Core Collection Formation in Guatemalan Wild Avocado Germplasm with Phenotypic and SSR Data

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Your work is important for the industry and any scientists working on plant conservation strategies and breeding. I consider it to be a great material for publication.

Good luck in further studies!

Below are my comments and recommendations:

In line 92 a space before "[32,33] is missing.

Study site and sampling, line 115-117. I think you should comment, was sampling otherwise random?

Pay attention to description of Figure 3 (line 314-318), it needs reworking to make it clearer what refers to A, B and C.

Please compare sentences in lines 396-404. Overlap? Confusing.

Table 7 footer missing.

Discussion, paragraph from line 558 till line 569 overlaps with information already provided in discussion. Consider deleting this part or making it shorter, avoid repeats.

Lines 620-624. The sentences about rough, smooth and rough bark / trunk surface. Please read them again. This part is confusing.

Sentence in lines 639-641 (studies link...) needs some editing.

Check reference 112! 

It would be nice if you would include in text in discussion, paragraph 2, whether the other studies use the same SSR markers. 

I don't see any problems with English besides some sentences not being expressed clearly.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for this very nicely elaborated and stringently discussed piece of scientific work on “Core Collection Formation in Guatemalan Wild Avocado 2 Germplasm with Phenotypic and SSR Data”. Such kinds of manuscripts are rare and show what long-term/consistent funding schemes can stimulate and the engagement of international research teams can achieve. Really impressive.

Nonetheless, a few, easy to adopt by the authors, but important aspects should be considered for improved comprehensibility and post applied science activities:

In General

- I propose to first talk about the morphological traits, thus shifting the sub headers 3.2 and 3.1 and continue in that style within the manuscript

- Please revise the term "Core Collection". Sometimes small core, sometimes capital “Core”, sometimes capital “Collection”, sometimes together/without space, sometimes with. Please use ONE consistent style (although I see the difference to the corresponding R package).

 

Line 84: "Core Collection' refers...". Please better introduce, like "For conservation and reference purposes, so called Core Collections are established, which..."

Line 108: "Rafael Landívar University Herbarium," = "Rafael Landívar University Herbarium (Guatemala)"

Figure 1: 

- better to integrate the legends into the maps as they is sufficient unused space

- please use the same square/rectangle ratio for the intersection and the zoom in picture

 

Line 115: what was the criteria to collect 8 or 36? Where was one population considered and where started the other population? Have there been minimum distances applied? What was the min and maximum distance? Please be more specific

 

Line 158-167: please follow a logical sequence as (likely) done in the field: 1) tree/dendrometric features (trunk, twigs,..), 2) fruit traits, 3) leave traits, ... Now all is a bit mixed even within one sentence. Clearly separate!

Line 159: consistency cannot be assessed with taste testing, but with haptic testing

 

Line 183: "The genotype accumulation curve was conducted using" = "A genotype accumulation curve was created using"

 

Line 295-297: here and throughout the text. Avoid this "content-poor" sentences stating that this and that can be found in figure x and table y. Better "The genotypic resolution of the SSR markers was very sufficient as indicted by an almost complete discrimination of individuals at n = 4 (Figure 2)" (or alike)

 

Line 311 & line 320: as above: "observed, as shown in Figure 3C." = "observed (Figure 3C)."

 

Line 334: "indicated population connectivity (Table S3)." sounds like discussion as something is indicative

 

Figure 1: Please either delete the word “Agro” in the "agromorphological data" or introduce/explain it in the text

 

Line 417: a r of 0.59 is not strong, but moderate, thus "displayed a moderate (r = 0.52) to strong...."

Figure 5: bring the legend into the figure, thus you can increase the cluster and the legend - win-win ;)

 

Line 434 ff: please check if you need always two digits (= high accuracy) after the comma for these numerically anyhow high values, especially as two digits are not always and consistently applied in this para. Please screen the entire text for such rather meaningless accuracies.

Line 463: "observed the rest" = "observed for the rest"

 

Line 471: "0.037 to 0.08" = "0.04 to 0.08" (check also other numbers in the text and consistently apply one form)

 

Line 502: also here 9.04 alleles = 9 alleles. Please adjust for other numbers as well

 

Line 540: "1.167 (cluster 2) to 5.083 (cluster 540 3) with mean value of.." also here, adjust the number to a meaningful value

 

Line 694: "matrices To" = "matrices. To"

 

Lie 700 - 712: please shorten and/or integrate in the paragraph above. The content is simply very redundant and does not contribute at all to a better understanding of what has not already stated before.

 

Line 714 - 736: also this has been likewise stated in the introduction and is partly redundant here. I would completely integrate (and shorten) into the Intro. Moreover, it is more on a theoretical framework which does not allow to link to the present avocado core collection. Or expressed differently, how suitable is your core collection and what limits the same, given your statement in the materials and methods section that only [accessible and available] individuals have been sampled!

 

Line 746 ff and 772: mind digits after comma

 

The conclusion is in fact is a summary of the main findings. It should be however stating what we derive from this rich diversity and how it can be exploited and/or conserved/preserved given the ongoing land use change / logging activities in the region! Thus, kindly reformulate by emphasizing the conservation and preservation tools to maintain this diversity. In addition, a critical view (negative results, missing but promising sampling locations, and adjusted samplings design – just to name a few) are helpful for further scholars intending to do similar research with the same or other species.  

 

References: 

- quite extensive (kind of unsual for a normal article) list of references, but at the same time also up to date and relevant

- please check all species names for instance an expression like that "Hordeum Vulgare L. Ssp. Vulgare)" should be "Hordeum vulgare L. ssp. vulgare)" despite MDPI's formatting style AND italized

 

all fine (non-native reviewer)

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

In the submitted manuscript "Core Collection Formation in Guatemalan Wild Avocado Germplasm with Phenotypic and SSR Data." the authors provide interesting findings about the genetic diversity and structure of Guatemala's wild avocado germplasm. The topic addressed can be considered relevant to readers of MDPI genes.

In the manuscript, a variety of methods were used and detailed parameters were listed to describe the collections. The analyses are well thought out and implemented. The results are an important basis for a subsequent gene bank management.

In general, I find the manuscript a bit too long and detailed. It would be better to focus on the crucial parameters so that the reader can follow the results better. Especially in the discussion, some parts of the manuscript are mentioned twice and are therefore redundant.

Nevertheless, this is a nice manuscript and a valuable work that should be published after revision.

Please see also detailed comments in the text.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf