Influence of Abiotic Factors on the Phytochemical Profile of Two Species of Artemisia: A. herba alba Asso and A. mesatlantica Maire

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The title " Influence of abiotic factors on the phytochemical profile of two species of Artemisia: A. herba-alba Asso and A. mesatlantica Maire"

Minor points:

1- line 20 change « to (

2- line 22 correct to “The chemical compositions analysis carried out by using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS)”

3- Line 23 try to rephrase the sentence and avoid using pronoun We

4- line 24, 26 avoid use abbreviation in abstract EO change to essential oil

5- line 27 trans-thujone

6- Line 27 “(33.78%) while camphor……

7- Line 31 remove two «

8- Line 38 trans-thujone

9- Line 42 remove all « and  »

10- Line 48 “ The major EO compounds of Artemisia are……. Change to “The major components of Artemisia EO are…..

11- Line 49 and 50 remove « and », also ……..

12- Line 50 , 51 & 378, “Variations in chemical composition are referred to many factors such as geographic region, season, as well environment and climatic conditions

13- Line 141 [8], [9], [10]

14- Line 145 “The Kovats’s…..

15- Line 376 remove « and  »

Major points:

1- Line 32 what is mean, please rephrase the sentence “In addition, the principal component analysis (PCA) shows the separation of four groups”

2- Line 33, Our finding observed the difference in the chemical compositions of the isolated essential oils most likely related to many factors such as the climate in the regions of the samples collected, the altitude, and the soil nature.

3- Line 45 (Provide a reference), “ Studies of the chemical composition of essential oils (EO) and chemotypes have revealed a high degree of polymorphism”

4- In plant material if there are herbarium sheet please provide the specimen numbers

5- In Tables 3 &4  also in the texts  change all , like Thujene<α-> to α- Thujene, Decene<1-> to 1-Decene, Menth -2-en-1-al-<Trans -p> to trans-p-Menth -2-en-1-al, ……. and so on

6- There are a lot of typing errors, the figures are carelessly prepared.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, you will find attached the answers to your question. thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of ijpb-1644721

In this manuscript, the authors have carried out a comparison of the volatile phytochemistry of two different Artemisia species collected from different geographical areas of Morocco. The authors have noted differences in essential oil yields and compositions depending on the location of the plant samples. The work is scientifically sound and warrants publication. There are some points to consider.

First of all, I am not sure this is a good fit for International Journal of Plant Biology given the scope of the journal (physiology, molecular biology, cell biology, development, genetics, systematics, ecology, evolution, ecophysiology, plant-microbe interactions, mycology, and phytopathology). A better fit would be a journal more devoted to essential oils and phytochemistry (e.g., Molecules, section on Natural Products, or Plants, section on Phytochemistry).

The statistical methods used (PCA and AHC) should be included in the Materials and Methods section. A statistical comparison (ANOVA) should be included comparing the essential oil yields to verify differences (Table 2).

Table 3 and Table 4: The percentages should be rounded off to one decimal place to reflect the precision of the integration. Should “Oxygenate hydrocarbons” be “Oxygenated monoterpenoids”?

Figure 5: The figure on the left is the important one. The horizontal axis needs a label. The figure on the right is unnecessary and can be omitted.

Figure 6: Please label the principal compounds, either in the figure or in a footnote.  It is not possible to visualize the correlations in this figure.

Although the English usage is acceptable, the manuscript would benefit by a careful proof-reading by an English-speaking technical editor to correct for chemical nomenclature, spacing, italics, spelling, use of subscripts and superscripts, correct abbreviations, etc.

Some examples:

Please place the prefixes for the chemical compounds as prefixes, e.g., line 27, trans-thujone rather than thujone <trans>. Include a space between the genus abbreviation and the species (line 44). Please use chemical nomenclature consistently to avoid confusion (e.g., line 27 and line 49). Include a space between a measurement and its units (line 115). Scientific binomials should be italicized (References).

Author Response

Dear reviewer, you will find attached the answers to your question. thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Please rewrite " thujone " to "trans-thujone"

"Tableau"? Please rewrite "Table"

Table 1 (Taxonomic classification of A. herba-alba Asso and A.mesatlantica Maire) is redundant. All rows except last one is the same!

Table 6 attach to tables 3 and 4

Where is table 5?

Author Response

Dear reviewer, you will find attached the answers to your question. thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

thanks for your response, but please change all  

( trans, cis, β, α,γ,δ, ….etc) to italic 

( trans, cis, β, α,γ,δ, ….etc) in all texts and tables 

and legends

Regards,

Author Response

Dear Mr. /Ms. reviewer,

We would like to express our appreciation for your careful reading of this work and your insightful comments that encourage and help us to improve our article. Therefore, according to your comments, we have revised thoroughly our manuscript and the response to the comments is listed below.

Q1. thanks for your response, but please change all  ( trans, cis, β, α,γ,δ, ….etc) to italic ( trans, cis, β, α,γ,δ, ….etc) in all texts and tables and legends

Answer: Thank you for this comment. The Prefixes has been changed to italic in all texts and tables and legends.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Although some of the requested revisions were carried out, some are still missing or deficient.

Table 1: It still does not appear that an ANOVA analysis was carried out on the % yields. Are they statistically different?

Tables 2 and 3: Oxygenated monoterpenes

Throughout the manuscript: Prefixes such as trans- cis- o- iso- etc. should be italicized.

Table 4: Alcohols

Figure 6: The figure quality is still poor. It is not possible to visualize the correlations in this figure.

Author Response

Dear Mr. /Ms. reviewer,

We would like to express our appreciation for your careful reading of this work and your insightful comments that encourage and help us to improve our article. Therefore, according to your comments, we have revised thoroughly our manuscript and the response to the comments is listed below.

Although some of the requested revisions were carried out, some are still missing or deficient.

Table 1: It still does not appear that an ANOVA analysis was carried out on the % yields. Are they statistically different?

Answer: This comment was taken in consideration. We performed an ANOVA analysis on the % yields .To show some parameter of the analysis (Please see line 150). For table 1 we added *** which show at least there is a difference between two yields.

Tables 2 and 3: Oxygenated monoterpenes

Answer: the Oxygenate monoterpenes has been corrected to Oxygenated monoterpenes  

Throughout the manuscript: Prefixes such as trans- cis- o- iso- etc. should be italicized.

 Answer: The Prefixes trans- cis- o- iso- etc has been corrected

Table 4: Alcohols

Answer: the Alcohols has been corrected.

Figure 6: The figure quality is still poor. It is not possible to visualize the correlations in this figure.

Answer: The quality of figure was improved.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx