Exploring the Influence of Soil Salinity on Microbiota Dynamics in Vitis vinifera cv. “Glera”: Insights into the Rhizosphere, Carposphere, and Yield Outcomes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This work takes insight into the berry quality profiles and microbial diversity of grapevine under salt stress. These results are valuable for viticulture management and wine-making, but some words and figures are suggested to be improved, the details are as follows.
1.    Omit the space after “stress” in Line 26.
2.    The arrangement of bacteria and fungi in the PCA analysis (Figures 3 and 4) should be consistent with that in Figure 2.
3.    In Figure 4, it is weird that the contribution rate of PC2 is higher than PC1, and the total contribution rate for fungi and bacteria is only 13.19% and 11.32%, which is quite low for a control experiment.
4.    PcoA analysis and NMDS analysis, which are based on the sample distance, could be more suitable for visualizing the microbial beta diversity.
5.    Do not bold the word “rhizosphere” in Line 253.
6.    Network analysis of microbiota is advocated to investigate the hub microbe and community connectivity under salt stress.

Author Response

Please see the attached file, many thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper by Colautti et al. presents influence salinity on diversity and taxonomic profiles of Vitis vinifera microbiota. The paper is well written, organized and adds new understanding on the impact of salt stress on the grapevine rhizosphere and carposphere. Very good experiment design, all methods used are detailed and fully spelled out. I have only minor comments on the abstract and Fig. 1. It is reasonable to include in the abstract information on changes in diversity indices or the most susceptible representatives of bacteria or fungi to salt stress. Fig. 1 is not very informative, the authors should either remove it, sufficient explanations in the text, or improve it. For example, it is possible to show the expected changes in the analyzed parameters. Otherwise, the right and left parts of the image differ only by 3 words.

Author Response

Please see the attached file, many thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf