Bacterial Communities in the Rhizosphere of Common Bean Plants (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Grown in an Arable Soil Amended with TiO2 Nanoparticles
, Laura Afanador-Barajas 1, Sergio Pérez-RÃos 2, Yendi E. Navarro-Noya 3, Marco Luna-Guido 1, Fabián Fernández-Luqueño 4 and Luc Dendooven 2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis article provides valuable and interesting information on the effect of different doses of TiO2 nanoparticles on different soil and plant parameters, as well as an analysis of their effect on bacterial communities.
From my point of view I request some comments to the authors for a better understanding of the study and the results.
The supplementary material has not been attached to the document, so although it is mentioned, it has not been possible to review it.
L38-39. Do the values indicated correspond to the USA or to total world production?
M and M
Why were these application rates used? Are they doses that can actually be found naturally in agricultural soils?
What type of NPs were used? Are they commercial? Indicate the most important basic characteristics.
What is the purpose of using red tezontle? Why this product and not e.g. sand?
L111: and a third (n = 12) was mixed but left unamended. What do you mean by was mixed?
L113: Three bean seeds were planted at 2 cm deep in half of the columns amended 113 with the three different concentrations of TiO2-NPs kg-1 (n = 6).
Confusingly, 12 columns were not amended with the NPs. Total n of the columns with seeds would be 18
L114: As such, six treatments were 114 applied to the three soil samples, i.e. three different application rates of TiO2-NPs kg-1 left 115 uncultivated or cultivated with bean plants.
What do you mean by 3 soil samples?
L119: Explain how the "four random leaves" were chosen. In each measurement, were similar leaves considered in all plants?
L 122 How was the WHC of the columns controlled?
L124. Were the greenhouse temperatures achieved naturally or was there a temperature regulation system?
L126 What do you mean by each treatment?
L 133 How were the roots cleaned to loosen them from the soil, were they washed with water or simply brushed?
Results
The statistical study (Tables 1 and 2) is carried out without pointing out the interaction of the different effects (time, NP dose and crop). An analysis of variance of the effects and their interactions could clarify the influence of the effects on the parameters studied.
Dsicussion
I find that the authors cite an extensive bibliography but in my point of view there is a lack of comparison and linkage with the authors' own results.
L 310-316: soil characteristics, e.g. texture soil and organic matter, determine the effect of application of
Develop how soil characteristics influence microbial activity, complete with your own findings.
Review the format of the Tables.
Bibliography
In my view the number of bibliographic citations is excessive. There are some very generalist citations that could perhaps be avoided. Also the number of current citations (last 5 years) is rather small for such a topical subject.
Complete the bibliographic citations including doi, indicate all authors of the publications.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe MS entitled Bacterial communities in the rhizosphere of common bean plants (Phaseolus vulgairs L.) grown in an arable soil amended with TiO2-NPs nanoparticles investigated the effects of different application rates of TiO2-NPs on bean growth, including nodule formation, chlorophyl content, and the soil bacterial community. And tried to explore if TiO2-NPs will significantly influence the bacterial community. I believe this MS is meaningful because more and more nanoparticles will be applied in agricultural science in the future.
The MS is well constructed, all the results are well explained. I think this paper can be accepted just after a minor revision.
Figure 2, the color of dots in the figure caption can not distinguish, i.e., treatment 150 mg TiO2-NPs kg-1 and 300 mg TiO2-NPs kg-1, and same problem in figure 3
In addition, the conclusion is redundancy, this section should be short and remain key results and conclusion, no more than 300 words
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe ms agronomy-2785226 entitled Bacterial communities in the rhizosphere of common bean plants (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) grown in an arable soil amended with TiO2-NPs nanoparticle investigates an important topic but the authors should improve it before it can go for next step.
Title should be improved as follows: Bacterial communities in rhizosphere of common bean plants (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) grown in arable soil amended with TiO2-NPs
Why authors decided to work on these level 0, 150 or 300 mg TiO2-NPs kg-1? Based on what?
L18 TiO2-NPs did not affect bean growth and their chlorophyl content, do you mean positive or negative effect?
L21 should Acidobacteria be italic?
L22 Planctomycetes, should it be italic? Check all these in whole ms.
Why you applied TiO2-NPs as soil amendment instead of foliar application?
Can you add some key data in the abstract?
L31-32 please replace ref 3 with this ref “ Nano-Fertilization as an Emerging Fertilization Technique: Why Can Modern Agriculture Benefit from Its Use?”
L40-41 add suitable citation for this text.
L57 It is important to understand the possible effect of nanoparticles on plant roots, please add following citations “Integrative Effects of Zinc Nanoparticle and PGRs to Mitigate Salt Stress in Maize” “Zinc oxide nanoparticles: A unique saline stress mitigator with the potential to increase future crop production” “Exogenous application of zinc oxide nanoparticles improved antioxidants, photosynthetic, and yield traits in salt-stressed maize”
2.6. Phylogenetic and statistical analysis This section can be moved to the end of the material and methods.
L208 Please use ≤ instead of <, check this in whole ms.
In all Tables, please add the standard error of means at end of each columns.
L285 Do not start your paragraph with such form>> Cox et al. [66] … Please start with general sentence, then go deeply and deeper
The discussion section, although it contains very good text and citations, but the authors have to integrate these studies with their own result to make better discussion. Please focus of the mechanisms of the NPs and their roles to discuss your results based on previous studies.
What is the negative effects of 300 mg TiO2-NPs kg-1 on the long term?
Comments on the Quality of English Language
some edits need to be revised
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAuthors have made good efforts, but still two issues as below:
The authors still have to add a part about the risk of using TiO2-NPs in agriculture applications within the introduction section.
The authors should use p ≤ instead of p <
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Some minor edits in English Grammer are needed
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsRhizospheric bacterial communities of common bean plants (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) grown in agricultural soil contaminated with TiO2 nanoparticles.
The topic deals with rhospheric bacterial community and relation with impact on plants productivity, so authors must write about rhizobacteria and its impact on plants in few lines and recent papers may be cited........
Thermotolerant and halotolerant Streptomyces sp. isolated from Ajuga parviflora having biocontrol activity against Pseudomonas syringae and Xanthomonas campestris acts as a …
Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology, 2023
Multitrait Pseudomonas sp. isolated from the rhizosphere of Bergenia ciliata acts as a growth-promoting bioinoculant for plants , Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 7 (1097587)
< 100 nm......in this n is italics ........remove it
Why specifically this line is written “In the United States, the production of nTiO2 could reach 2.5 million tons by 2025, and a large amount could end up in the environment [8].”
Space errors are there, remove it.
Conclusion portion must be restructures.
How many isolates were totally isolated.
How the size of NP was calculated.
Line-...........nTiO2 applied at 100 mg kg-1 did not significantly affect the microbial community composition after 30. Ge et al. 2014 found that 0.5 g nZnO kg−1 soil significantly increased members of species such as Rhizobium and Sphingomonas but decreased phylotypes belonging to Ensifer, Rhodospirillaceae, Clostridium, and Azotobacter.
In the above line what is “after 30”.
Why TiO2 NP was specifically used?
Any SEM/TEM images of NP characterization was not in paper.
Comments on the Quality of English Languagenil
