Soil Moisture and Litter Coverage Drive the Altitude Gradient Pattern of Soil Arthropods in a Low-Elevation Mountain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Introduction:

i) The first paragraph of this part was quite informative and interesting. However, in the remaining part, the research work of other scientists is discussed which looks like a review of literature. Need to add relevant information

ii) This part must discuss the role of soil arthropods by discussing their relevancy with soil benefits and diversity. Further, there must be a concluding paragraph that must tell the need/novelty for this work.

Material and Methods:

1) Please describe how many arthropods were collected from each plot. 

2) Please add soil moisture and soil pH measuring techniques in this part,

Results: 

There is more need to explain Table 1 (Pearson correlation analysis) as certain significant positive and negative correlations are not explained properly. 

Discussion:

1) Need to strength the argumentation with relevant citations.

Conclusion: There must be a concluding paragraph that summarizes the results and discuss the potential avenues for future research.  

There is a need to strengthen the English throughout the manuscript. Please ensure a smooth transition between sentences and paragraphs.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your review of our manuscript.
We have revised the manuscript according to your suggestion.
Please review it.

With best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript ID: diversity-2974223

Title: Soil moisture and litter coverage drove the altitude gradient pattern of soil arthropods community in a low elevation mountain

Journal: Diversity

Section: Animal Diversity

Spatiotemporal patterns of biodiversity and their drivers are at the key parts of ecological studies, biome distributed along altitude gradient being one of the most examined biodiversity pattern. The drivers to soil fauna community along hills is of intense interest because hills natural environment are under enormous  activities impacts and questions continue be asked about how a distribution pattern in soil arthropods under anthropogenic background, associated ecological processes and conservation.

This study takes a field investigation approach, collected 6 plot along peak to foot in an about 400m hill, to expound the soil arthropods composition, stucture and species diverstiy vertical pattern. Analyses also include identification of the key impact factors to altitude pattern from soil physico-chemical properties and vegetation features using NMDS and RDA.  The generalized linear regression and pearson correlation were used to concentrates on the assessment of the soil moisture content, pH, vascular plant density and leaf litter impacts on the soil arthropods community.

The manuscript is well written, figures are wonderful. The analytical approach is robust and the process of identifying appropriate data for the analysis is appropriately. But some minor problems remain in the MS. So I suggest a few things below.

In "Study area and research methods" section

1. In section 2.1, add a map annotate the  location of the study area and 6 experimental plots.

2. In section 2.2, I want to konw the device of soil arthropods sampling trap is your invention or refer to somebody's? If the device was cited from somebody, you should cited reference in the manuscirpt.

3. In line 118, cite reference for the three data analysis softwares.

In "Results" section

4. The p value of linear regression should to mark in the 6 charts of Fig. 6.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your review of our manuscript.
We have revised the manuscript according to your suggestion.
Please review it.

With best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf