Investigating the Potential of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Mitigating Water Deficit Effects on Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Title:  Investigating the Potential of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Mitigation Water Deficit Effects on Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.)

 

This study aimed to investigate the responses of three Algerian durum wheat varieties under water deficit and to assess the effect of AMF inoculation on their drought tolerance capacity.

The gaps which have to fulfil before publication are listed:

 

The experimental design, the replication number, the mean comparison test should be state clearly.

There are some unnecessary uppercase words thorough the text which should be in lowercase form.

Line 42-43 change “the water level decreases in a plant leaf” to “relative water content decreases”

Line 53-59 provide update statistics. Also state about the harvest area and the production quantity of Algeria. And some detail on the difference among the studied varieties.

Equation 2 state what is MF?

Line 172 which figure? The manuscript does not have figure 6?

Sections 2-6-6-1, 2.6.6.2 and 2.6.6.3 are so extended, state briefly.

Table 1: the letters of significant for APDW and LE seems wrong, re-check. Also add the letters for RDW.

Table 2: the letters of significant for chl seems wrong, re-check.

Figure 1 the Y axis should be started from zero. also, the letters for significant seems wrong, re-check. This figure related to which variety?

Figure 2 the title is histogram but the chart is bar chart, correct please. The line on the column are better to delete. The letter of significant seems wrong, re-check.

Figure 3 it is better to delete the figure and state the correlation values in result section.

Figure 4 correct the “left” also state this image are related to which variety? Under which conditions?

Line 354 unclear for me revise.

Table 3 the significant letters are not inserted

Line 377 delete first “in”

Line 399-400 not clear and is incomplete, revise

Line 450-451 scientific name should be italic

Line 465 why you introduce Mohammed Ben Bachir as tolerant variety? Please re-check the result. it seems that Waha is more tolerant under stressful conditions.

Line 477-480 unclear revise.

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Please find attached the file of responses.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled " Investigating the Potential of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Mitigation Water Deficit Effects on Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) " studied the mechanism by which arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) increase wheat tolerance to drought stress. The topic is relevant, and the subject is very interesting. The authors did a lot of work. However, the sections of introduction and materials & methods need major enhancement. Hence, I suggest that there is still some major issues need to be addressed before the paper could be accepted as follows:

Comments

In the introduction, I suggest the author to start by the wheat plant and its economic benefits, then extend to its problem with drought and other abiotic stresses in general, then you can give the solution for the problem using AMF application, ending by solid hypothesis to give a brief about the novelty of the study as well as the authors should give more details regarding the interaction of AMF with root system, giving more details about it physiological and biochemical signals inside plants to enhance plant growth and productivity both under normal and abiotic stress, you may find these details in the following references:

Physiological and biochemical responses of soybean plants inoculated with Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and Bradyrhizobium under drought stress.

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus “Rhizophagus irregularis” impacts on physiological and biochemical responses of ryegrass and chickpea plants under beryllium stress.

Inoculation with Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and mycorrhiza confers tolerance to drought stress and improve seed yield and quality of soybean plant.

Funneliformis constrictum modulates polyamine metabolism to enhance tolerance of Zea mays L. to salinity.

Line 97: Write the geographic coordinates, Latitude and Longitude

Line 108: Superscript

Lines 109-110: Delete “for example”

Line 109: Write the diameter and height of each pot

Line 121: Spores are often calculated in soil per gram by using wet sieving technique. Please clarify how the authors calculated propagules by using Most Probable Number).

Line 129: Add a reference.

Line 193: xg

Lines 197-249: This section is needed to be rewritten. Try to be more concise.

Line 251, 255: follow the journal style notation.

Line 251: By which dye???

Lines 262-271: delete

Line 279: Italicize P throughout the manuscript.

Table 1: The table is full of abbreviations. It is hard to follow the results. I suggest using abbreviations minimalistically throughout the manuscript.

Line 294: Data in Table 2.

In the results, authors should add one sentence at the end of each paragraph to conclude the whole paragraph to make it easy for the reader.

Line 403: Subscript

Line 450: Italicize

In the conclusion, the author should try to give a clear recommendation from the practical side aspects.

Kind Regards.

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Please find attached the file of responses.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Title:

Investigating the Potential of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in Mitigation Water Deficit Effects on Durum Wheat (Triticum durum Desf.)

 

The experiment is well performed and the theme is, short, novel, and very interesting, but minor corrections are needed.

 

- Line 18: add "conditions" after "water deficit".

- Line 23: revise "AMF- inoculated" to "AMF-inoculated".

- Line 24: change "(without AMF inoculation)" to "(-AMF)".

- Line 25 onwards: The author must use the abbreviations "-AMF and +AMF" as specified in line 19.

- The authors are advised to write directly in the active voice as follows: -AMF decreased/increased ……., +AMF increased/decreased ……

- The introduction section is well written, except for minor corrections such as:

- Lines 80 and 141: Using "we" is not a scientific style of writing, please revise.

- Some sentences in the introduction are long, please divide each long sentence into more than one.

- Some articles need to cite in Introduction and/or Discussion section as follows:

Desoky, E.S.; Mansour, E.; Ali, M.M.A.; Yasin, M.A.T.; Abdul-Hamid, M.I.E.; Rady, M.M.; Ali E.F. Exogenously used 24-epibrassinolide promotes drought tolerance in maize hybrids by improving plant and water productivity in an arid environment. Plants, 2021, 10(2), 354

Taha, R.S.; Alharby, H.F.; Bamagoos, A.A.; Medani, R.A.; Rady, M.M. Elevating tolerance of drought stress in Ocimum basilicum using pollen grains extract; a natural biostimulant by regulation of plant performance and antioxidant defense system. South Afr. J. Bot., 2020, 128, 42–53.

Rady, M.M.; Boriek, S.H.K.; Abd El-Mageed, T.A.; Seif El-Yazal, M.A.; Ali, E.F.; Hassan, F.A.S.; Abdelkhalik, A. Exogenous Gibberellic Acid or Dilute Bee Honey Boosts Drought Stress Tolerance in Vicia faba by Rebalancing Osmoprotectants, Antioxidants, Nutrients, and Phytohormones. Plants, 2021, 10(4), 748.

- Line 105: What do the authors mean by "colle", is it "collection"?

- Lines 106-108: What is the percentage of soil organic matter, and its K content?

- Line 160: chlorophyll concentration or content?

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Please find attached the file of responses.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

 

 

Although the authors fulfiled some gaps which I mention in the previous version,  there are some points to be noticed before the publication:

MF mean Fresh Material: State it in paper

Please re-check all the significant letters by a statistics specialist:

Table 1: the letters of significant for APDW, LE and RDW are wrong.

Table 2: the letters of significant for chl are wrong.

Figure 1, Figure 2 and Table 3 the letters for significant are wrong.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Although the authors fulfiled some gaps which I mention in the previous version,  there are some points to be noticed before the publication:

MF mean Fresh Material: State it in paper

Fresh Material was added tothe text

 

Please re-check all the significant letters by a statistics specialist:

Table 1: the letters of significant for APDW, LE and RDW are wrong. 

Table 2: the letters of significant for chl are wrong.

Figure 1, Figure 2 and Table 3 the letters for significant are wrong.

 

All the significant letters were re-checked by a statistics specialist.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been significantly improved, and the authors have put in a lot of effort; however, there are a few minor issues that must be addressed before acceptance.

Lines 124, 129: Delete (evaluated according to the most probable number test). Mycorrhizal fungi are obligate symbionts and till now no way to grew on culture media except ectomycorrhiza.

Line 173-179: This section must be rewritten.

Lines 200 to 224: The authors should merge this part in one section under the title “Determination of antioxidants enzymes” without details just referred the references.

Lines 268-269: Move this sentence at the end of line 260.

Line 320-321: Move this sentence at the end of line 309.

Author Response

The manuscript has been significantly improved, and the authors have put in a lot of effort; however, there are a few minor issues that must be addressed before acceptance.

Lines 124, 129: Delete (evaluated according to the most probable number test). Mycorrhizal fungi are obligate symbionts and till now no way to grew on culture media except ectomycorrhiza.

The sentences were removed

 

Line 173-179: This section must be rewritten.

This section was rewritten.

 

Lines 200 to 224: The authors should merge this part in one section under the title “Determination of antioxidants enzymes” without details just referred the references.

This part was merge in one section

 

Lines 268-269: Move this sentence at the end of line 260.

The sentence was moved.

 

Line 320-321: Move this sentence at the end of line 309.

The sentence was moved.