Intra- and Interspecific Competition Altered the Competitive Strategies of Alternanthera philoxeroides and Trifolium regens under Cadmium Contamination

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have completed the review of ms under reference. The work is worthy of publication. However, I have few queries/ sugegstions for the improvement of the ms. These are:

1. How was cadmium treatment given? Which salt was used?

2. What was the physico-chemical status of the soil?

3.  What was he rationale for the choice of used concentrations?

4. How was cadmium concentration determined?

5. What were the analytical standards used?

6. How was QC achieved?

Authors may take help on these points from a recent publication in Int J Phytoremediation by Sharma et al. 2022.

7. H2O2 and MDA should not be included in enzyme activity assay! there should be separate sub-head.

8. Provide details for the relevant methods along with citations!

Additionally, in my opinion, 'heavy metal' phrase can be removed from the title.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I have reviewed your manuscript “Intra- and intersprcific competition alter the competitive strategies of Alternanthera philoxeroides and Trifolium regens under heavy metal cadmium contamination”.

MS falls within the journal’s scope and the subject matter is quite interesting. However, the Abstract is too lengthy; the Introduction is failed to motivate and problematize, so should be improved. In addition, the quality of Figures 1-4 should be improvement. Moreover, extensive editing of the English language, grammar and style is required, and there are several drawbacks to address. Briefly, the article can't accept in its present form.

Some comments and suggestions about MS

Title

Line 1: Please replace ‘intersprcific’ with ‘interspecific’.

Line 1-3: The title is suggested to be modified as ‘Intra- and interspecific competition alter the Competitive strategies of Alternanthera philoxeroides and Trifolium regens under Cadmium contamination’.

Abstract

Line 14-40: According to journal (Forests) policy, the abstract should not be more than 200 words and your abstract is more than 370 words. So please re-write the precise and short Abstract to meet the journal’s requirements and for easy understanding of readers.

Line 16: Please avoid using personal nouns and consider this comment for the whole manuscript.

Line 39-40: Please avoid repeating the same words (like Alternanthera philoxeroides; Trifolium regens; cadmium stress; interspecific competition; intraspecific competition) that you have already used in the title to enhance the visibility of your article.

Introduction

Line 43: The introduction’s opening sentence is unsuitable, so it is suggested that the introduction be started from these sentences.

“Heavy metal accumulation in soils, whether caused by natural processes or human activity, severely impacts life and biodiversity (http://dx.doi.org/10.15666/aeer/1903_23052331). Heavy metal toxicity is one of the primary causes of environmental and ecological issues (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.112510,http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.micpath.2020.104188).”

Line 46-48: This is an ambiguous sentence so please rephrase this sentence for clear understanding of readers. 'The main metal elements present in China’s soil analysis reports are heavy metal elements such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic [3].'

Line 81-83: This is another ambiguous sentence so please rephrase it. ‘In 2021, we conducted pots experiment along the setting cadmium concentration gradients in order to predict the invasion of this alien plant.’

Materials and Methods

Line 103: Please replace 'comes' with 'bring'.

Line 104: Please replace '100、200' with '100 and 200'.

Line 110: Species name should be italicize.

Line 176: "P" should be in small letter and italicized.

Results

Line 184,186: "P" should be in small letter and italicized.

Line 250: The quality of Figure 1 should be improved.

Line 258-261: The quality of Figure 2 should be improved.

Line 266-269: Same comment as mentioned in line 250.

Line 220-324: Same comment as mentioned in line 250.

 

Discussion

Line 389: Please replace 'SLA responds to leaf thickness' with 'SLA is correlated with leaf thickness (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jplph.2022.153671)’.

 

Conclusions

Line 450-480: Conclusions section is too lengthy. Need to re-write on the basis of factual findings.

 

In light of the above, I think the MS deserves to be published but should only be accepted after a Major Revision.

Please take into consideration the comments on the PDF file of the revision.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors have incorporated most of the suggested changes. However, method of H2O2 is still not included. Further, the manuscript be spell-checked / corrected for minor grammatical mistakes/typos.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks to the authors for critically addressing my concerns and I am satisfied with the current version. However, I still have minor comments:

Title

Line 2-4: The title is suggested to be modified as ‘Intra- and interspecific competition alter the Competitive strategies of Alternanthera philoxeroides and Trifolium regens under Cadmium contamination’.

Abstract

Keywords

Line 29-30: Still, there are repeating words like Alternanthera philoxeroides; Trifolium regens; cadmium stress. Please modify these words.

Introduction

Line 33-34: Please cite the relevant reference for “Heavy metal accumulation in soils, whether caused by natural processes or human activity, severely impacts life and biodiversity.” which is (http://dx.doi.org/10.15666/aeer/1903_23052331).

Line 35-36: Please cite the relevant references for “Heavy metal toxicity is one of the primary causes of environmental and ecological issues.” which are (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.112510, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.micpath.2020.104188).

Line 36-38: Replace this sentence “The main metal elements that exceed the standard present in China’s soil analysis reports are heavy metal elements such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic” with “According to China’s soil analysis reports, the lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic exceeded the prescribed standard.” 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx