Effect of Abiotic Factors on Nectar Quality and Secretion of Two Early Spring Species, Galanthus nivalis L. and Helleborus niger L.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

the research topic is very interesting and highly investigated in the modern scientific community. the authors examined how the weather and environmental conditions influence nectar quality.  the introduction is very informative and gives enough information about the importance of the research, similar research, and the importance of the nectar.  in materials and methods, the authors described the key points necessary for the reader to repeat the experiments. the presentation of the results is well-organized and easy to follow. the discussion is adequate for the presented results and the authors explain it to great extent. the conclusion solidifies and pointed out the major findings. the number of figures and tables are adequate for the research. the references could be improved with more appropriate articles with the influence of abiotic stress for example 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-014-1701-y

https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.arplant.55.031903.141701

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2004.00789.x

 the results could be presented better for  example: 

in the line  309-312" Our analysis of three main sugars (sucrose, glucose, fructose) in nectar samples of G. nivalis (Figure 19) and H. niger (Figure 20) shows that G. nivalis has more hexoses (glucose 48.7% and fructose 20.5%) and less sucrose (30.8%), while H. niger has more sucrose 311 (83.3%) and less glucose (14.6%) and fructose (2.1%). " such statement could led to missconclusion that only glucose fructose and sucrose are presented in nectar.  what about other monosaccharides, oligo and polysaccharides. similar presentation is given with polyphenols also. The authors must rephrase that paragraph. the major concern is also lack of descriptive statisticsof the methods such as linearity, reproducibility, repeatibility, recovery limit of detection and quantification.....

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

the English style and grammar are satisfactory

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your comments. We corrected the manuscript according to your suggestions. We added some new adequate references. According to your suggestions about frost stress, we added some references, but we also explained that those two species are not affected to winter stress, because they are adapted to the winter. We also rewrite paragraph that is more understandable. According to your advise we added more information about the compounds analysis. 

All the best, authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors presented relevant results about nectar composition of two plant species and its correlation with abiotic factors. The topic is of great interest for the scientific community but before being published some minor revisions should be applied.

Keyword: do not use words used in the title

Introduction:

The sentence from line 38 to line 42, is relevant but is not linked with the text in which is embebbed, so please move it along the text

References 21 is linked to pollinators as birds, is of course relevant but since is cited alone and the paper is studying insects maybe is better to change it.

Along the text you speak about "nectar production", this concept referers to the process that produce nectar and not to the quantity produced. I suggest to change it along the text maybe with "nectar standing crop" or " secretion rate" 

Introduce properly and without the acronim the concept of UVB the first time you cite it in the text

At the end of the introduction you stated the objectives of the paper, but reading the text they seems more future possible applicaton or studies rather than objectives. Which are the precise objectives of the study? Please be consistent in the discussion and conclusion sections.

Materials and Methods

in the section 2.3 you included also measurement of abiotic factors but the name is nectar sampling

within the same day of sampling do you sample the same flowers? Please describe it

Results

Using the cumulative median is very useful but you have to describe clarly the data set used to calculate it; three different hours of one day? of the entire sampling season? of a single month? is not clear

Why you did not present results divided by months? I suppose that this strategy could help in understanding the relation with abiotic factor the of course are changing along the time

line 361: is not clear if you are referring to soil or air temperature

discussion and conclusion

starting from a more detailed description of your objectives at the end of the introduction, please try to highlight in discussion and conclusion sections the effectiveness and relevance of your findings, future application ecc. Reading these two sections your study seems a simple report on nectar composition and correlation of two flowering species. Please shed light on your findings respect to what is already in literature

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. According to your suggestions we corrected our manuscript, the corrections are also visible in the manuscript. 

We did not represent the results by months because both species were sampled in February (that it was more comparable). Now we corrected it that is more obvious that experiment was done in February, we corrected also environmental agency data.

Our study was done more on the plant species perspective and not so much from the pollinators perspective. In the way how this two species could be important food source.

All the best, authors

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

the authors made an effort to respond to the reviewers' suggestions properly but still, there is major concerns

first, the tables of descriptive statistics should be properly entitled and distinguished from the surrounding text.

second tables in amino acid and polyphenolic paragraphs should be swapped.

in the line 486-488 the "sugar" should be changed to carbohydrate to be more precise at the current stage it could mislead the reader to the wrong conclusion regarding carbohydrate.

A better explanation of high sucrose concentration could bring benefit to paper also.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English style and grammar are satisfactory

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

According to your comment about better explanation of high sucrose concentration. 

We believe that from the point of view of the large amount of sucrose in relation to pollinators, it is already explained in the text. Honeybees, bumblebees are actually proven to be the most common pollinators and are also proven to prefer sucrose-dominant nectar. We did not get any new information from our research regarding the dominant sugar, as others have already discovered that the genus Helleborus has such a nectar and we further confirmed this.

There is also a sentence where it is explained Deeper flowers or nectaries produce sucrose-dominant nectar, which is true for the body, nectaries are deeper and true from this point of view as well.

All the best, Authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx