The Promotion of Festuca sinensis under Heavy Metal Treatment Mediated by Epichloë Endophyte

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article on "The promotion of Festuca sinensis heavy metal stress tolerance mediated by Epichloë endophyte" is well written on a well organised experiment design. However, need attention on scientific naming ( need to be italic) and found many inconsistencies with writing Zn²⁺ and Cd²⁺  ions in the article.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The Manuscript focuses on the effect of Epichloë endophyte on Zn and Cd tolerance of Festuca sinensis, assessing the plant growth and the physiological responses. Generally, the manuscript is well organized and clear.

In my opinion, some corrections should be provided before the paper is accepted for publication. Particularly, I suggest referring to heavy metal tolerance only for Cd, as the high concentration of Zn in substrate had positively affected the plant growth in -E plants, probably due to the limited Zn bioavailability in the used substrate (black soil) or pH, as reported by Authors. The properties of black soil are missing, and if certified properties are available from the producer, I suggest adding them as a table and discuss. Instead, the plants growing on Cd-polluted substrates showed stress, compared to control, and the presence of the endophytes statistically increased the plant tolerance.

Below I reported some suggestions:

The formatting of the manuscript needs to be revised: Italics, superscript and subscript are missing.

Some Affiliations are missing

Keywords

Keywords should be in alphabetical order and not include the same words of the title

Introduction

L25. The scientific name of Festuca sinensis should be followed by authorship when cited for the first time in the text

Material and Methods

L64 and 73. References 4 and 5 are in Chinese and I recommend briefly reporting the used method.

L85-88.  Please specify the choice of Zn and Cd concentrations.

L93; L106; L144. Please briefly describe the used method.

L96-97. Are the roots washed with CaCl₂ solution to remove the heavy metal adsorbed in the root surface? Please specify

L106. Please briefly describe the used method.

L111. The reference is not numbered

Statistical analysis

Please specify the normality and homoscedasticity tests used.

Results

The use of the word “content” for heavy metals and hormones is wrongly used because it is expressed as an amount per mass basis and not per plant organ. Please use “concentration”.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been improved according to my comments and suggestions