Taxonomy and Phylogeny of Endophytic Fungi (Chaetomiaceae) Associated with Healthy Leaves of Mangifera indica in Yunnan, China
, Samantha C. Karunarathna 1,*, Dong-Qin Dai 1, Alviti Kankanamalage Hasith Priyashantha 2, Itthayakorn Promputtha 2, Abdallah Elgorban 3 and Saowaluck Tibpromma 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please modify the topic as suggested.
Please refer to the attachment for more comments.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Good.
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewers,
Thank you very much for your reply regarding our manuscript entitled “Isolation of Endophytic Fungi (Chaetomiaceae) Associated with Healthy Leaves of Mangifera indica in Yunnan, China”. We are grateful for your and the reviewer’s comments, and the critical evaluation of our work. We have revised and modified the text according to the referees' critiques. The answers for reviewer 1 are highlighted in blue and answers for reviewer 2 are highlighted in green in the revised manuscript. Additional changes are highlighted in yellow, to make the structure of the content more concise. These changes have considerably improved the manuscript, and we hope it can be published without delay.
Er-Fu Yang, Samantha C. Karunarathna, Dong-Qin Dai, Alviti Kankanamalage Hasith Priyashantha, Itthayakorn Promputtha, Abdallah Elgorban, Saowaluck Tibpromma
Sincerely,
Samantha C. Karunarathna and Saowaluck Tibpromma
Reviewer 1
Comment 1: Isolation of Endophytic Fungi (Chaetomiaceae) Associated with Healthy Leaves of Mangifera indica in Yunnan, China
Response：Revised and highlighted in blue.
Comment 2: Mango is a deep-rooted, evergreen plant belonging to the genus Mangifera (Anacardiaceae), with 69 species please check it again!
Response：Confirmed and added the recent reference (Xin et al. 2023).
Comment 3: What are the aims of this study? Don't state the research findings here, mention aims of the study instead.
Response：Added in the last paragraph of the introduction and highlighted in blue.
Comment 4: Make sure that you have included all the available strains here.
Response：Re-checked and revised.
Comment 5: on PDA?
Response：Yes, the strain Arcopilus hongheensis on PDA produced reddish brown Pigments.
Comment 6: Morphological comparisons: Did you do this?
Response：Revised and added the parts of morphological comparisons in the notes section.
Comment 7: also discuss the significance of the study. It would be better if you could analyze the potential properties of the fungi you isolated in the future.
Response: Revised.
Comment 8: Have these species been found as endophytes before? If no, as saprobes or pathogens? Please discuss.
Response: Revised.
Comment 9: Please don't use this here as you have done a proper phylogenetic analysis and BLASTn can only used for preliminary identification. correct this in the "notes" as well.
Response：Revised and deleted.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This study reported a new species and two new records of Chaetomiaceae in China. The description part of species was done well. But the part of the material and methods and tree needs to be corrected and improved:
Page 2: line 31: “Leaf pieces were then transferred to PDA plates and incubated at 27°C for 2–3 days”.
For endophyte isolation, this time is very short. it is usually one to two months
Page 2: Microscopic examination part:
1- Please provide reference(s) for morphological identifications. Based on Wang et al. (2022) Oatmeal Agar and Potato Carrot Agar recommend as standard medium for Chaetomiaceae. potato dextrose agar (PDA) are recommended media for extrolite profiling and are not suitable for studying the morphology because the formation of a sexual morph is generally poorly induced
2- for colors in fungi, it is better use a color chart used in mycology like Rayner (1970) and etc.
3- provide the solution used to prepare the slides for asci and ascospores details.
Page 3:
Please provide refrence(s) for primers (ITS, LSU, rpb2 and tub2) and BLASTn search
Page 4: Figure 1:
in Arcopilus genus two strain A. Globulus CGMCC:3.19359 and A. globulus LC13554 separated from each other while in Wang et al. 2022 they are placed together. Please check your sequences.
Page 5: line 11: “Wang et al. [29] revised Arcopilus, which contains 11 species. Arcopilus species”.
currently it includes 13 species (index fungarum)
Page 10: line 7: “Asexual morph: Mycelium 3–10 (xÌ… = 4.5 μm, n = 20) μm wide, hyaline
to yellowish brown, branched.”
Please provide hyphae characteristic in two another species in culture characteristic part.
Although the another two species did not have an asexual form, you can add the characteristics of hyphae
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewers,
Thank you very much for your reply regarding our manuscript entitled “Isolation of Endophytic Fungi (Chaetomiaceae) Associated with Healthy Leaves of Mangifera indica in Yunnan, China”. We are grateful for your and the reviewer’s comments, and the critical evaluation of our work. We have revised and modified the text according to the referees' critiques. The answers for reviewer 1 are highlighted in blue and answers for reviewer 2 are highlighted in green in the revised manuscript. Additional changes are highlighted in yellow, to make the content structure more concise. These changes have improved the manuscript considerably, and we hope that it can be published without delay.
Er-Fu Yang, Samantha C. Karunarathna, Dong-Qin Dai, Alviti Kankanamalage Hasith Priyashantha, Itthayakorn Promputtha, Abdallah Elgorban, Saowaluck Tibpromma
Sincerely,
Samantha C. Karunarathna and Saowaluck Tibpromma
Reviewer 2
This study reported a new species and two new records of Chaetomiaceae in China. The description part of species was done well. But the part of the material and methods and tree needs to be corrected and improved:
Comment 1: Page 2: line 31: “Leaf pieces were then transferred to PDA plates and incubated at 27°C for 2–3 days”.
For endophyte isolation, this time is very short. it is usually one to two months
Response: Revised and added the references. The endophytic fungi start to emerge as single hypha during this early stage (2–15 days), and easily obtain a pure culture. When keeping it longer than two weeks, plentiful mixed mycelium of different endophytic fungi will cover the media.
Page 2: Microscopic examination part:
Comment 2：Please provide reference(s) for morphological identifications. Based on Wang et al. (2022) Oatmeal Agar and Potato Carrot Agar recommend as standard medium for Chaetomiaceae. potato dextrose agar (PDA) are recommended media for extrolite profiling and are not suitable for studying the morphology because the formation of a sexual morph is generally poorly induced.
Response: We added more details regarding morphological identifications. In addition, in this study, PDA plates of Chaetomiaceae strains were used and successfully obtained sexual morph. However, we also added it in the discussion part.
Comment 3：For colors in fungi, it is better use a color chart used in mycology like Rayner (1970) and etc.
Response: Revised. The color codes in the manuscript followed colorhexa (http://www.colorhexa.com).
Comment 4：Provide the solution used to prepare the slides for asci and ascospores details.
Response: Revised and added in the microscopic examination section.
Comment 5：Page 3: Please provide refrence(s) for primers (ITS, LSU, rpb2 and tub2) and BLASTn search
Response: Added the references.
Comment 6：Page 4: Figure 1: In Arcopilus genus two strain A. globulus CGMCC:3.19359 and A. globulus LC13554 separated from each other while in Wang et al. 2022 they are placed together. Please check your sequences.
Response: Revised the phylogenetic tree. The strain Arcopilus globulus (CGMCC:3.19359) was re-identified, and its current name is Arcopilus aureus (CGMCC 3.19359) (Wang et al. 2022: Table 2)
In addition, based on base pairs differences (>15% 348/408 bp) of tub2 region and phylogeny. Arcopilus aureus (CGMCC 3.19359) and Arcopilus globulus (LC13554) are separated.
Comment 7：Page 5: line 11: “Wang et al. [29] revised Arcopilus, which contains 11 species. Arcopilus species”.
Currently it includes 13 species (index fungarum)
Response: Revised to 13 species, based on Wang et al. (2022) and Index Fungorum (2023).
Comment 8：Page 10: line 7: “Asexual morph: Mycelium 3–10 (xÌ… = 4.5 μm, n = 20) μm wide, hyaline to yellowish brown, branched.” Please provide hyphae characteristic in two another species in culture characteristic part. Although the another two species did not have an asexual form, you can add the characteristics of hyphae
Response: Revised and added.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
