Different Sensitivity Levels of the Photosynthetic Apparatus in Zea mays L. and Sorghum bicolor L. under Salt Stress

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study „Different sensitivity of the photosynthetic apparatus in Zea mays L. and Sorghum bicolor L. under salt stress“ is one of numerous studies published on this topic. Although this study provides a potentially important and interesting set of data, the quality of manuscript preparation, presentation of results, formulation of sentences must be substantially improved. In general, the presentation of study can be characterized as little bit careless.

Remarks and suggestions for improvement:

In my opinion a fundamental mistake is, that you compare incomparable in graphs and text. Although maize and sorghum belonging to cereals, they are two different plant species and thus is logical that it will respond to the increasing saline stress otherwise. It would be appropriate to compare the impact of increasing saline stress on various maize/sorghum hybrids, but not to compare them each other. Therefore, I propose to correct the statistical evaluation of data in graphs - compare the impact of increasing saline stress on maize and sorghum separately, not to each other. Of course, in conclusions you can state, that sorghum is more resistant.

There are formal errors in the text:

line 15 – 2x photooxidation

Links to references in text without spaces [1,2,3] instead of [1, 2, 3] .... for example lines 44, 57, 74...etc. (check the whole text)

In References is a large amounts of formal errors - lack dots, commas, journals abbreviation (check instructions for authors and remove these formal errors)

In the legends of Figures and Tables there is „Mean values (± SE) are calculated from 8 independent measurements“ - What does it mean? How many plants were analyzed at each measurement? It is necessary to specify in material and methods and possibly in legends.

Which leaves have been used to determine the concentration of photosynthetic pigments, MDA, H2O2, chlorophyll fluorescence, P700 photooxidation ... etc? This is important information that is missing. How many fully developed leaves have maize and sorghum plants after cultivation?

Author Response

Report to the comments of reviewer 1 on manuscript titled “ Different sensitivity of the photosynthetic apparatus in Zea mays L. and Sorghum bicolor L. under salt stress” by Stefanov et al.

 

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for constructive and insightful comments in relation to this work. We considered all comments and suggestions to be justified, and corrected the manuscript accordingly. Please, find the detailed list of all edits below. The newly edited text parts are indicated with track-changes.

 

Remarks and suggestions for improvement:

In my opinion a fundamental mistake is, that you compare incomparable in graphs and text. Although maize and sorghum belonging to cereals, they are two different plant species and thus is logical that it will respond to the increasing saline stress otherwise. It would be appropriate to compare the impact of increasing saline stress on various maize/sorghum hybrids, but not to compare them each other. Therefore, I propose to correct the statistical evaluation of data in graphs - compare the impact of increasing saline stress on maize and sorghum separately, not to each other. Of course, in conclusions you can state, that sorghum is more resistant.

Answer:

New statistics of the results (the impact of increasing NaCl concentration on maize and sorghum separately is evaluated) have been made in the revised MS.

There are formal errors in the text:

line 15 – 2x photooxidation

Links to references in text without spaces [1,2,3] instead of [1, 2, 3] .... for example lines 44, 57, 74...etc. (check the whole text)

In References is a large amounts of formal errors - lack dots, commas, journals abbreviation (check instructions for authors and remove these formal errors)

Answer:

Thank you for your helpful comments. We regret the inaccuracies. The revised manuscript has been carefully checked and these inaccuracies have been rectified. Due to the many corrections made in the references, they are not marked.

In the legends of Figures and Tables there is „Mean values (± SE) are calculated from 8 independent measurements“ - What does it mean? How many plants were analyzed at each measurement? It is necessary to specify in material and methods and possibly in legends.

Which leaves have been used to determine the concentration of photosynthetic pigments, MDA, H2O2, chlorophyll fluorescence, P700 photooxidation ... etc? This is important information that is missing. How many fully developed leaves have maize and sorghum plants after cultivation?

Answer:

The corrections have been made in the text.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Emilia Apostolova

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

A more detailed description  of the pigment content and  of the determination of oxidative stress markers a could be helpful to better understand  the characteristics of the five different samples and the effect of the discussed soil parameters.

 

Author Response

Report to the comments of reviewer 2 on manuscript titled “ Different sensitivity of the photosynthetic apparatus in Zea mays L. and Sorghum bicolor L. under salt stress” by Stefanov et al.

 

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the suggestions in relation to this work. We considered all suggestions to be justified, and corrected the manuscript accordingly. The newly edited text parts are indicated with track-changes.

 

 

A more detailed description  of the pigment content and  of the determination of oxidative stress markers a could be helpful to better understand  the characteristics of the five different samples and the effect of the discussed soil parameters.

Answer:

The corrections have been made in the text.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Emilia Apostolova

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript entitled “Different sensitivity of the photosynthetic apparatus in Zea mays L. and Sorghum bicolor L. under salt stress" is based on original research experiment and presented results therein broaden the knowledge of plant physiology. To investigate the effect different concentration of NaCl on the function of photosynthetic apparatus (PSII photochemistry and photooxidation of P700), the leaf pigment content and the markers of oxidative stress of two new hybrid lines of maize (Zea mays L. Kerala) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Shamal) was the main aim of this paper. The scope of work includes the performance of experiment in controlled conditions, during which measurements mainly of JIP - test and PAM fluorescence were obtained.

There is no doubt that this work is in the scope of Plants journal. The publication presents interesting and important studies. The paper is well organized, presented in a logical sequence. The work delivers some interesting results and can be the important source of valuable information.

The introduction is properly composed. The materials and methods section contains the basic requested elements and provide information about the experimental preparations, analyses and growth conditions. The data analysis is properly provided. The results show valuable information. The obtained data are discussed sufficiently.

However, the authors made shortcomings that must be corrected before the publication of the work:

1) Please correct the text carefully. There are some linguistic and editorial errors (like double spaces or different font size). In “chlorophyll a fluorescence” “a” should be in italic.

2) Key words: should not be repeated with the words used in the title (e.g. names of plant species or salt stress).

3) Abstract: the first sentence is trivial. This has been known for decades. I agree that the beginning of an abstract (two or three sentences) is a research problem, but it has to be something less trivial. Moreover, the abstract should be no longer than 200 words.

4) Table 1: its unformatted. Moreover, if a two-way analysis has been performed, the two species should not be separated. As it stands, the reader has the impression that it was one-way analysis.

5) MM, statistical analysis: it should be clarified whether it was a one-factor or multi-factor analysis and what factor was analyzed. By which tests the normality of raw data and the homogeneity of the variances were checked? Why authors mentioned, that there were two independent experiments?

6) Authors should check the definition of Fv’/Fm’ and Fv/Fo parameters. In literature there are definitions, which are not this same as used in this work.

13) Below I listed a few publications dealing with the measurement of chlorophyll fluorescence in plants under salt stress.

Kalaji H.M., Račková L., Paganová V., Swoczyna T., Rusinowski S. Sitko K. 2018. Can chlorophyll-a fluorescence parameters be used as bio-indicators to distinguish between drought and salinity stress in Tilia cordata Mill? Environmental and Experimental Botany 152: 149-157.

Dąbrowski P., Kalaji M.H., Baczewska A.H., Pawluśkiewicz B., Mastalerczuk G. et al. 2017. Delayed Chlorophyll a Fluorescence, MR 820, and Gas Exchange Changes in Perennial Ryegrass under Salt Stress. Journal of luminescence 183: 322-333.

Dąbrowski P., Baczewska-Dąbrowska A.H., Bussotti F., Pollastrini M., Piekut P., Kowalik W., Wróbel J., Kalaji H.M. 2021. Photosynthetic efficiency of Microcystis ssp. under salt stress. Environmental and Experimental Botany 186: 104459

Dąbrowski P., Baczewska A.H., Pawluśkiewicz B., Paunov M., Alexantrov V., Goltsev V., Kalaji M.H. 2016. Prompt chlorophyll a fluorescence as a rapid tool for diagnostic changes in PSII structure inhibited by salt stress in Perennial ryegrass. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology 157: 22-31.

I would like to underline that my remarks are auxiliary and not undertake the quality and importance of the paper.

Author Response

Report to the comments of reviewer 3 on manuscript titled “ Different sensitivity of the photosynthetic apparatus in Zea mays L. and Sorghum bicolor L. under salt stress” by Stefanov et al.

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and suggestions in relation to this work. We considered all comments and suggestions to be justified, and corrected the manuscript accordingly. The newly edited text parts are indicated with track-changes. The newly edited text parts are indicated with track-changes.

 

 

However, the authors made shortcomings that must be corrected before the publication of the work:

1) Please correct the text carefully. There are some linguistic and editorial errors (like double spaces or different font size). In “chlorophyll a fluorescence” “a” should be in italic.

Answer:

The corrections have been made in the text of revised MS.

 

2) Key words: should not be repeated with the words used in the title (e.g. names of plant species or salt stress).

Answer:

The key words have been corrected in revised MS.

3) Abstract: the first sentence is trivial. This has been known for decades. I agree that the beginning of an abstract (two or three sentences) is a research problem, but it has to be something less trivial. Moreover, the abstract should be no longer than 200 words.

Answer:

The Abstract have been corrected in revised MS.

 

4) Table 1: its unformatted. Moreover, if a two-way analysis has been performed, the two species should not be separated. As it stands, the reader has the impression that it was one-way analysis.

5) MM, statistical analysis: it should be clarified whether it was a one-factor or multi-factor analysis and what factor was analyzed. By which tests the normality of raw data and the homogeneity of the variances were checked? Why authors mentioned, that there were two independent experiments?

Answer:

At the suggestion of reviewer 1, the statistics have been changed. The the impact of increasing NaCl concentration on maize and sorghum separately is evaluated. Additional information about the statistics made is also written in the revised manuscript.

6) Authors should check the definition of Fv’/Fm’ and Fv/Fo parameters. In literature there are definitions, which are not this same as used in this work.

Answer:

The definition of these parameters is given according to Rohaček (2002, ref. 73) in the revised MS.

 

13) Below I listed a few publications dealing with the measurement of chlorophyll fluorescence in plants under salt stress.

Kalaji H.M., Račková L., Paganová V., Swoczyna T., Rusinowski S. Sitko K. 2018. Can chlorophyll-a fluorescence parameters be used as bio-indicators to distinguish between drought and salinity stress in Tilia cordata Mill? Environmental and Experimental Botany 152: 149-157.

Dąbrowski P., Kalaji M.H., Baczewska A.H., Pawluśkiewicz B., Mastalerczuk G. et al. 2017. Delayed Chlorophyll a Fluorescence, MR 820, and Gas Exchange Changes in Perennial Ryegrass under Salt Stress. Journal of luminescence 183: 322-333.

Dąbrowski P., Baczewska-Dąbrowska A.H., Bussotti F., Pollastrini M., Piekut P., Kowalik W., Wróbel J., Kalaji H.M. 2021. Photosynthetic efficiency of Microcystis ssp. under salt stress. Environmental and Experimental Botany 186: 104459

Dąbrowski P., Baczewska A.H., Pawluśkiewicz B., Paunov M., Alexantrov V., Goltsev V., Kalaji M.H. 2016. Prompt chlorophyll a fluorescence as a rapid tool for diagnostic changes in PSII structure inhibited by salt stress in Perennial ryegrass. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology 157: 22-31.

I would like to underline that my remarks are auxiliary and not undertake the quality and importance of the paper.

Answer:

Suggested articles are included in the revised MS (ref. 58-61).

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Emilia Apostolova

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for responding to all comments and its incorporation into the text.