Transcriptomic Responses of Fall Armyworms (Spodoptera frugiperda) Feeding on a Resistant Maize Inbred Line Xi502 with High Benzoxazinoid Content

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper “Transcriptomic responses of fall armyworms (Spodpotera frugiperda) feeding on a resistant maize inbred line Xi502 with high benzoxazinoid content” deals with different susceptible of maize to this pest and has high practical application. There are very few papers about breeding for resistance on maize without Bacillus thuringiensis genes incorporation and since S. frugiperda is getting resistant to Bt-maize this research is very important. However, the authors must improve Material and methods and Results sections and there also some others minor things that must be corrected.

 

Methods and results sections

There are results with no description of the method used to (e.g. 3.1. lines 118 and 119 are M&M and should be placed adequately as well as lines 121-122; 3.3. Results of the principal components analysis not indicated in 2.5);

 

M & M

1. i) Lines 83-85 - If you have 10 replications and you paired them, how do you get in the end 4 biological replications?
2. ii) Line 100 – It is not indicated the units in 150. Should it be gram (g)?

iii) Lines 99- 103 – How much replication did you use? 5?

1. iv) Line 109 – Were the larvae weighed individually?
2. v) Section 2.5. Statistical analysis has to be better explained: i) line 113 - two way ANOVA – what are the factors; ii) t-student’s test is a test for comparison between two samples, so why post-hoc tests?; iii) please provide the statistic of the tests (f for the ANOVA, t for Students… )

Lines 130 to 133 are not results but M&M, also; and lines 207-209 are Discussion

 

Discussion:

1. References are needed in the statements in line 225 (previous study we report) and line 251 (“in which authors showed” – which authors?);
2. Line 274 – “accelerated larval development” or “not retarded development”;

• The discussion can be improved with some references regarding benzoxazinoids and other specialist maize pests

Figures

1. Figure 3 caption is not complete – there are no indication for Fig. 3c and Fig.3d
2. Figure 4 – “***p<0.001“ should be placed near “N.S.: not significant”

• The error bars in the figures are sometimes standard deviations and in others standard errors. If it is true, why do you not use the same criterion, the same dispersion measure, in all the cases?

Reference Malook et al. (2021) is truncated and incomplete in the references list

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled ‘Transcriptomic responses of fall armyworms (Spodpotera frugiperda) feeding on a resistant maize inbred line Xi502 with high benzoxazinoid content’ is a well-written and well-described study, recommended for publication. However, there are a few minor issues that the authors should look into. Also, please include enough references while describing previous methods or papers.

I would suggest the authors include a small table listing the gene names (DEGs) and the pathway it belongs as written in Line 151-165.

 

Line 23: Xi502 leaves, where a number of…. Were specifically induced.

Line 37: where this insect originated from

In between Line 60-61: Please include 2 lines describing Xi502. And later on B73 as well.

Line 106-107: Please describe/ cite a reference of the artificial feeding protocol for the readers.

Line 225: Add the citation.

Line 252: Reference?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf