Compost-Derived Bacterial Communities Offer Promise as Biocontrol Agents against Meloidogyne javanica and Promote Plant Growth in Tomato

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work deals with a set of bacteria ???? and fungi??? that initially exert Biological Control on Meloidogyne javanica. Both the microbiological aspects and the nematological methodology used are questionable, with no scientific merit. Therefore, the manuscript must be rejected

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file and the corresponding revisions/corrections in track changes in the re-submitted files

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please, see an enclosed file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file and the corresponding revisions/corrections in track changes in the re-submitted files

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript refers to an investigation in line with today trends in nematode control, especially in biological control. However, this referee is of the opinion that the manuscript must be shortened especially in the result and discussion sections. This is because many statements are both in results and discussions and some comparisons are rather speculative. Some suggestions for shortening are suggested with reference to lines of the text.

Many specific suggestions are hereafter.

Lines 28-29: delete from whith (line 28) to climates (line 29);

Line 43: today the name of the genus is Purpureocillium and not Paecilomyces;

Line 52. after including delete the comma and inert those of the genera;

Line 69 and eslsewhere: insert a comma before etc:

Lines 108-109: As the composition of the bacterial genera is important in this study, I suggest the authors to include it in the text;

Lines 135-136: substitute the first line (135) and half the next line with "The effectiveness of SynComs was compared with that of the commercial product Pochar";

Line  149: I suggest to change the heading of this pragraph 2.4 as follow: "Plant and nematode variables evaluated ";

Line 150: substitute "to confirm" with "to observe"

Line 153: substitute "a tape measure" with "a measuring tape";

Line 159: substitute "tap dried" with "excess water eliminated";

Lime 170: change "data obtained in all experiments" with "All data";

Lines 174-177: Delete these lines and move fig 1 to line 178 after "The results";

Lines 234- 239: Delete and cite  Fig 2 in the following line;

Lines 269-295: These lines can be deleted.They just are a repetition of what already stated in the results;

Lines 348-419: must be very much condensed.

In Materials and  Methods:

a pot of 10 cm diameter would contain much more than 200 g potting soil;

Assessment of number of eggs in the roots. Rather than determining the average content of 10 egg masses, the author could have determined the total nematodes in the entire root mass per plant by cutting them in 0.5-1 cm long pieces and then egg massess disolved according to Hussey and Barker (1973). This would have also  required less time.

How much soil was put on each Baermann's funnel?

Results: For each group of data there is no need to repeat the same things. They authors could say that results were similar to the previous emphasizing significant differences.

We should realize that in a manuscript on nematode control, both in Materials and Methods and Results sections, should be presented first methods used with the nematodes and then for monitosring the other variables, such as plant growth.

Discussion: The authors make to much speculation. Rather, than making hypothesis, the authors should stay on facts of their findings. Therefore, this section needs much shortening.

Conclusions: the authors state that their findings give insights on the potential mechanism by which synthetic communities affects nematodes. In the manuscript there is no investigation on such effect.

Literature cited: the nearly four pages  of citations (83) are too much for this kind of work. They should be reduced to one third.

This manuscript contains only an experiment. Confirmation is necessary

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Needitingeds some

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file and the corresponding revisions/corrections in track changes in the re-submitted files

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript entitled "Compost-derived bacterial communities offer promise as organic biocontrol agents against Meloidogyne javanica and promote plant growth in tomato" was to present a new finding to present. Such finding can contribute a new knowledge to the literature. However, supporting data were not analyzed and presented properly. Additionally, writing needs lots of improvement. Therefore, the draft could not secure a publication spot in the current writing format. There is lot of flaws in data presention. Please clarify how you identify these bacteria community either it is bacillus or other spp.

Abstract: The abstract needs to be more concise to highlight the importance of the work and attack readers. It should not be a short form of copy and paste of your writing.

In line 16 Nematodes are parasites not a pathogen. Than how it caused infection. Please clarify that.

Also add some number in abstract how much it reduces the population of nematodes in soil and roots.

In line 25 nematodes are not soil borne pathogens these are parasites.

Line 65 to 86. No need of these paragraphs. It is introduction part so, only write suitable material related to research. Rewrite these lines.

Where is the objective of study? And where is gap of knowledge?

Material and Method:

Line 101 for how many days to you rare the nematode?

In section 2.2 please clarify how you prepare synthetic bacterial communities? How you identify these bacteria?

Line 119 Did you performed seed treatment? Why you add bacterial community before germination? You can also add after seed germination to record more efficient results.

In section 2.3 when you add nematode in pot?

How many replications of each treatment you used in this experiment?

Line 144-148 rewrite the details of all treatments with their proper abbreviations

Merge line 151 and 152 in section assessment of total number of egg masses and eggs. Add reference or formulae how you count egg masses?

Line 152 how you measure plant height? You used any equipment or scale

Why you used Tuckey test for analysis? LSD is not suitable?

After how many days of last treatment you observe plant height and weight?

Results

It better to add some pictures of tomato plants after treatments. Make sections of results. Morphological parameters in one section and Nematode population in other section.

There is no numerals of increase or decrease of fresh weight, height and dry weight after application of different treatments. Result part look like a discussion. Please modify that part. Root knot Nematodes are parasites it produced knots on roots of plants, so, the weight of plants increased as compare to control (Only water application). But yours results are quite different.

In line 256 Meloidogyne incognita replace M. incognita. First time used full name Meloidogyne incognita after that M. incognita. Carefully check whole manuscript and make suitable corrections.

In figure 2. Write appropriate caption. There is no alphabets in Figure 2B.

In figure 2 are you calculate whole population of nematodes? Juveniles, Females and Male? Or just 2^nd stage juveniles?

Discussion

Rewrite the discussion part. It is very arduous and irrelevant to yours work. Irrelevant material added in that section. You discuss enzymes, metabolites, Phosphorus solubilization, IAA of bacteria. But you did not identify these enzymes and metabolites in SynCom1 and SynCom2.than why you discuss all these parameters in that part. Discussion must be related to yours results.

Conclusion

Line 424-426. Our findings offer valuable insights into the potential mechanisms by which the synthetic communities may impact nematode susceptibility, encompassing microbial community dynamics, lytic enzyme production, cyclic lipopeptide synthesis, IAA production and ACC deaminase activity. I did not see these results in yours article.

Write future recommendation in conclusion part.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the attached file and the corresponding revisions/corrections in track changes in the re-submitted files

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This version of the manuscript has been much improved and, therefore, I suggest its publication after some check of the English style. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English quality need just some check

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

We are now providing a new version of our manuscript to comply with the academic editor comments. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made the changes in the revised manuscript entitled “Compost-derived bacterial communities offer promise as organic biocontrol agents against Meloidogyne javanica and promote plant growth in tomato” .  now the revised version of the manuscript can be accepted for publication. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. 

We are now providing a new version of our manuscript to comply with the academic editor comments.