACE2 receptor), then they prepared the molecular docking and molecular dynamics of the complex protein-inhibitor. So if there is a low resolution of the model, therefore, the results of molecular docking and molecular dynamics are not characterized by high accuracy. I think the better strategy is, to use ligand-based methods, or at least to try to obtain the training set of known ACE2 receptors inhibitors and to make a conclusion whether the ligand-based drug design is suitable in this task.

3) It is not clear why the authors chose Autodock 1.5.6 for molecular docking.

4) The paper has many typos and unclear phrases:

"Coronavirus contains a genome of approximately 30kb and consists of a 5' cap structure and 3' poly(A) tail that allows it to act as an mRNA for the translation of the
replicase polyproteins. At the beginning of each structural or accessory gene, there is the
 presence of transcriptional regulatory sequences (TRSs) which are essential for the expression of each of these genes." Is this phase related to the general idea of the text?

"The available 2D & 3D structures of compounds were retrieved from the PubChem database (Ref)"   Is it correct reference here?

"(Palmitoyl Oleoyl Phasphatidyl chlorine" - there is a typo

I suggest that the authors either (i) choose another target for designing the potential drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 or (ii) provide the rationale of the usage of the ACE2 receptor as a target. Then, I suggest that the authors consider ligand-based drug design if there are inhibitors of the ACE2 receptor (or another chosen target) instead of 3D modeling methods, in case, when the 3D structure of the protein target is unknown.

Sincerely.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION STUDY OF THE ACE2 RECEPTOR WITH SCREENED NATURAL INHIBITORS TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DRUG CANDIDATE AGAINST COVID-19
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The present study explores the potential of human Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor as the target for the designing of the drug against the deadly virus and marks an attempt to identify novel therapeutic inhibitor against novel SARS-CoV-2 using the Insilico drug discovery approach

1.	Basic reporting
a.	There is scope for improvement in Introduction, Discussion and Conclusion
b.	Structure conforms to PeerJ quality; however, results, discussion and conclusion needs to be separated for better understanding of the international audience.
c.	Figures are relevant and labelled. Authors need to highlight relevant figures in text (Section-Results/discussion wherever applicable) because they refer only Fig 3, Fig 4, and Fig 5 only in the text. Interestingly there are 11 figures in total in support of their findings.
Experimental design: Methods described in detail and information with possibility of replication
Validity of the findings: a.	All underlying data have been provided; they are robust & controlled.
b.	The conclusion is weak and very much limited supporting results.
Additional comments: a.	Your introduction needs to be improved. I suggest that you add more relevant citation in support of your claims from lines 65-74; 78-79.
b.	 Highlight the text with suitable Figure or Table to familiarize or to engage audience/readers in lines from 75-130.
c.	Fix typo errors thirty (Line 54); Ref? (Line 156); photochemical (line 252; phytochemical)
d.	Line 39-In the present study; Line 55-proteins; 55-56 sentence needs to rephrase; Line 65-74-this statement needs to be supported with more references; Line 78-79 reference missing for claim; Line 131-141support with references; Line 188-Results. English language needs to be improvised


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION STUDY OF THE ACE2 RECEPTOR WITH SCREENED NATURAL INHIBITORS TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DRUG CANDIDATE AGAINST COVID-19
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I thank the authors for submitting to PeerJ.
I have some major comments that should be taken into account.
Please correct English (a few sentences are wordy and somehow unclear. For instance, the sentence: "AutoDock is an automated suite of protein-ligand docking tools that are designed to predict protein interactions with small molecules." can be replaced by the similar from the author's responce: "AutoDock is an automated suite of protein-ligand docking tools used to predict the protein interactions with small molecules such as drug molecule and substrate"., etc).
Experimental design: 1. If the authors used a few compounds that can be potential inhibitors against ACE2, could they provide the explanation, why the authors used only those three compounds, that they mentioned?
2. I strongly recommend to add any results of analysis of the compounds using existing databases of chemical compounds such as ChEMBL, PubChem (for instance, exact search or similarity search). Also, it would be great, if the authors can complete their studies by the prediction results of the web-services of biological activity prediction and demonstate the association between the results of prediction and their findings.
Validity of the findings: I think that the authors should provide more data to prove their findings. For instancem they should add the results of the biological activity prediction or target affinity based on the publicly accessible web-services for prediction of either biological activity and/or target affinity.
Additional comments: I thank the authors for submitting to PeerJ.
I have some major comments that should be taken into account.
1. Please correct English (a few sentences are wordy and somehow unclear. For instance, the sentence: "AutoDock is an automated suite of protein-ligand docking tools that are designed to predict protein interactions with small molecules." can be replaced by the similar from the author's responce: "AutoDock is an automated suite of protein-ligand docking tools used to predict the protein interactions with small molecules such as drug molecule and substrate"., etc).
2. I think that you should provide more data to prove their findings. For instance, you should add the results of the biological activity prediction or target affinity based on the publicly accessible web-services for prediction of either biological activity and/or target affinity.
Kind regards.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION STUDY OF THE ACE2 RECEPTOR WITH SCREENED NATURAL INHIBITORS TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DRUG CANDIDATE AGAINST COVID-19
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: After through check with manuscript (track changes) it is evident that authors have amended necessary changes in key areas (Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion and Conclusion) with Tables and Figures. Furthermore, the literature is revised with references.
Experimental design: Methods described in detail and information with possibility of replication
Validity of the findings: All underlying data have been provided; they are robust & controlled.
Additional comments: Authors have amended the manuscript and addressed all the queries raised. The manuscript can now be accepted in present revised form.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION STUDY OF THE ACE2 RECEPTOR WITH SCREENED NATURAL INHIBITORS TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DRUG CANDIDATE AGAINST COVID-19
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors implemented some changes regarding my comments.
But still, this manuscript needs English checking preferably with native speaker.
Experimental design: The authors implemented some changes regarding my comments.
But still, this manuscript needs English checking preferably with native speaker.
Validity of the findings: The authors implemented some changes regarding my comments.
But still, this manuscript needs English checking preferably with native speaker.
Additional comments: The authors implemented some changes regarding my comments.
But still, this manuscript needs English checking preferably with native speaker.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION STUDY OF THE ACE2 RECEPTOR WITH SCREENED NATURAL INHIBITORS TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DRUG CANDIDATE AGAINST COVID-19
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Professional article structure, figures, tables are shared.
Experimental design: Methods described in detail and information with possibility of replication
Validity of the findings: All underlying data have been provided in revised manuscript; they are robust & controlled
Additional comments: The authors addressed all comments.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION STUDY OF THE ACE2 RECEPTOR WITH SCREENED NATURAL INHIBITORS TO IDENTIFY NOVEL DRUG CANDIDATE AGAINST COVID-19
Review round: 4
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Authors have corrected their manuscript to some extent.
Experimental design: Authors have corrected their manuscript to some extent.
Validity of the findings: Authors have corrected their manuscript to some extent.
Additional comments: Authors have corrected their manuscript to some extent.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SUBTERRANEAN MOVEMENT INFERRED BY TEMPORARY EMIGRATION IN BARTON SPRINGS SALAMANDERS (EURYCEA SOSORUM)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: In general I thought the description and presentation of the mark-recapture analysis was thorough and well done. The writing was clear throughout, and the use of references to support the authors’ thinking was good. I thought the paper was clear and informative.
Experimental design: The analysis of emigration obviously depends on the ability to reliably recognize individual salamanders. Because the recognition of individuals is so key to the interpretation of the data, I think it would be good to include some more details here. What was the similarity cutoff used to differentiate individuals? In your previous work, you described how image similarity declined with the time between captures of the same individual-is it possible or likely that the timing of these surveys and observed recaptures is sufficiently long that some individuals were not recognized as being recaptures, when they really were? Would that mean that the emigration rates you describe may be conservative? Is there anything else you can say about the image analysis to convince readers that the results are reliable?

The number of observers varied among surveys, and I am assuming the identity of the observers also varied. Both the number and identity of observers can have a big influence on counts, at least in theory. I think it would be good to mention in the methods if any of the observers were present for all (or most) surveys. Did you fit variables for number or identity of observers in any of the preliminary models? I think it would be worthwhile to try doing so-maybe it does not matter, but I can’t help but look at Figures 4 and 5 and wonder if any of the apparent trends through time are actually dependent on the number or identity of observers.

Paragraph beginning on line 192: here you explain why you don’t have directional hypotheses for the effect of discharge on emigration, but it is not clear that you have directional hypotheses for other variables either. Direction is implied by some of the explanations, but not all. Can you be explicit about expectations for the non-discharge variables?
Validity of the findings: Time was an important factor explaining both survival and emigration, but was not really discussed in detail in the discussion. For example: do you think there is any biological significance to the fact that emigration of individuals observed at the surface during the prior survey were the lowest during the forest surveys of 2016 & 2017 (orange circles in Figure 4C). Given the importance of time in the analysis, I think it makes sense to interpret the effect of time on the demographic parameters in the Discussion.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SUBTERRANEAN MOVEMENT INFERRED BY TEMPORARY EMIGRATION IN BARTON SPRINGS SALAMANDERS (EURYCEA SOSORUM)
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This paper was clear and well-written. The authors did a nice job of describing the need for the study in the Introduction/background and these sections were well referenced.
Experimental design: The research questions were well defined and the authors study design allowed them to assess these questions. Such studies of temporary emigration for facultative cave species are highly unusual and the quality of the authors data is high. The methods were described well, though I did get a little lost in the growth information - see specific comments below for description and recommended changes.
Validity of the findings: No comment - the paper meets standards.
Additional comments: This is a well-written paper on a difficult-to-study system. I commend the authors on their work and offer the following minor comments for them to consider to strengthen the current manuscript and things they might consider in future work. I have divided the section into editorial suggestions and ecological or methodological considerations.

Methodological/Ecological considerations

Line 170-71. You were not able to estimate superpopulation size because the temporary emigration was Markovian, right? If temporary emigration was random then you could estimate the superpopulation size (Kendall et al. 1997).

Lines 223-245. The use of the growth model confused me a bit. I thought the authors were going to use the growth model to predict size for each individual at each primary period so they could model survival and/or temporary emigration as a function of body size (continuous variable). Time-varying individual covariates are notoriously difficult to deal with in mark-recapture analysis because the size of individuals that are alive but not detection is unknown (as the authors state). External models, like von Bertalanffy growth models, are often used to predict the size of these individuals and those predictions are used to model parameters of interest (e.g., Hansen et al. 2015 Copeia). More sophisticated Bayesian approaches are available to jointly model the distribution of the covariate (e.g., size) and the capture histories (e.g., Bonner et al. 2010 Biometrics). However, the authors discretized the size predictions into large/adult (>24.2 mm) and small/juvenile (<24.2mm). If you were happy with a discretization of body size, then using a multi-state mark-recapture model seems much, much easier as it does not require size categories for uncaptured individuals and allows one to estimate and model the transition between size-states. Robust Design Multi-state mark-recapture models exist (e.g., in program MARK) and can be used to estimate movement to and from unobservable states (e.g., Kendall and Nichols 2002 J. Applied Statistics; Bailey et al. 2010 Ecology) and has been used in numerous amphibian studies (e.g., Church et al. 2007 Ecology). This approach would seem to be much easier and might allow for exploration of factors influencing transitions between juvenile and adult life stages. Importantly, I don’t think the authors approach is wrong, just more difficult than a multi-state approach if you were really only interested in two size classes.
Related to comment above. Lines 258 - here the authors state 333 salamanders were recaptured at least once between periods, but on line 270 they state that ‘growth was modeled from 901 measurements of 372 recaptured individuals’. Why is there seemingly two different values for the number of individuals recaptured over multiple periods?

Line 279. Shouldn’t this be ‘effect on the logit scale’? Survival and temporary emigration are probabilities and typically modeled on the logit, not the log scale.

Line 283-286. I recommend explaining these results a little better – in my experience, few readers understand the difference between gamma” and gamma’ (i.e., the difference between the two emigration parameters). I think this section would be better explained if you added some biological explanation. For example, you could say:
Temporary emigration estimates varied among size classes; the probability of moving from the pool to subterranean habitat was higher for larger individuals (range: …) than smaller individuals (range:…:Figure 4B). Similarly, the probability of remaining in the subterranean habitat was also higher for larger individuals (range: …) than smaller individuals (range:…; Figure 4C).
How were the average temporary emigration values calculated? Are these being reported from a model without time-variation or were they averaged over the point estimates? A measure of precision should be included with these estimates – this is easily obtained if the values are coming from a time-invariant model(s). The delta method would be necessary if you are averaging across point estimates.

Line 287. Clarify that this as the surface or pool abundance.

Lines 321-323. While time-varying models are more parsimonious that any of the models with environmental covariates they don’t give you much indication as to why there is variation in temporary emigration. Presumably, the environmental covariates were the most ecological plausible explanation, so even though those models are not as parsimonious as a full-time model, it would be nice to know if the direction of the relationships were consistent with your expectation. Your discussion suggests that there is temporal variation in movement, but your leading hypotheses (i.e., environmental covariate relationships) are never discussed or even presented…instead they are largely dismissed. Do you really want to do that?

Lines 331-333. If you used a multi-state approach in the future, you could model just juvenile survival as a function of flow. There is evidence for size-dependent ‘flushing’ in stream systems (e.g., Lowe et al. 2019 PNAS).

Lines 340-349. There is evidence of density-dependent movement between habitats or life-history states in other amphibians (e.g., Grayson et al. 2011 Ecology) and there are new models that might allow you to jointly model density-dependent survival (e.g., Kissel et al. 2020 Diversity)…again, thoughts for future research. It would be a great system to explore these possible processes.

Final thoughts: I think the authors do a good job of discussing possible mechanisms for their findings that smaller salamanders have lower emigration probabilities (e.g., flow velocities, differential effects of competition/predation, density-dependent effects), but it seems like the most compelling hypothesis given their findings is related to growth, reproduction, and avoiding predation. It would seem very logical that these salamanders, like many aquatic organisms, would show size-dependent growth, with young/small salamanders growing quickly in a short amount of time as illustrated by Fig 3. They would need to be in a resource-rich environment to do that, even though that environment might be risky. After they reach a given size threshold and sexual maturity, which seems to be reached around age 1 (Fig 3), then they migrate away from the surface to reproduce and stay in habitats with less predation. That is what the estimates seem to suggest – higher survival for larger individuals that are primarily in the subterranean habitat; i.e., these animals rarely return and if they do, they do not stay on the surface for very long (high gamma’ and gamma”). Smaller individuals are more likely to remain in the pool for more than one period and if they do emigrate, you really have no information, given the huge confidence intervals, in part because they are likely transition to the larger/adult size class. Such habitat switching is seen in the biphasic amphibians with aquatic larvae utilizing resource-rich aquatic habitats during high growth periods then metamorphosing to terrestrial life-phase with presumably lower/slower growth and lower predation risk.

Editorial and general suggestions:

Study Site section, Lines 174-175 and Fig 2. It would be nice to know who big the concrete pool is – the depth is given (line 125) but not the dimensions of the pool. How large are each formed outlet that convey the spring water? It would be nice add the black circle to figure 2B to better orient readers between the two figures in Fig 2. For example, in figure 2B is looks like the overland stream empties into the Barton Spring pool, but it must not – it flows into concrete pipes, right? Not apparent in the figure.

Line 183 -84. This sentence is a little confusing. You never fit covariate structures for the capture probabilities, right? In line 206 the authors state that period of high turbidity result in fine sediment depositions within the pool – does this influence capture probabilities? Consider replacing ‘optimal’ with ‘most-parsimonious’ in Lines 184 and 187..

Lines 189-191. Consider using these sentences as the start of the next paragraph because the next paragraph is really about that ‘final stage’ of model building/fitting. Perhaps remove these sentences and start the next paragraph with:
‘In the final model-building stage, we compared models where temporary emigration (gamma” and gamma’) varied over periods or as a function of environmental or individual covariates and models were survival probabilities varied with these same covariates. Specifically, we used five covariates…’
Lines 195-98. Consider wording to state: ‘Increases in flow may flush animals to the surface via drift, but flow may also prompt compensatory movement back into the spring outlets, influencing the rate of temporary migration. Permanent migration in response to discharge may also be reflected by apparent survival estimates.’

Lines 295. Consider replacing ‘run counter to’ with ‘contradict’

Lines 305. Add ‘this study’ to citations.

Line 324. Consider rewording – I don’t really understand this sentence.

Line 326. Consider replacing ‘determinants’ with ‘components’


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: SUBTERRANEAN MOVEMENT INFERRED BY TEMPORARY EMIGRATION IN BARTON SPRINGS SALAMANDERS (EURYCEA SOSORUM)
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors addressed my previous comments very well.
Experimental design: The authors addressed my previous comments very well.
Validity of the findings: The authors addressed my previous comments very well.
Additional comments: The authors did a wonderful job addressing my previous comments!
I think they misspelled 'Grayson' in line 492, but that is the only issue that I have.
Super paper!


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PLANKTONIC ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MEDUSAE (CLASSES SCYPHOZOA AND HYDROZOA) AND EPIFAUNAL CRUSTACEANS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This study totally depends on access to Google Scholar. Unfortunately, your actions were not enough. Use other key words to find more important papers. Can you find any interaction specific to crustaceans?
Many other invertebrates and fish are associated with jellyfish. They seem to utilize jellyfish for antipredation, dispersal, food and so on. For example, fish juveniles seem to mainly use the hosts for protection and food.
Experimental design: The aims and scope of this paper are clear. Although you totally depend on Google Scholar, your trials were not sufficient. Use other key words to find more informative and important papers.
Validity of the findings: You have succeeded in finding the generalized patterns in interactions between jellyfish and crustaceans. However, more and more exact citations are definitely needed. Some important papers are missing.
Additional comments: This is an overview dealing with interactions between jellyfish and epibiont crustaceans. It is very informative for future works. However, your access to papers is not sufficient. Many important papers are missing (see attached file) and citation is not enough. You must read cited papers more carefully. In addition, presumed interactions such as parasitoidism are suggested for these relationships. Summarize these, too.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PLANKTONIC ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MEDUSAE (CLASSES SCYPHOZOA AND HYDROZOA) AND EPIFAUNAL CRUSTACEANS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: It has some minor deficiencies in the literature cited, as written below:
271 typing mistake, it must be "Pagès"
272-274 confusing bibliographic reference
274-275 duplicated bibliographic reference
299-300 lacking bibliographic reference
299 typing mistake, it must be "stylirostris"
301-302 duplicated bibliographic reference
303 duplicated bibliographic reference
305-306 duplicated bibliographic reference
548 No alphabetical order
An some other anotations
Experimental design: No coment
Validity of the findings: no coment
Additional comments: This manuscript is an excellent compilation of the state of the art in relation to associations between invertebrates and, due to how difficult it is to publish about this type of interactions, (to find them you depend a lot on luck!) There is no doubt that it will become in a reference work for future publications, both to make comparisons or as a source of specialized bibliography.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PLANKTONIC ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MEDUSAE (CLASSES SCYPHOZOA AND HYDROZOA) AND EPIFAUNAL CRUSTACEANS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: A clear and professional English is used throughout the manuscript; the references and background are sufficient to introduce the subject of this work.

I consider it pertinent to discuss some aspects that I detail below; Finally, figures are relevant to the content of the work, but please improve the quality of figure 4, if possible, as well.

I noticed that at least the reference Tapia et al. 2018 has an error. The correct form is Puente-Tapia et al. 2018. Modify both in the references section, as well as in the table (check all the references if appropriate):

Puente-Tapia FA, Gasca R, Genzano G, Schiariti A, Morandini AC. 2018. New records of association between Brachyscelus cf. rapacoides (Arthropoda: Amphipoda) and medusae (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa and Hydrozoa) from São Sebastião Channel, southeast Brazil Francisco. Brazilian Journal of Oceanography 66:301–306....

please delete Francisco in the reference
Experimental design: Congratulations to the authors. This manuscript represents an updated review of the knowledge about the several types of biological associations between medusae and epifaunal crustaceans worldwide.

The present work described with sufficient detail the methods and information to replicate. This work made an exhaustive search of available information with a detailed “discrimination” of the sources to be considered in the review, which allows the provided information to be of high quality. In general, the manuscript well written easy to understand the methodology, results, and discussions. The different subsections of the results-discussion allow a clear understanding of each of the aspects that the authors intend to highlight.

I only have a suggestion on the methodology section: Although the main objective of this work is not a taxonomic aspect, I consider important to mention the taxonomic proposal used to indicate the taxonomic classification of each species (e.g., WoRMS, among others), because in some species, such as the medusa Liriope tetraphylla, depending on the source it is classified as Limnomedusae or Trachymedusae.
Validity of the findings: Conclusion are well stated, however, I think this section could be expanded with some suggestions that I provide below.
Additional comments: Dear Editor:
Please accept this review of the manuscript entitled: “Planktonic association between medusae (classes Scyphozoa and Hydrozoa) and epifaunal crustaceans” by Kaden McKenzie Muffett and María Pia Miglietta.

Sometimes the reporting of biological interactions is due to fortuitous findings of the organisms involved in the interactions, and not due to the main objective of the research (i.e., in studies where the spatiotemporal variation of the medusae community is described); therefore, the methodologies employed are not always the most adequate for the detailed description of the biological association. Please mention if it is possible to conclude if this factor is determinant so that many of the interactions cannot be described in detail, i.e., the total number of individuals of the crustaceans, aspects such as prevalence and intensity of infection values, among others, as well as the location of the crustacean in the host, the possible interaction with other groups of organisms, etc. The fact that a spatiotemporal discrepancy is observed in the study of the interaction between medusae and crustaceans, can be an indicator that these works are the product of the fortuitous findings between both groups.

The authors mention that Scyphomedusae species are mentioned more frequently than Hydromedusae in association with crustaceans, so please mention if the type of sampling (coastal, shallow waters, open sea, and deep waters) its feasibility, or the ecology of the host and crustacean are the determining factors for more reports of the scyphozoan compared to hydrozoan.

If it is possible, the authors could mention that the description of the biological association between species with commercial importance represents an essential tool to understand the ecology-biology of these species, which can help in the generation of fishing regulation (in case of species of import, export or local consumption), as the edible medusae Stomolophus meleagris or Lychnorhiza lucerna, as well as some shrimps or crabs.

I agree with the authors that possibly the best methodologies of collection to document the different types of biological associations between medusae and crustaceans are the dip net, plastic bag, bucket, or by-hand collection methods, even though these methodologies are limited to superficial observations. Although each type of collection methodology has certain advantages and disadvantages, I believe that it would be appropriate for the authors to expand the discussion on the advantages/disadvantages of the different methods, which could be helpful for future research on medusa specimens and their epibionts. For example, the ROVs and their videofilms allow to see the naturalness of the association and, in the case the medusa is collected, the specimen is captured without corporal damage, but it has the disadvantage of the high cost and only some institutes have access to this type of sampling tools.

As a complement to the above, the authors may conclude or suggest for future research, the possibility of analyzing the biological interaction in vivo (within the possibilities of each study) to try to prevent the epibiontic crustacean escaping or being lost by manipulation of the zooplankton sample or the medusa host.

Although a significant number of papers reported some of the effects of the crustacean on its medusa host, the authors could include a recommendation or suggestion that future works should analyze the possible harms or benefits to the host, or analyze the stomach contents of the crustaceans to determine if there is some degree of predation on the host or to the host’s prey, since the associations are categorized based on the detail of the analysis. As mentioned by the authors, another type of analysis is needed to define more accurately the type of damage or interactions between the two groups of organisms. In small crustaceans, such as amphipods, in which it is difficult to analyze the gut content, stable isotopes analysis of the stomach contents can be performed to determine whether they consume the host or the host´s prey.

Although the objective of this work is the revision of the different association between medusae and crustaceans, there are several aspects about the biology of each species that could be commented, such as the fact that females and larval-juvenile stages have been observed more frequently than males, which may be due to the female use the host as a refuge, transport and “nursery” for their offspring, while the males, as in the case of hyperids, leave the host to try to reproduce and feed.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PLANKTONIC ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MEDUSAE (CLASSES SCYPHOZOA AND HYDROZOA) AND EPIFAUNAL CRUSTACEANS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: My impression is "well done", but there are many careless mistakes. References must be arranged in chronological order throughout the text (e.g., L344, 432-435, 486-487 and maybe others). A careless mistake is found on L319. MPA (L457) should not be abbreviated. In Fig. 4, what do you mean by "individual"? Explain it more explicitly.
Experimental design: Much more references are added to analyze relationships between jellyfish and crustaceans. Not only commercially harvested jellyfish but also non-indigenous species may be discussed. What happens to symbionts after introduction of hosts to new habitats (if data are available)? Anthropological impacts on symbioses may be discussed in more details.
Validity of the findings: Present problems and perspectives are well discussed.
Additional comments: If careless mistakes are amended, it will become acceptable sooner or later. Anyway, this is very informative for future studies on the marine ecosystems involving jellyfish. Again, take a look at the guideline for authors to improve the manuscript.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: BOSMINOPSIS DEITERSI (CRUSTACEA: CLADOCERA) AS AN ANCIENT SPECIES GROUP: A REVISION
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Adequate
Experimental design: Adequate
Validity of the findings: Adequate
Additional comments: The manuscript titled “Bosminopsis deitersi (Crustacea: Cladocera) as an ancient species group: a revision” bring important information about biogeography, taxonomy and cryptic diversity of the Bosminopsis genus. Manuscript contents indicate the high level of authors knowledge about the theme. In my opinion, the manuscript should be accepted with minor revision.

#Introduction
 The objectives might be improved if the authors indicate (1) the redescription of B. deitersi and comparison with B. zernowi, (2) also the analysis of synonymous.

#Materials and Methods
It is not clear if specimens fixed in formalin were used in molecular analysis. If it was, which treatment was performed on the samples before DNA extraction?

#Results (Description)
General – The drawings of appendages need of more elaboration to elucidate homology issues because numeration of exopodite setae is lacking.

Limb II – seems that proportion of setae on anterior and posterior portion in booth species are different. This need be described and used on the diagnoses and diagnoses differential.

Limb III - seems that proportion of setae on exopodite in booth species are different. The same to setae 1-2 on the distal endite. This need be described and used on the diagnoses and diagnoses differential.

Limb V - seems that proportion of setae on exopodite in booth species are different. The same to setae on the distal portion. This need be described and used on the diagnoses and diagnoses differential.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: BOSMINOPSIS DEITERSI (CRUSTACEA: CLADOCERA) AS AN ANCIENT SPECIES GROUP: A REVISION
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Authors did not provide measurements of different sexes and ages in studied populations, giving only size range for whole population ("Size. 0.17–0.41 mm"). But males of cladocera are always smaller than females, and size range of adult male is an important taxonomical character! I suggest authors should produce separately measurements of females, including minimum size of ovigerous female, and measurements of juvenile and adult males.

Authors did not refer to monograph of Idris (1983) on cladocera of Malaysia, which contains quite detailed description of local Bosminopsis population, with well-developed mucro.
Experimental design: No comments.
Validity of the findings: No comments.
Additional comments: Through the document, works of Van Damme are referenced as “van Damme”, this is not correct, Van Damme is a family name of two words.

Lines 429-430 "No postero-dorsal spine (caudal needle) on carapace and inflated basis of postabdominal  setae."
The statement is unclear and should be reworked, probably split into two sentences.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: BOSMINOPSIS DEITERSI (CRUSTACEA: CLADOCERA) AS AN ANCIENT SPECIES GROUP: A REVISION
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Adequate
Experimental design: Adequate
Validity of the findings: Adequate
Additional comments: Dear editor,

the authors modified the manuscript according to suggestions of reviwers. Thus, the manuscript should be accepted for publication.

My congratulations to authors!


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: BLOOM EVENNESS MODULATES THE INFLUENCE OF BLOOM ABUNDANCE ON INSECT COMMUNITY STRUCTURE IN SUBURBAN GARDENS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Figures 4-6 are hard to interpret in solid black. I can't tell if there is a concavity, for example.

Line 112-113: maybe define these in the intro?

In looking over the supplemental data, I noticed that sites are coded with a name and a number. If the name used is the homeowner's last name this might violate any anonymity agreements, doubly so if the number after each name is a street address. This comment would also apply to location data (e.g. specific lat and longs, if used).
Experimental design: I have several general questions about the study and analyses

-How typical are the sites you selected? Do they represent a random sample of homeowners or is this from one specific neighbourhood? One specific demographic group?

-It is unclear to me how you treated 'sites' within your model. While you do have many observations and samples, you have them for only 34 sites. This needs to be accounted for as the variables are not independent of the site.

-Similar to the point above, it is unclear to me how you treated time in your model. You have multi-year data but don't seem to discuss or correct for variability among years.

-While I can see the model in your supplemental, it would be good to outline it more in the methods. Please state in the methods what kind of regression models you used.
Validity of the findings: Please see my points on design, above. My main concern is potential pseudo-replication when analyzing the data (i.e. how did you treat 'sites' in your study).
Additional comments: Thanks for the paper. I think it is a worthwhile contribution to the field. I do, however, have some points above that I would like addressed.

In addition to the points on the design above I have one additional question. You discuss native plants throughout but not native pollinators. What fraction of your sample represents native pollinators and do you find native pollinators and non-native pollinators have significantly different responses to the variables you've measured? If you're not measuring this (or it is too challenging given time constraints, etc.) you should absolutely discuss this in the paper.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: BLOOM EVENNESS MODULATES THE INFLUENCE OF BLOOM ABUNDANCE ON INSECT COMMUNITY STRUCTURE IN SUBURBAN GARDENS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The objectives of the study were to assess how the community of suburban flower visitors are affected by traits of the plant community, namely; plant species richness, bloom abundance and evenness. The authors also assessed how the greenspace area and proximity affected flower-visitors. Although these objectives are outlined as such in the manuscript, the authors also subsequently investigate the influence of the flowering plant community on insects in general. This approach is not well-justified in the text and as the results are presented, it is very difficult to understand where the authors are testing the influence of the plant community on insects in general or flower-visitors, and the rationale for each.

There are quite a few other weaknesses in the paper as well. Namely, in the framing of the work in a broader field, the lack of details in the methods, the figures and tables, and the overall presentation of results. The introduction is very scattered and does not situate the study at hand within a particular field of work. I was left wondering whether the context of this study was in biodiversity and/or ecosystem functions and services, or conservation, or applied ecology. The authors have collected a very impressive dataset, and I appreciate the effort that is involved in attaining such a large dataset of insect and plant species but the analysis was lacking depth, and the design of the study was not clearly described. Was this a ‘natural experiment’ or a biodiversity survey? Were there hypotheses to be tested? A hypothesis regarding species richness was mentioned in the discussion (line 436) but not in the introduction.

With a more in-depth analysis of the data and a sound justification for the experimental design, this may be an important contribution to knowledge of subtropical urban insect communities, due to the sheer volume of data collected. However, further taxonomic work may be needed to identify the specimens to lower level, as literature that is focused on flower visitors is usually at least to the genus level, but I realize this level of taxonomic work is logistically impossible for many studies. The most interesting result was that the Florida Friendly designation did not affect insect (family) richness, which should be a relevant finding to city planners and those concerned with biodiversity conservation in cities, however, species richness is often the more desired metric.

The figures are one the weakest points of this manuscript. They are not appropriately described or labeled and are not of sufficient resolution. Their relevance to the results is questionable. See Specific Comments file.

The manuscript is also clearly written with few grammatical errors, but there are some sections where clarity could be improved in the writing (see specific comments).
Experimental design: Overall, the experimental design and the methods are not described well enough to determine the quality of the data collection, to reproduce the data collection, and there are several issues with the statistical analyses (See Specific comments file).

The research question is not clearly defined, and as such, the manuscript is quite scattered. The study claimed to be designed to investigate the link between flowering plants and flower-visiting insects (lines 109-113), but much of the paper is focused on the insect community overall, with specimens identified to the family level only. I struggled to see rationale for the experimental design and the biological relevance for some of the analyses conducted. Namely bloom abundance on the entire insect community, the authors mention a connection to pollinators but the criteria for categorizing an insect as a flower visitor is not well-described. What is the biological relevance for testing the influence of bloom abundance and evenness on the entire insect community? This should be outlined in the introduction with supporting references.

A priori hypothesis design is an important step in an ecological study, and here it seems to have been skipped. Unless this is strictly an insect diversity survey and the authors did not intend to test any hypotheses? Because without a priori hypotheses, set within a strong evidence base, it is difficult to have full confidence in the experimental design and the results.
Validity of the findings: The lack of justification of the experimental design, and the lack of detail in the field methods and the statistical methods also make it difficult to have confidence in the findings.

The linear models should be constructed using knowledge of the system so that only predictors likely to be pertinent to the investigation are tested - here this would be those variables expected to affect flower visitor richness and abundance. There are several environmental and habitat variables that are known to affect insect abundance, especially that of pollinators, such as temperature, season, and amount of impervious surface (in urban areas). At minimum the effect of sampling date and site location should have been included as random variables in the models. See Harrison et al. 2018 for a great introduction to mixed effects modelling in ecology.

The figures are one of the weakest elements of the manuscript. The resolution is poor, the axes labels are too small and uninformative, and the figures do not clearly depict the main results.  See specific comments file. An ordination plot would have been useful to include in this study to visualize differences among environmental vectors.

The supplementary files need more descriptive metadata to be useful, and I cannot find a column indicating which insects were categorized as flower-visitors? Also, there are many singletons in the data, would removing singletons change the results?
Many table and figure captions need to be revised to improve clarity. The captions should be stand-alone explanations of the figure/table contents. As is, most of them are not. For example: “Table 8 Best fit model for y = Insect richness: plantR + bloomA*bloomE”
It would help to see each variable written out in the tables as well. Instead of plantR, write Plant Rrichness. Including the response variable would also improve clarity. See Theodorou et al. 2016 (Table 2) for a great example of a table displaying the results of model testing.

The discussion/conclusions section is also very scattered, it seems like there was an attempt to fit the results in many broader contexts (agriculture, restoration, urban planning) and a real discussion of the results at hand was lost in this mix.
Additional comments: No comment.