The Potential of Paulownia fortunei L. for the Phytoremediation of Pb
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The potential of Paulownia fortunei for the phytoremediation of Pb
The present study mainly focusing on the The paper summarizes The potential of Paulownia fortune L. for the phytoremediation of Pb. Pb is higher than 400 mg/L, the growth of P. fortunei is inhibited, and the root cell wall was formed, the internal capsule of leaf was ruptured. Furthermore, antioxidant enzyme activity was significantly reduced, the growth of P. fortunei was inhibited. Therefore, P. fortunei can be used for the phytoremediation of Pb within the concentration less than 400mg/L. This study provided a the oretical basis and technical reference for fully utilizing woody plant resources to restore the ecological environment of forest.The present study will attract a large number of audience and the article may please be accepted after minor revision. Here are some suggestions for the improvement of the article
Specific comments
· Title should be The potential of Paulownia fortune L. for the phytoremediation of Pb
· Add some important findings in the abstract
· Add some recommendation in the abstract
· Line 32- the sentence should be maintains soil quality instead and soil and soil
· Line 42 and 44 are repeating
· Line 49 ,50 and 51 should be as The benefits of phytoremediation are are low cost, high efficiency, environmental protection, and ecological friendliness over con……… for the better understanding of the sentence
· Line 63- use word noticeable instead of pronounced for better understanding
· Line 69- improve the sentence as when lead is present in oxidative stage it damage the leave of of Citrus aurantium L.
· Line 69- scientific name of the plant should be in ittalics.
· Line -76 explain the response of eucalyptus plant to lead in that line for better understanding
· Improve English for better understanding. Make sure it is clearly written and easy to understand.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript of Du et al. describes the effect of Pb treatment on Paulownia fortunei seedlings. The experiment is well conducted, however the manuscript is really difficult to read, sentences are often disconnected, M&M are too approximated, results are also disconnected and the discussion must be partially rewritten.
Starting from the introduction, it lacks of homogeneity and fails in presenting the aim of the work. I suggest to present only references that can be of help in discussing the results avoiding to present in detail the results of other authors. Introduce first the problem of hyperaccumulators and then the possibilities offer by highly tolerant plants.
Please reorganize M&M and results as suggested in the attached file, taking care of avoiding typos and correcting English mistakes. In M&M it is reported that photosynthetic measures were done but they were not reported in results.
Discussion appears as a repetition of results. Please compare your results with results found in literature avoiding to just put the references without any connection. Please again follow the suggestions in the attached file. If other results of plant growth promotion under Pb stress are reported in literature please argued further this finding.
English must be revised by a professional English service.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
In my opinion the manuscript is still difficult to read, sentences are still often disconnected and must be still partially rewritten.
I believe it is essential that a professional English service revises the manuscript. Moreover, please take care of typos (i.e. fortune instead of fortunei, leave instead of leaves, etc.)
Introduction still lacks of homogeneity. I once again recommend to present only references that can be of help in discussing the results and organize them in a more coherent way.
Please also take in consideration the suggestions in the attached file. I previously suggest to add a table with statistical analyses for Figure 1, but authors have added a table with the results already reported in the figure; it is a repetition that do not provide further help in understanding the results. Please remove Table 4 and add the statistics for these dataset. I also believe that indicating the solvent used for the extraction rather than the type of Pb chemical form is confusing. Please explain the extraction procedure in M&M and report only the chemical form type in results and discussion (i.e., Pb phosphate instead of Pb extracted by acetic acid).
It is a pity that the manuscript present interesting results but it has so little care in writing.
Since results on photosynthesis with LiCOR are not present into the manuscript, please insert these results and discuss them or remove them form M&M.
Authors can not assume that there are heavy metal particles on cell wall through SEM analysis, they can only speculate about this. X-ray microanalysis by SEM would have been important to confirm this finding. Please clearly state that it is only speculative in both results and discussion.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
