Characterization and Identification of Native Pseudomonads from Red and Lateritic Regions of West Bengal
, Raju Das 3 and Sujit Kumar Ray 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Line 16: Change ‘threaten’ to ‘threatens’. ‘attracts’ to ‘attract’
2. Line 21: Please rewrite the sentence ‘In the present research work attempts were made to …’, the sentence is incorrect.
3. Line 31: Change it to ‘Out of 13 selected isolates…’
4. Line 33: Change ‘. Nine isolates’ to ‘and 9 isolates’
5. Line 141: then what was immediately placed on ice?
6. Line 160: Please delete a ‘sequencing’
7. Result, 3.1 and 3.2, if the author has determined the correlation between various soil chemical parameters of lateritic area and rhizobacterial population, the author should provide the soil chemical parameters as a table.
8. Table 1 and lines 199 and 229: All the isolates obtained in this study were Pseudomonads? How did the author identify these isolates? Selected media (did not find in the manuscript) or morphological characteristics? Why did not the author sequence all the isolates? The title of the article is ‘Characterization and Identification of Native Pseudomonads from Red and Lateritic Regions of West Bengal’
9. Line 229: Please add ‘these’ before ’97 isolates’
10. Line 230: should be pH 4 and elsewhere in the manuscript.
11. Lines 233-234: Why and how did the author select the three pathogens?
12. Line 236: Please move ‘isolate’ before ‘BCLP4’
13. Lines 238 and 240: ‘S.’ in ‘S. sclerotiorum’ and ‘S. rolfsii’ is not same, please distinguish.
14. Line 245: should be ‘isolate GP8’
15. Line 298: ‘a s’ should be ‘as’
16. Line 347: Why did the author select the 13 isolates to sequence? Why not all isolates?
17. Line 348: ‘16s’ should be ‘16S’
18. Line 349: Please add ‘and’ before ‘the amplified product was sequenced using …’
19. Fig. 5: The picture is not clear and seems to be stretched, please provide a new one, and also Fig. 6.
20. Line 440: ‘P’ should be italic and lowercase.
21. Line 439-443: Please rewrite the sentence ‘Different species of …stimulated seedling growth.’
Author Response
- The result is depended on only the value of correlation between various soil chemical parameters of lateritic area and rhizobacterial population.
- The isolation was done on Pseudomonas specific media (M406, HIMEDIA), which is now incorporated in the manuscript at line 93.
- Being soil-borne and having a wide host range, the three pathogens, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Sclerotium rolfsii were selected.
- The 13 isolates were selected on the basis of their antagonistic activity against 3 different soil borne pathogens (Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Sclerotium rolfsii) and their plant growth promotion ability on different seeds (tomato, cowpea, and french bean), therefore only the selected isolates were chosen for sequencing.
- The best pictures from all the experimented pots has been captured. An improved quality of pictures has been incorporated in the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Duncan’s multiple range test is easily to produce significant differences. Statistical analysis is better use of Tukey-HSD test than Duncan’s multiple range test in all experiment data.
Table 1, line 190, and line 201-202
Log CFU/gm, 100 gm, and CFU/gm: What is ‘gm’?
Table 2, Table 6 and Table 7
The correlation analysis should clearly state what test was used.
Figure 2
Some parts of the figure are cropped and do not show all of the texts, plots, and numbers in the figure.
Figure 4
There are areas where the bootstrap value is very low.
It is recommended to add outgroups to make clear figure.
Figure 6a
The pot of control photo is too big.
It is recommended that the size of the pots in the figure be published in a uniform manner.
Author Response
The name of seventh author should be Desh Raj Shri Bharati instead of Deshraj Shri Bharati
Figure 2
The figure is clear in Landscape format, as both the graphs are side by side.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript has been well revised except one minor comments as followed:
Line 205: 'various soil chemical parameters of lateritic area'. How did the author obtain these data? Please provide or clarify in the manuscript.
Author Response
Methods for estimation of soil chemical parameters with references has been added in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
