Phenotypic Diversity and Relationships of Fruit Traits in Persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) Germplasm Resources

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Over all comment about this article

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have an honor to review manuscript entitled “Phenotypic diversity and relationships of fruit traits in persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) germplasm resources” submitted to agriculture. Authors of this manuscript have screened and analyzed 150 samples to evaluate 56 traits of persimmon. They have identified materials through exploring the variability within the resources. The have evaluated phenotypes, correlation relationship, and principal component analysis of the samples. Overall, the experiments, they performed, are well and the results are convincing. Thus, the presented results take up an important topic consistent with the profile of the Journal. However, it needs some improvements such as the language should be improved. The authors can take help from a native English-speaking person. After this improvement, the article will have a better version for the publication.

I hope my suggestions can improve the manuscript and will make also important to the wider audience

1. Title: is ok

2. Abstract: Some corrections are required. I specify it in the text. The abstract will be perfect after those corrections. Need to be more specific to the results. No need elaborative introduction of persimmon in the abstract.

3. Introduction: Nicely presented. It’s an important part; author should consider the most update information as well as references in this section. I simply noticed that author used the references in the reference sections are old and need to be updated.

 I suggest you to write these necessary points they are:

a) What is new and how much necessary this work is?

b) How much recent work (from2020 to2023) was done which is very much adjacent to your work.

C) Write more specific information related to your article's topic. Exclude the irrelevant information from your introduction and try to make it more interactive.

 d) Please interpret your findings and mentioned the novelty of your work strongly.

-The Introduction also should be focused on the studied species even some far related research as available in the literature

-Also, it appears that the main aim of the study is to assess the species diversity for conservation and breeding strategies and should be clearly stated and justified by relevant references. 

4. Materials and Methods: Nicely presented. However, English is poorly presented and difficult to understand in many case that retract from reviewing nicely. Materials source, cultivation, preservation, sample collection etc. not clearly understood. Need more clearance with timing of material preparation, cultivation, fruiting and sampling with age. Are those 150 germplasms are recognized as individual lines? Or just different due to slight dissimilarity?

5. Result and Discussion: Nicely presented. Table 1: include one column with No. You have measured 56 traits from fruit identity which very hard and tedious work. However, how much necessarily important all those traits to be considered? What would be the recommendation from those traits? Is consumer consider those traits? You may mention with specific rationale.  

6. Conclusion: ok.

Others comment: There are many grammatical mistakes in the text please try to correct these mistakes or it will be corrected by native speaker.

7. Tables: All tables should be journal format, use standard border system according to journal.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Extensive English correction is needed

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic described in the manuscript is important for improving germplasm preservation and use. Morphological characteristics are important for the use and selection of material in breeding. This research provides important information for persimmon evaluation and methodology improvement.

The manuscript is prepared in good quality, the topic is justified in the introduction, and a detailed description of the methodology, presentation of the results and discussion are provided. The conclusions are consistent with the results obtained.

Some small suggestions:
1) Line 134 - instead of "... each germplasm...", "... each genotype" would fit better...

2) The names of the images in the manuscript should be together with the image itself.
3) Figure 3 - why exactly these signs were chosen for the picture? The graphs of the distribution of values are provided in the supplementary file, maybe the most different characteristics could have been placed in the text, such that the distribution stands out.

4) The text does not specify the criteria by which the 8 top components were selected. It is clear from the table, but it would be good to indicate it in the text as well.
5) The PCA image is invisible, offset in the manuscript file.
6) Line 455 - incomplete references, publication years are not indicated.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is well written and with a high level of scientific standard. The objectives are clearly laid out and have been been well met in the ensuing methods, presentation of results, discussion and conclusions. I have used stick notes to ask the authors to clarify some points and there are one or two spelling mistakes that I have pointed out. Otherwise an excellently presented article.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This manuscript provides fundamental information on fruit traits of persimmon germplasms in China. The phenotypic data will be valuable in choosing seed/pollen parents for the persimmon breeding program in the future. The principal component analysis and clustering analysis were conducted based on the trait data. However, most readers may want to know the fruit trait data of each germplasm. The tables and figures presented in this manuscript should be reconsidered totally.

 

Table S1 and trait data of each germplasm >> move to regular tables. The basic information and trait data of each germplasm is necessary in body text. 

Table 1 >> can move to supplemental data set Figure 3 >> not necessary, or duplicated data in Table 1 Figure 4 >> can move to supplemental data set Table 2 >> divide left four columns and right four columns Figure 5 >> I can’t see this figure in the manuscript.

Figure 7 >> can move to supplemental data set

 

After changing all presenting figures and tables as the above suggestions, the main text must be rewritten.

 

L.44; persimmon pancake >> dried persimmon

not care

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors have perfectly provided responses to the comments through point by point answers and incorporated in the text when necessary that indicated greatly improved the present format of the manuscript. However, try to improve english as reqiured

English in fine

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied the comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion can be tracked with “ track changes shown ” of Microsoft Word in the Modification Manuscript.

 

Point 1: Authors have perfectly provided responses to the comments through point by point answers and incorporated in the text when necessary that indicated greatly improved the present format of the manuscript. However, try to improve english as reqiured.

 

Response 1: Thank you for your comments. We are sorry for the mistakes in original manuscript. We have corrected these errors in revised manuscript. Revised portion can be tracked with “track changes shown” of Microsoft Word in the “Modification Manuscript with track changes”.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

I hope the supplementary file including the taits data sheet of each germplasm is presented correctly.

The author shows a vast data table for qualitative fruit traits. The data can be presented as bar charts for each trait data. I know an example of such a data presentation.
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/10/5/1101

Each germplasm's mean value with S.D. (variance data) will be helpful. The authors conducted principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis in this study, however, raw data on characteristics of the fruit for each germplasm should be presented in the supplemental.

please provide germplasm's mean value with S.D. in a style easy to understand

Probably, no problem.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

 

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researchers. We have studied the comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion can be tracked with “track changes shown” of Microsoft Word in the Modification Manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing point-by-point:

 

Point 1: The author shows a vast data table for qualitative fruit traits. The data can be presented as bar charts for each trait data.

 

Response 1: Thank you for your comments. The comments are all valuable and very helpful for our paper. In conjunction with the examples, you provided us, we plotted bar charts for each trait across germplasms, and the results are much clearer and more concise. We have placed it in Figure S1. As shown in the following figure.

Point 2: Raw data on characteristics of the fruit for each germplasm should be presented in the supplemental. Please provide germplasm's mean value with S.D. in a style easy to understand.

 

Response 2: Thank you for your comment. The comments are all valuable and very helpful for our paper. We have added traits data and corresponding standard deviation data for each germplasm in supplemental data, and you can get specific information from Table S1. As shown in the following figure.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx