Quantitative Anatomical Characteristics of Virgin Cork in Quercus variabilis Grown in Korea

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I consider it a good work of which I only have a few comments which I have added in the text.

I recommend to elaborate post-hoc tests like Tukey (they can be expressed in jitter-plots) to visually see the differences or not between oak

I detected a citation that was not in the format requested by the magazine.species.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer 1,

Thank you very much for your critical suggestions and informative comments to improve the manuscript. We revised and reconstructed it very carefully according to your valuable comments.

 

Best regards

Denni Prasetia

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The elaborate work with the certainly labour-intensive measurement of all these parameters is very much to be appreciated. However, it is not clear why these parameters are so important, what they say about the usability or quality of the cork. This should be better elaborated in the introduction.

It should be explained in a little more detail why virgin cork was compared with reproduction cork of different species in this study. Certainly there is no reproduction cork in Korea yet - perhaps this would be a prospect for further research (in Conclusion or Outlook). The prospect of practical tests for use would also be an option. In general, it would be good to better present the intended practical use of this study.

Especially chapters 3.3.1 up to and including 3.3.3 are very difficult to read and record. On the one hand, because the many self-measured data are presented next to the table. On the other hand, even the values of the comparative literature are named precisely, but without any discussion of their relation to the current study. - On the other hand, there are no superscript letters in table 5.

Did no statistical tests take place in this area? These would be important to be able to prove similarities or differences.
Especially chapters 3.3.1 up to and including 3.3.3 are very difficult to read and record. On the one hand, because the many self-measured data are presented next to the table. On the other hand, even the values of the comparative literature are named precisely, but without any discussion of their relation to the current study. Even if one would like to take a closer look at the results presented and the described relations, the statistical evidence for the statements made is missing. Whether a value is higher or lower should be statistically comprehensible in this study. In the many comparisons described within a species, as well as between the two cork species. It is always found that there is no difference within the species, as the same superscript letter is always used. Since the superscript letter used is different between the species, this suggests that there is always a statistical difference between the cork species. I cannot quite believe this on the basis of the data values. Here, the statistical tests should take place in full and be presented in a comprehensible way. This does not have to be all in the table, a combination of data and descriptive text would be conceivable here e.g. "the xxx are higher in the early cork than in the late cork, which is statistically confirmed; or the difference between xxx and yyy is statistically clear.....".

For these reasons, the current draft still seems to me to be too imprecise and incomprehensible to be published, even if the very aware of the small-scale and time-consuming work done, which I appreciate very much.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 2,

Thank you very much for your critical suggestions and informative comments to improve the manuscript. We revised and reconstructed it very carefully according to your valuable comments.

 

Best regards

Denni Prasetia

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see attatchment!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer 3,

Thank you very much for your critical suggestions and informative comments to improve the manuscript. We revised and reconstructed it very carefully according to your valuable comments.

 

Best regards

Denni Prasetia

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Even the minor changes in the text (knowing full well that it is still considerable work) and the addition of better traceability of the statistical tests clearly improve the quality of the presentation and the scientific soundness.  The decision to present the electron micrographs also leads to a better reading comprehension of the details studied.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comment.  

Best regards

Denni Prasetia

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx