Temporal Response to Drought Stress in Several Prunus Rootstocks and Wild Species

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors investigated the temporal response of drought stress in several genotypes in Prunus species. They surveyed photosynthesis, respiration rate, water potential, chlorophyll content in response to drought stress. They also evaluated genotype effect by using mixed model approach. Because drought stress tolerance of Prunus rootstocks is one of the important breeding target, this study provides valuable information, although the approach itself is not novel and rather quite conventional method in the area of Agronomy. However, for fruit tree physiologist, this paper provides good example, I believe.

I have some concerns.

Title: I do not think the authors used the representative genotype of each Prunus species, and I do not think the used genotypes are "traditionally grown in temperate regions" but "regionally grown in Europe". I would like to ask the changes to title appropriately, like "Temporal response to drought stress in several Prunus rootstocks and wild species".

 

To my understanding, Figure1-4 and Table3,4 are redundant and Figures showed the raw data but Table 3,4 showed the mean data with statistic analysis. I think figures can be moved to supplementary or just deleted. The relationship between Figure 5 and Table6 is also the same. Figure 5 can be removed?

Second paragraph in Section 4.1.: It seems that something happened in Time8 measurement. The authors discussed the use of different LI-COR machine affected the unusual results. However, from the scientific point, this explanation cannot be convincing the readers because this is not validated by further studies. If you present the data like this, no readers will trust your data at all. The authors have to decide either repeat experiment once again using the precisely normalized LI-COR machine or delete Time8 measurement from the statistic analysis and any figures and Tables with some explanation why you deleted.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The study attempts to measure the effects of drought stress on marketable Prunus genotypes using methods of classical plant physiology and to model the results with an autoregressive first-order variance-covariance structure. This methodological combination can be useful for resistance testing in breeding research and is therefore of high practical relevance.

Abstract:
The abstract briefly describes the aim and nature of the study and refers to its relevance for fruit growing practice. However, the last sentence seems to be somewhat imperatively worded. I would replace "must" with "should”

Keywords:
Since "drought response" also appears in the title, I recommend replacing this keyword with "recovery

Introduction:
In the introduction a good logical derivation of the problem is given. This is backed up by a wealth of literature. Small changes in the text could still improve the line of argumentation:
Line 43-44: Shift the first sentence to line 49 (after [3-6]) and find a reference for this statement
Line 66: delete “furthermore“
Line 71: delete „in addition“
Line 81: replace “suggested” with “assumed” or “concluded”
Line 111-114: These two sentences would be better placed in the "Conclusions" chapter. Instead, I recommend at this point to formulate question(s) or hypothesis(s).

Materials and Methods:
Plant material and experimental design as well as Modelling analysis were described in sufficient detail and in a comprehensible manner. Subchapters 2.1. and 2.2. could perhaps be combined into one. Some minor details should be taken into account:
Line 117: once "important" is enough
Line 144/145: Information on the climatic conditions in the greenhouse is missing.
Line 152 and line 161: The statement about split-plot design is given twice - delete once
Line 162: Shift the sentence to line 149
Line 169: Is there information about the soil water content during the desiccation? (Remark- I am afraid that after 21 days of continuous desiccation, it should be extremely low. Therefore, sometimes a soil moisture stabilisation at a very low level is recommended.)
Line 180: Why “estimation” and not “measurement”?
Line 181: With reference to the area of the cuvette section, no leaf actually needs to be removed and the measurements of Pn, Gs and E would not be destructive. Apparently the destruction results from the leaf analysis (line 205-206) (?)
Line 223: Please write “Akaike information criterion (AIC)” and cite Akaike (1974)

Results:
Line 240: Why was a breakdown into 3.1.1. if 3.1.2. does not exist ?
Figure1-3: The 3 figures each consist of two parts (with and without time points 8). This duplication prolongs the publication considerably and is superfluous. More important is the explanation in the text (lines 380-395) why the values at the time points8 differ so much from other times. If the measurement conditions have been changed for technical reasons, it may be better to eliminate time8 completely from the analysis.

Discussion:
Lines 380-395: The detailed justification for the deviations at time8 can be waived if these data are eliminated from the evaluation.
In chapter 4.2. physiological relationships could be discussed even more in detail, taking into account further literature, for example in lines 414-420 and lines 430-434: The discussion about V-patterns and U-patterns seems somewhat superficial. How the results will be related to isohydric and anisohydric responses? A discussion of the results in this context (Sade et al. 2012, Attia et al. 2015, Roman et al. 2015…) could improve the manuscript.
Lines 443-444: Could it be that the delay results from the fact that the transpiring leaf mass is lower in the two genotypes and consequently the soil moisture in the pots is even higher? Unfortunately there is no information on soil moisture and biomass.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf