The “Oxygen Sink” of Bamboo Shoots Regulates and Guarantees the Oxygen Supply for Aerobic Respiration
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The review of the manuscript titled "The assumption of "oxygen sink" of bamboo shoots to regulate and guarantee the oxygen supply for the aerobic respiration"
The manuscript studies how the O2 supply influences the respiration intensity of bamboo shoot internodes, free O2, and CO2 concentrations inside the internode cavity and in the bag, and the ethanol content of shoot internodes before and after treatment by air and nitrogen.
The Introduction adequately explains the background of bamboo physiology studies regarding its excessive growth rates and hormone growth-regulation mechanisms. To improve this section, I suggest adding the research hypotheses concerning aerobic/anaerobic respiration.
The methods section is well written, including the experimental design and data analysis.
Conclusions should be rewritten. At the moment, they do not provide clear findings in terms of the study. The proposal of the hypothesis should take place in the introduction.
Half of the references are older than 10 years. The level of self-citations is too high—more than 17%.
The manuscript requires extensive English proofreading as well as typographical correction.
Specific comments:
L13-15. The sentence is too long and should be divided into several sentences.
L20. Explain the abbreviation SYK at first appearance.
L30. Incorrect writing of Ph. prominens. Usually, a genera name is reduced to one letter at the second and subsequent mentions.
L30-33. Make this phrase clearer.
L33-37. That is the wrong place for the hypothesis. It should go at the end of the introduction, before the objectives. What exact case do you mention when discussing insufficient external O2 supply? Provide examples. It will enhance the applicability of your research.
L41-42. Provide the full biological name of Phyllostachys edulis.
L50-51: Explain the meaning of hormone abbreviations.
L94. Correct "septa" to plural.
L176. Correct the name of Li-6400 and provide the producer.
L179-180. This sentence sounds unfinished.
L198, 202-203. Replace "u" with "µ".
L229. Fig.4. Correct the y-axis caption. Explain the confidence interval of the bars (SE or SD). It applies to Fig. 5-6, and Table 2-3 as well.
L360-361. Journal standards prescribe avoiding unpublished references.
L371-374. Formulate the sentence more clearly. Which other way remains mysterious?
L404-405. That idea is not new. There are some articles and patents on bamboo shoots' high hemoglobin content and their application in anemia curing (CN102188636B - Bamboo shoot extract with the function of improving anemia, preparation method thereof and compound preparation thereof - Google Patents). The mechanism is the same. The aim is to find out why bamboo using such mechanisms is interesting to study.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript concerns an essential topic, The assumption of oxygen sink" of bamboo shoots to regulate and guarantee the oxygen supply for the aerobic respiration. This expresses the role of oxygen sink" exists in a bamboo shoot which is inducing bamboo growth. The experiment was planned well and executed. And it can be suitable for publishing in ‘Forests’. However, there are some points that should be addressed in the manuscript.
Line 33. ‘we propose’ .that is better to change to we concluded
Line 38 The Keywords can’t be the same word used in the title. Please replace Bamboo shoot and Respiration with other keywords.
Line 42 need to change ‘More than 100 cm per day in the growth period’
Line 52 The reference number should move to the end of a sentence
Line 54 The reference number should move to the end of a sentence
Line 56 The reference number should move to the end of a sentence
Line 207 The figure caption needs to describe more details.
Line 267 O2 subscript
Line 300. Space
Line 341 Ding and Liese
Line 396 remove one point
Please check references to ensure those are correct according to journal guidance.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Journal: Forests (ISSN 1999-4907)
Manuscript ID: forests-2172167
Type: Article
Title: The assumption of "oxygen sink" of bamboo shoots to regulate and guarantee the oxygen supply for the aerobic respiration
Reviewer comments:
This is a well-designed, well-referenced and well-written article. Research findings may add to the existing knowledge. However, the following comments and suggestions may further enhance its quality:
My comments are given below.
- Please highlight more specifically the objective of the work more at the end of introduction part.
- This paper utilizes lots of acronym names. Why not establish a listing table for all the abbreviation used along with their full names. Besides, do not define their abbreviations more than once (1 time) in the text.
Conclusions; the conclusion part has to explain the important results in short sentences. Also, do not repeat the above sentences in the conclusion part. In conclusion, you should write a summary of your work in short sentences so that I, as a reader of this article, can understand what the article ended up being
To enhance readability and to save valuable space, the results and discussions sections may be combined. Or, The subheadings should be deleted from the discussion part, as the discussion part should be one unit, starting with a very brief explanation of each characteristic studied and then discussing it, then using the relevant previous references to claim the results of the current study, and so on until the discussion part ends with clear explanations of what obtained from the results
- Please unify the use of "Fig." and "Figure".
- Please rephrase the sentence "Under the air treatment, O2 consumption and CO2 production showed the same trend in all three periods, with a decreasing trend in order from US, YS to HS stages, indicatinge, the total CO2 production was approximately twice as high as O2 consumption. With the nitrogen treatment, only the shoot cavity provided a small amount of O2 and the total CO2 production was much higher than the O2 consumption" in Lines 277-273
- Besides the above suggestion, a thorough proof-check (punctuation, spelling/typing) and most importantly English language is recommended
Respond to my other comments on the entire manuscript in the attached file
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The review of the manuscript titled "The "oxygen sink" of bamboo shoots regulates and guarantees the oxygen supply for aerobic respiration"
That is a second review of the manuscript. The authors did not respond to the reviewer's comments in the proper way. Therefore, it is unknown whether the authors corrected the drawbacks or not.
The abstract should be elaborated due to several repetitions in the text and a lack of logic.
I suggest adding the research hypotheses to the Introduction. That will improve this section.
In the discussion, it is recommended to compare the study results with those known for other bamboo species if the studies on moso bamboo are scarce.
Conclusions should be rewritten. At the moment, they need all findings to be provided. It contains only the conclusive sentence. That is not enough. The reader needs to know what exactly had been done to solve the mysterious O2 sink in bamboo.
12 references out of 30 are older than ten years.
The level of self-citations is too high—20%.
Specific comments:
L16-23. The sentence is too long and should be divided into several sentences.
L25. Why provide three digits after the dot in the % values? Check all the text.
L40-46. This sentence repeats the sentence at L18-23.
L234. Forest density per ha or m2?
L293. Provide the manufacturer for IRGA.
L312-314. Check the clarity. Ear ball?
L481-482. What is the difference between Rd and R1?
L523-524. Fig. 4. Correct the y-axis caption. It applies to Figs. 5–6 and Tables 2–3 as well.
L702-703. Explain the meaning of small letters after the SEs.
L714-715. Explain the meaning of small letters.
L939-940. This sentence contains repetitions.
L944-945. Clarify that part of the sentence.
L946. Explain the meaning of "combined O2".
L948-949. What specific environment do you mean?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
