Screening of Xanthium strumarium (IAPS) Growing on Abandoned Habitats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan: Perspectives for Phytoremediation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, you can found detailed review document in attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Review comments

The paper by Ullah et al. represents a qualitative scientific work but have many mistakes and unanswered questions. I have few objections (unanswered questions). Materials and Methods chapter is poor written. It lacks of description of analysed soil characteristics. In Results chapter, authors argued about soil texture and organic matter, but they did not explain methods of their analysis. Results and discussion part is dealing with physiochemical properties of soils but authors did not have analysis of pH and EC. In addition, authors in same part, discussed about correlation, which is also missed. Therefore, I recommend acceptation of the paper with major revision.

Authors Reply: Thank you for the review, and we appreciate your efforts in improving the quality of the manuscript before it can be published. In the soil analysis, we included variables that significantly affect metal concentration, bioaccumulation and translocation tested by ANOVA and PCA analysis. The same is also added in the Material and Method section for clarification. The correlate word mentioned there, meaning that our results were similar to the results reported from the Faisal Abad district of Pakistan. The said sentence has been changed in the discussion section for better understanding of the readers.  

My specific comments are as follows:

Abstract

Reviewer comment: L14: Describe abbreviation IAPS or put X. strumarium.

Authors Reply: Abbreviated as suggested (Line 15).

Reviewer comment: L19: Put this sentence in passive. In this study, 45-plants and soil samples were collected…

Authors Reply: Corrected according to the suggestion (Line 20)

Reviewer comment: L27: Put “in study area” at the end of sentence.

Authors Reply: Incorporated as suggested (Line 29)

Results and discussion

Reviewer comment: L172: Put sentence in passive form.

Authors Reply: The sentences are changed to passive voice (Line 182)

Reviewer comment: L175: Please indicate low or official gazette for permissible level.

Authors Reply: Permissible levels added for each metal in plants and soils (Line 186-187)

Reviewer comment: L183: Same comment as previous.

Authors Reply: Permissible levels of the metal concentration added accordingly. (Line 188-189)

Reviewer comment: L215: Change “perhaps” to “possibly”.

Authors Reply: Followed as suggested (Line 227).

Reviewer comment: L218: You did not have any correlation analysis?

Authors Reply: The sentences are corrected; here we linked our result with previous studies. (Line 230)

Reviewer comment: L222-223: What sort of analysis you used for determination of soil texture?

Authors Reply: Proper determination procedure added with valid citation and reference. (Line 166)

Reviewer comment: L240-241: Why, you did not have any analysis of pH and EC?

Authors Reply: In soil characteristics, OM and texture show significant effects on HMs contents, and therefore we include it in the analysis. (Line 163-165)

Reviewer comment: L276: Physiochemical properties? You have soil texture and OM? Chemical?

Authors Reply: Yes, in Physiochemical characteristics, our results show significant variation and relation with soil texture and OM; therefore were included in the results and discussion. (Line 163-165)

Reviewer comment: L292: Soil pH? You did not have any analysis of pH?

Authors Reply: The results were not included because the results were not influential in ANOVA and PCA analysis. (Line 166)

References

Reviewer comment: Try to reduce older concerns.

Authors Reply: Reduced as suggested (Reduced from 82 to 62, repeated references for a single sentences were reduced)

Tables:

Reviewer comment: Table 2. Put upright lines between elements. What about legend for a, b, Authors Reply: Uptight added and legends explanation added in the table legends (Line 289-290)

Figures:

Reviewer comment: Fig. 1. Where is Pakistan placed in World? Put global map in the right corner of the figure.

Authors Reply: Pakistan map and sampling area map are added in the revised version of the study area map. (Line 127)

Reviewer comment: Fig. 2. Please put levels for permissible concentrations of metals for plants and soils on the graphs. A figure has different blue triangles than other figures?

Authors Reply: Triangle colour uniform and the permissible levels are added as legends because all the level has the citation, which may create congestion in the figure background (Line 2070210)

Reviewer comment: Fig. 3. Change BP in PB on figure. Put BAF instead of B. In figure legend, put description St 1 to 15 for all St Codes.

Authors Reply: The biplot were redrawn, and all the mentioned suggestion was incorporated as well as legends were also added for the figure (Line 323-326)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Currently the processes of environmental pollution grow rapidly in large urban centers, due to the development of industries, urban expansion, agriculture and others. Then the search for mechanisms that allow
  the remediation of resources such as soil become an urgent necessity. Due to this, the present work on Xanthium strumarium contributes significantly. Based on this, I consider that the present manuscript has the conditions of quality and. novelty to be published in Appl. Sci

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Reviewer comment: Currently the processes of environmental pollution grow rapidly in large urban centers, due to the development of industries, urban expansion, agriculture and others. Then the search for mechanisms that allow the remediation of resources such as soil become an urgent necessity. Due to this, the present work on Xanthium strumarium contributes significantly. Based on this, I consider that the present manuscript has the conditions of quality and. novelty to be published in Appl. Sci

Authors Reply: Thank you for giving worth to our work.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The following are some suggestions for authors:

1. In the line 91, the author said that “Still, no study to date was performed to evaluate the phytoremediation potential of X. strumarium.” Be careful with that statement. I suggest changing it to “little research……”.
2. In the line 122, I suggest a distance gauge should be added in figure 1.
3. In the line 245, the soil textural at each sampling site should be described.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The following are some suggestions for authors:

Reviewer comment: In the line 91, the author said that “Still, no study to date was performed to evaluate the phytoremediation potential of X. strumarium.” Be careful with that statement. I suggest changing it to “little research……”

Authors Reply: The suggestion is considered, and revised the sentences in the text (Line 94-97).

Reviewer comment: In the line 122, I suggest a distance gauge should be added in figure 1.

Authors Reply: very valuable suggestion and the map are redrawn for distance gauge (Figure1).

Reviewer comment: In the line 245, the soil textural at each sampling site should be described.

Authors Reply: Soil textural class at each sampling site are added (Line 257, Table 1)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors, I read the manuscript with great interest. Authors aimed at Screening of Xanthium strumarium (IAPS) growing on abandoned habitats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan: Perspectives for phytoremediation. The manuscript is scientifically sound. I am glad to commend acceptance, pending a minor revision of the language. The manuscript should be edited by an English native speaker. I may add that an interesting results of this research are not shown in the text.

Author Response

Reviewer 4

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, I read the manuscript with great interest. Authors aimed at Screening of Xanthium strumarium (IAPS) growing on abandoned habitats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan: Perspectives for phytoremediation. The manuscript is scientifically sound. I am glad to commend acceptance, pending a minor revision of the language. The manuscript should be edited by an English native speaker. I may add that interesting results of this research are not shown in the text.

Authors reply: Thank you so much for consideration our research studies. We thoroughly revised the language again for improvement and also included other important result in the manuscript for clarification and improvement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, I accept your paper in this form.