Transgenerational Effects of Water Limitation on Reproductive Mother Plants in a Common Garden of the Shrub Frangula alnus
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study investigated the transgenerational effects of water limitation on reproductive mother plants of Frangula alnus, a widely distributed shrub species in Europe. The study found that water limitation for mother plants increased the germination percentage of the stones and advanced seedling emergence timing, and the authors used an intensive data analysis methodology to discern the main trends of the raw results, making the study may be valuable and instructive for some relative researches. Nevertheless, the experiment contains very few measurements to support the main conclusion, and the manuscript may need to consider the following questions, especially in the introduction and Materials and method part.
Here are specific questions:
1) The title is too long, leaving it hard to read. I would suggest the authors to reorganize the title, maybe using a sentence describing the may conclusion.
2) How do you know the materials from different provenance are variable in genotype (Line 25, Line 119, Line 124, etc.)?
3) The introduction may need to be restructured, paragraph 2, 3 may be turned around and then make it link more logically by describing strategies of plants in response to changing environments, specifically drought or seasonal drought.
4) The authors emphasized the ecophysiological superiority of glossy buckthorn in studies on epigenetics, but evaded the importance of the species in ecosystem restoration and therefore described the implication of the study in vague terms. I would suggest the authors to think thorough about this.
5) Yes, the evolved plasticity is important for plants to cope with changing environment and/or variable (a)biotic stresses, but I don’t think plants evolved greater plasticity than animals (Line 74), at least it is not categorically true.
6) The hypothesis comes abrupt (Line 103-105). It should be linked to the documented researches been described in paragraph 2 and 3.
7) What are the light conditions (light density) for the nursery cultivation (Line 115-117), and the watering method in nursery? Please clarify them.
8) What about the mineral nutrient condition (Line 120-123)?
9) The water control methods are not well described (Line 125-129, Line 145), remain it very ambiguous. Please reclarify.
10) What is the ratio of sand to soil in the mixture (Line 141).
11) There are too many methodological descriptions in the results section, but lacking of important information about the main findings.
12) The discussion section contains too many reviews of the previous studies, but lack of cross argument with the previous results. And, I don’t think the germination results can directly revel the stone quality (Line 210).
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is interesting. From an ecophysiological point of view, the core idea can be considered low-original, but the robust experimental design gives us a security unique for this type of trial. The statistical models are robust, explain the central idea and are appropriately applied. The link with epigenetic memory also is a good perspective. In general, the paper is very well written. It has a unique perspective that could be improved would be more measurements about the kinetics and uniformity of the seed-seedling transition process. However, this could hinder the reader-friendly proposal for the paper. Taking this into account, I suggest publishing the manuscript as it is.
Author Response
Thanks a lot for appreciating our manuscript!
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have addressed all of my concerns, I don't have any other further suggestions.
