I know the initial review  in most Chinese journals are conducted by the editorial staffs. In 2014, when we visited AAAS, the associate editor of Science said the initial review of Science was conducted by scientists. About one third of manuscripts will be rejected after this stage. The rest will be sent out for peer-review.

In our journal (Journal of Mountain Science), the initial review of  majority manuscripts are conducted by scientists too. They are our journal's editorial members or scientific editors (In the online manuscript system, the role to do initial review is SE). Editorial staffs usually directly reject those with certain degree of plagiarism before assigned to SE for initial review.

The intention to set an initial review stage is to reduce the manuscript amount for peer-review and speed up the manuscript process. The initial review stage will screen and reject about 30% manuscripts. This step usually lasts about 6 days from submission to decision.

For manuscripts that need to be revised before being sent out for peer review, SE will usually give concrete revision suggestions.Here I showcase an initial review comments to the author :

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An interesting paper, of value to making positive contributions to land management/ climate change discussions.

1. At the outset i question whether this study is soil science/ statistics/ climate change/ land management- rather than Mountain Science- hence a question of target journal? Whilst outlined as mountainous terrain, the connectivity is by spatial association, and perhaps stronger rationales exists, but they are not currently fully explored/ articulated to the reader
2. There are at times some uncomfortable grammar and tense in the writing, most especially towards the front of the paper. Suffice to say the discussion is far more accessible.
3. There is an assumption of prior knowledge, in terms of soil types, soil characteristics and certainly statistics- hence more explanation/ supporting tables are required to take the reader on the journey.
4. Figure 1- is China centric- it needs to appreciate the audience will not have the in-depth geographic knowledge of the authors- hence multiple/ nested map scales are required. Symbols are difficult to see. Odd scale ranges.
5. Figure 2 and 3, have overlapping scales ranges, so which category is a value assigned to if falling on boundary thresholds?
6. How exact/ comparable are the spatial locations of samples between time periods. What implications does this have?
7. p11- mentions places that are not given in Figure 1- hence makes the argument difficult to follow
8. p12- Difficult to link text to Table 3. The key messages could be delivered with more structure/ clarity?
9. p13- comments like 'abroad' are vague- be exact where possible. A comment that is applicable across the paper
10. Discussion- i wonder to what extent can links between results given and the wider literature be used to support the arguments on cause and effect? I say this, as the evidence for derived conclusions needs to be substantiated/ connected more.
11. p15- climate change in study area is vague- perhaps offer more quantification
12. Table 2- RMSS v RMSE- consistency?

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We can see the step of the initial review conducted by the editorial board before peer-review is very important to improve manuscript quality. It can give the authors more concrete suggestions and can save the editor's time for later stage manuscript handling.It needs a powerful and high-efficiency editorial board too!