Advances in Crop Genetic Improvement to Overcome Drought Stress: Bibliometric and Meta-Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article ¨Systematic review with bibliometric analysis on advances in genetic improvement targeting drought stress¨ presents usefull informations. Generally, English language needs to be improved throughout your manuscript.  Why the authors used studies upto 2022. Latest studies should be included in metaanalysis.Specifically, I have following concerns

1)     In my opinion, title should be revised as ¨ Advances in genetic improvement of crops to overcome drought stress: Bibliometric and meta-analysis ¨

2)     Define the term ¨bibliometric¨ in introduction for understanding of common man

3)     Line 30. What do authors mean by ¨economic yield crops¨.

4)     Line 71. Hypothesis need more clarification. Is it suitable for review article?

5)     Line 182. Meta-analysis: It needs more detail especially the inclusion and exclusion criteria of studies included in this study.

6)     Results: All figures lack statistical variables like SD, SE etc. Same need to discuss in the discussion section.

7)     Latest studies should be included.

Moderate editing is suggested

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS

1. Why the authors used studies upto 2022. Latest studies should be included in metaanalysis.

 

R= The bibliometric research carried out on the three databases mentioned was carried out from 03/03/2003 to 03/03/2023, as described in the methodology. Comprising 20 years of searching on the subject.

According to the methodology, the manuscripts were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. They were selected because they dealt in a well-defined way with water stress/tolerance in agricultural crops; defined the mechanisms of action used in genetic improvement; showed a clear response from these mechanisms on resistance/tolerance to stress in crops and, lastly, had an impact factor. Papers on the subject that did not meet these requirements could not be selected, so the articles that showed these characteristics are from 2022 and earlier; however, many papers from 2023 were cited in the discussion of the data to reinforce the findings.

 

2. In my opinion, title should be revised as ¨ Advances in genetic improvement of crops to overcome drought stress: Bibliometric and meta-analysis ¨

 

R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

 

3. Define the term ¨bibliometric¨ in introduction for understanding of common man.

 

R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

 

4. Line 30. What do authors mean by ¨economic yield crops¨.

 

R= Os autores relacionam isso ao fato de programas de melhoramento genético voltados ao estresse hídrico nas culturas buscarem elucidar os mecanismos de ação que apresentam resistência ao estresse nas culturas agrícolas, que proporcionam maiores rendimentos (produção/produtividade) do ponto de vista econômico . Exemplo disso é o fato de a maior parte dos estudos sobre o tema serem sobre culturas como: Oryza sativa, Zea mays, Triticum, Glycine max, Sorghum bicolor, Nicotiana tabacum, Solanum lycopersicum, Gossypium hirsutum L, Solanum tuberosum, phaseolus- vulgaris e Saccharum officinarum ; culturas agrícolas com elevados rendimentos económicos no agronegócio mundial.

Porém, para que não haja dúvidas sobre o termo no texto, ele foi modificado para que o significado fique claro.

 

5. Line 71. Hypothesis need more clarification. Is it suitable for review article?

 

R= The hypothesis to be elucidated in this manuscript is that there is a gap in information on the main agricultural crops that have been researched the most and the regions with the most progress in terms of genetic improvement studies aimed at plant resistance/tolerance to water stress worldwide. In view of this, there is a need to analyze the current level of knowledge on genetic improvement in order to identify mechanisms of water stress in crops that have been studied, in order to gather results of the research carried out, seeking to help genetic improvement programs to develop strategic research for different crops and regions in order to fill/elucidate the existing gaps in this field of science.

As the work consists of a Systematic Review with bibliometric analysis on advances in genetic improvement aimed at water stress. This means,  the work addresses a field of information science that involves the application of quantitative techniques, statistics and mathematical models in order to analyze and construct indicators regarding the dynamics and evolution of scientific and technological information in bibliographic data such as: publications and citations in various areas, organizations and/or countries. In view of this, bibliometric studies with systematic analysis have the characteristic of being more objective and extensive in scope when compared to other types of reviews, i.e. it is possible to analyze hundreds to thousands of articles on a given subject in the most diverse regions. It is therefore possible to construct hypotheses that can be applied to this type of systematic review article with bibliometric analysis.  Se fosse uma revisão sem a aplicação de técnicas quantitativas, estatísticas e matemáticas, não seria adequada, o que não é o nosso caso.

 

6. Linha 182. Meta-análise: Necessita de mais detalhes principalmente os critérios de inclusão e exclusão dos estudos incluídos neste estudo.

 

R= Sugestão acatada/correção realizada ao longo do texto, explicando como foi realizado o processo de leitura pelos autores; inclusão e exclusão usando uma planilha Excel para ajudar.

 

7. Resultados: Todos os números carecem de variáveis ​​estatísticas como SD, SE etc. A mesma necessidade de discussão na seção de discussão.

R= Alteração aceita, incorporada ao manuscrito.

 

8. Os estudos mais recentes devem ser incluídos.

R= Alteração aceita, incorporada ao manuscrito.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript "“Systematic review with bibliometric analysis on advances in genetic improvement targeting drought stress" provides interesting information regarding publications status related to drought stress. However, there are a few major concerns which need to be addressed to improve content quality. 

A major advantage of carrying out bibliometric analysis is the possibility of tracing collaboration trends. Using the same software, collaboration between authors and organizations can be visualized. Authors may consider incorporating collaboration analysis that will help trace the leading organizations and authors.

 

The authors have made use of three databases. However, the figures, the table, and even the main text do not indicate the results, separately. It is often observed that there exists a significant difference between the results of different databases. It is suggested that authors should analyze and visualize the results of all three databases, separately, at least for author keywords. This will help trace the research trends more explicitly. 

The article does not comprehensively comment on the gaps and challenges. The authors may consider incorporating a section in the article to show research gaps and challenges, which areas need more attention, and how to come up with a more holistic approach to address these issues.

There exist minor grammatical and language-related errors throughout the manuscript. The authors may like to seek help from a native speaker or some language editing services. 

The claims made in Line 365 and 366 are open-ended. They should be substantiated by citing the relevant studies that have proved improvement.

There are some drought-prone regions in the world like the MENA, Central Africa, and South Africa. The bibliometric analysis shows tepid research contribution by these regions. The authors may highlight the reasons for this disparity.

Based on their rigorous analysis, the authors may like to point out future research needs and appropriate policy measures by the funding agencies.

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS

 

1. Authors may consider incorporating collaboration analysis that will help trace the leading organizations and authors.

 

R = Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

 

2. The authors have made use of three databases. However, the figures, the table, and even the main text do not indicate the results, separately. It is often observed that there exists a significant difference between the results of different databases. It is suggested that authors should analyze and visualize the results of all three databases, separately, at least for author keywords. This will help trace the research trends more explicitly. 

 

R= In fact, the research was carried out in three databases in order to have a significant coverage of the findings on the subject in global terms. However, as the methodology itself emphasizes, after searching for manuscripts in the different databases, these were incorporated into the RStudio bibliometrix package (.csv and .txt), converted and COMBINED TO ELIMINATE DUPLICATIONS (200); after this procedure, it was not possible to separate the manuscripts by database. This is justified since there are manuscripts that may be present in all three databases at the same time and could be included twice. It should also be noted that this isolated analysis by database is not the aim of this work, but rather the analysis of advances in genetic improvement aimed at water stress in crops based on articles published in the different databases; without comparing the databases.

 

3. The article does not comprehensively comment on the gaps and challenges. The authors may consider incorporating a section in the article to show research gaps and challenges, which areas need more attention, and how to come up with a more holistic approach to address these issues.

 

R=  The gaps and challenges highlighted by this research are addressed in the text, showing that even in some countries with severe drought problems, plant breeding research aimed at resistance/tolerance to water stress is still incipient or in progress; a fact that has been improving over the last 20 years, given that since 2010 there has been an exponential growth trend in papers on the subject published in internationally circulated journals.

 

4. There exist minor grammatical and language-related errors throughout the manuscript. The authors may like to seek help from a native speaker or some language editing services.

         R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

5. The claims made in Line 365 and 366 are open-ended. They should be substantiated by citing the relevant studies that have proved improvement.

      R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

6. There are some drought-prone regions in the world like the MENA, Central Africa, and South Africa. The bibliometric analysis shows tepid research contribution by these regions. The authors may highlight the reasons for this disparity.

      R= Suggestion accepted; material corrected. It can be seen in the text that one of the Nema countries, Iran, is among the 10 countries with the highest frequency of scientific production; number of articles over 100 and an average number of citations per article of 10.10 (Figure 4).

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

The article discusses an important topic related to plant genetics and its impact on drought stress. The research methodology used does not raise any objections. However, the program used may be controversial. Here, among others, the problem is that only open-access works were considered. Which significantly reduces the research scope by almost half). However, as the authors indicate, it is a kind of alternative to searching large databases. Despite some shortcomings, quite interesting results were obtained, which indicate the leading directions of activities in this area. Interestingly, almost 40% of these tested plants are mainly the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS

1. For a better understanding of the scheme, I proposed to complete all connections between successive stages. Starting from phase 2, there are no connections between the middle stages. The same is in the case of phase 3. The stage of Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny is incomprehensible to me. Isn't Biblioshiny a Bibliometrix app by any chance? If yes, the wiring diagram should be vertical and not horizontal.

 

R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

 

2. In my opinion, this wording is not correct. At this stage of the analysis, the program could only define publications that best matched the searched keywords. The program used is certainly a very good tool for selecting and choosing the most accurate answers. Nevertheless, a fundamental question is: what results would we achieve by introducing other similar words/synonyms? Has it been verified at this stage?

 

R=  Suggestion accepted to change the text to make it more explanatory.  The key word synonyms were as follows: (“advances in genetic ” OR “improvement”) AND “drought resistance in crops”); (“genetic improvement” AND “drought resistance of crops”); (“drought resistance of crops” AND “genetic improvement”); (“advance improvement” AND “drought resistance”);(“drought resistance”); AND “advance improvement”); (“genetic improvement” OR “crop drought resistance”); (“drought resistance of crops” OR “genetic improvement”); (“advance improvement” OR “drought resistance”); (“drought resistance”); OR “advance improvement”).

 

3. Suggests to improve the quality of figures.

R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

 

4. Illegible drawing.Please, improve it.

R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

 

5. The markings of mechanisms look similar. Please correct it.

R= Alteration accepted, incorporated into the manuscript.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised version is improved and acceptable

Author Response

Dear reviewer, I hope I find you well. We have done our best to take on board your suggestions and improve the manuscript.

Thank you for your enriching contributions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed the concerns, however there is still room for improvement. 

Here are my suggestions for addressing the minor revisions:

Figure 1:

Adjust the text in the flowchart so that "paper" is fully visible in the process step "Reading of titles and abstracts of selected papers"

Figure Captions:

For Figure 4, explain that the blue line represents XX and the orange line represents YY.

Add panel labels for Figure 5 - it appears Panel A is missing.

Table 1:

Rewrite the text in Table 1 to summarize the key points of each study in your own words rather than copying phrases verbatim. Avoid plagiarism.

Discussion - Systematic Review section:

Thoroughly paraphrase the text in this section to avoid plagiarized content. Present the key findings of the literature in your own style.

Since there is only one subheading in this section currently, consider removing the subheading altogether to improve flow.

Please review the attached PDF to cross-check plagiarized content. Make sure to appropriately paraphrase, cite sources, and use quotation marks where necessary.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer, I hope I find you well. We have done our best to take on board your suggestions and improve the manuscript.

Thank you for your enriching contributions.

1. Figure 1: Adjust the text in the flowchart so that "paper" is fully visible in the process step "Reading of titles and abstracts of selected papers".

R= Suggestion accepted. Dear, I believe I have not yet understood how to adjust as requested, if it is still out of standard, please show a model of what you want to change.

 

2. Figure Captions: For Figure 4, explain that the blue line represents XX and the orange line represents YY. Add panel labels for Figure 5 - it appears Panel A is missing.

              R= Explanatory legend on the graph. Suggestion accepted.

 

3. Table 1: Rewrite the text in Table 1 to summarize the key points of each study in your own words rather than copying phrases verbatim. Avoid plagiarism.

R= Suggestion accepted. Correction made to the text.

 

4. Discussion - Systematic Review section: Thoroughly paraphrase the text in this section to avoid plagiarized content. Present the key findings of the literature in your own style.

R= Suggestion accepted. Correction made to the text.

 

5. Since there is only one subheading in this section currently, consider removing the subheading altogether to improve flow.

R= Suggestion accepted. Correction made to the text.

 

6. Please review the attached PDF to cross-check plagiarized content. Make sure to appropriately paraphrase, cite sources, and use quotation marks where necessary.

R= Suggestion accepted. Correction made to the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf