The Role of Beneficial Microorganisms in Soil Quality and Plant Health

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I consider this article don't provide enough data about the role of beneficial microorganisms on the soil quality and plant health.

The number of references are small for an article - type review.

 

Author Response

Thanks for your comments the references were adjusted according to the topic and the journal requirements

Reviewer 2 Report

Line -9-11, please, check this sentence because it is confusing.

Abstract: The authors could demonstrate part of the results and discussion here.

In topic 2 “Relation between soil and plant health”, the authors could add a figure/Table or graph to demonstrate the results.

In topic 3, the authors demonstrate the advantages of microbial biofertilizers. However, there was no information about the disadvantages. The authors could demonstrate the challenges.

The authors could demonstrate the increase of yield in crops with the addition of biofertilizers. A table with this information will be interesting in MS.

Author Response

• Line -9-11, please, check this sentence because it is confusing.

The sentence was changed

• Abstract: The authors could demonstrate part of the results and discussion here.

The final of the abstract was changed adding two sentences explaining the sense of this study.

• In topic 2 “Relation between soil and plant health”, the authors could add a figure/Table or graph to demonstrate the results.

One figure was added

• In topic 3, the authors demonstrate the advantages of microbial biofertilizers. However, there was no information about the disadvantages. The authors could demonstrate the challenges.

The challenges are described in this section and one table was added to be more clear.

• The authors could demonstrate the increase of yield in crops with the addition of biofertilizers. A table with this information will be interesting in MS.

This is a little difficult since many studies that have been realized are in vitro not in vivo and there are several studies without yield data.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript provided a detailed literature regarding the role of beneficial microorganisms, with special emphasis on Bacillus genus, on the soil and plant health. This review clearly identified major achievements in the field in recent years, major research questions, or future research needs, which are key aspects. However, there are also several issues in the current draft. The first main issue throughout is a general lack of specificity and precision in the writing. There are several uses of unclear language, highly general statements without specific support. Authors must work on the following points:

* Abstracts needs to have more precision as in the current form it appears. Significance of the study should be mentioned clearly in abstract section with state-of-art in one sentence maybe..

* Provide significant words which are more relevant to the work in logical sequence as ‘keywords’, and also use keywords which are not present in the title.

* The "Introduction" section should follow the state of the art of this field and review what has been done, for supporting the research gap and the significance of this study. Please improve the state of the art overview, to clearly show the progress beyond the state of the art. The lack of proper justification creates the wrong impression that the authors are unaware of the recent developments. At the end of the introduction, the statement of the paper goal and the explanation of novelty have to be properly formulated. Currently this is not performed well. A high-quality paper has to provide a proper state of the art analysis after the literature review and only based on the analysis to formulate the paper goals. The scientific basis and hypothesis for this study should be demonstrated in "Introduction" section. The literature about the role of beneficial microorganisms on the soil and plant health needs to be added in reference.

* The introduction of the review paper must be extended and reformulated in order to provide a more comprehensive approach.

* The objectives of the review is poorly written.

* It is also recommended to discuss and explain what should be the appropriate policies based on the findings of this study. Also, the literature should be further elaborated to show how they could be used for real applications.

* More tables and figures should be added to please readers.

* It is strongly recommended to add a subsection, 'practical implications of this study,' outlining the challenges in the current literature, future work, and recommendations, before the conclusion.

* Don’t use the notion like ‘we’ or ‘our’ etc., as these are the redundant words (not the research words) for the standard journal manuscripts.

* Currently, the Future perspectives and Conclusions contain both the concluding marks and recommendations. The future work-related points can be grouped under the subsection as mentioned above. Conclusions are mainly based on suppositions and not on the literature evidence. All conclusions must be convincing statements on what was found to be novel, impactful based on strong support of the data/results/discussion. Pls. conclude with more focus on the major outcomes of the paper.

Author Response

• Abstracts needs to have more precision as in the current form it appears. Significance of the study should be mentioned clearly in abstract section with state-of-art in one sentence maybe.

The final of the abstract was changed adding more sentences explaining the importance of this study

• Provide significant words which are more relevant to the work in logical sequence as ‘keywords’, and also use keywords which are not present in the title.

Keywords have been changed in order and one was deleted and one new was added

• The "Introduction" section should follow the state of the art of this field and review what has been done, for supporting the research gap and the significance of this study. Please improve the state of the art overview, to clearly show the progress beyond the state of the art. The lack of proper justification creates the wrong impression that the authors are unaware of the recent developments. At the end of the introduction, the statement of the paper goal and the explanation of novelty have to be properly formulated. Currently this is not performed well. A high-quality paper has to provide a proper state of the art analysis after the literature review and only based on the analysis to formulate the paper goals. The scientific basis and hypothesis for this study should be demonstrated in "Introduction" section. The literature about the role of beneficial microorganisms on the soil and plant health needs to be added in reference. The introduction of the review paper must be extended and reformulated in order to provide a more comprehensive approach. The objectives of the review is poorly written.

The introduction was extended adding new references about the role of beneficial microorganisms on the soil and plant health. The paper goal was added and objectives were reformulated.

• It is also recommended to discuss and explain what should be the appropriate policies based on the findings of this study. Also, the literature should be further elaborated to show how they could be used for real applications.

Six new references were added about the role of beneficial microorgamisms in line with the topic. The policies that should be appropriate are implicated in 5 and 6 sections.

• More tables and figures should be added to please readers.

One figure and one table were added

• It is strongly recommended to add a subsection, 'practical implications of this study,' outlining the challenges in the current literature, future work, and recommendations, before the conclusion. Currently, the Future perspectives and Conclusions contain both the concluding marks and recommendations. The future work-related points can be grouped under the subsection as mentioned above. Conclusions are mainly based on suppositions and not on the literature evidence. All conclusions must be convincing statements on what was found to be novel, impactful based on strong support of the data/results/discussion. Pls. conclude with more focus on the major outcomes of the paper.

The section was added grouping several paragraphs that were in conclusion section about the future work-related points in this section. The conclusion was reformulated adding some new sentences.

• Don’t use the notion like ‘we’ or ‘our’ etc., as these are the redundant words (not the research words) for the standard journal manuscripts.

Done

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

It's Ok.

Author Response

Thanks a lot

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have addressed all of my queries, therefore the manuscript may be accepted in its current form.

Author Response

thanks a lot for your valuable comments to improve the MS.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The review article deals with an important and widely studied topic of beneficial soil microorganisms, their interaction with plants and role in sustainable crop production. As such, it could be of interest to the scientific community. The manuscript contains three chapters (plus Introduction and Conclusions) of variable quality. The chapter ‘Bacillus spp. beneficial for plants’ is detailed and relatively fluently written, while the remaining chapters are too superficial and suffer from numerous flaws. The authors repeat generally known facts, often oversimplified and in questionable context. The problems, as well as the individual beneficial activities of soil microbiota are listed without giving much detail. The text lacks a logical structure, the same statements are repeated several times, the sentences are ordered and grouped into paragraphs often in haphazard manner.

Among 43 references, only few original papers are included, a majority of referenced works are previous reviews and book chapters. That might be acceptable if the previously reviewed findings were presented in a new context leading to deeper understanding of the topic, which is unfortunately not the case.

The manuscript contains many stylistic and grammatical errors that, at some points, limit understanding of the text.

I cannot recommend publication of the manuscript in its present form. The text needs to be completely restructured, more focused and supplemented with new information on the selected topics from the original articles, and finally, a thorough language editing is necessary.

 

Specific comments give only few selected examples of the many points needing attention:

l. 8-9 ' The increasement of global population leads to an improvement...' The increase of global population does not lead to, but rather requires an improvement...

l. 12-13 Please reformulate the sentence

l. 14,15 Do not use abbreviations in the abstract. Furthermore, it is futile to introduce an abbreviation which is not used in the rest of the manuscript. (Similarly: l. 121, 145, 149)

l. 15-17 Please reformulate the sentence

l. 26-50 The introduction says more-less the same as the abstract

l. 70-71 Being 'healthy' certainly does not imply that the soil ecosystem is free of pests, they are rather under control

l. 78 Reformulate

l. 85-87 The concluding sentence could be rather an introductory one of another paragraph with details on those 'several practices'

l. 95-96 Which 'severe signs', please specify

l. 99-165 Biofertilizers are defined several times, information is repeated.

l. 282-289 The 'Conclusions' should emphasize the most important messages in a clear and straightforward way, defining the types of induced resistance and other details do not help at this point

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic of the manuscript is very important and currently popular.

I have some comments due to which the article requires major revision with the aim to be published.

Many sentences can be found in the other articles or other available sources regarding fertilisers. Please see particular remarks in the attached document. Even if the appropriate reference is enclosed, in my opinion it is not useful for readers having identical statements in more articles. This is particularly noticeable in the first part of the manuscript.   

The review is generally based and written using the data from the other review articles, not research articles, so many conclusions, opinions, etc. were already made by previous researches.

Therefore, the manuscript requires to be the rewritten mainly taking into account data and observations published in the original research articles, and new perspectives should be given in this manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The present article "The role of beneficial microorganisms on the soil quality and plant health" is a review.

I consider this article don't provide concise and precise updates on the latest progress made in about the role of beneficial microorganisms on the soil quality and plant health.

The number of references are small, there are references especially  from last years (2019-2021). 

This review don't follow the PRISMA guidelines.