Physiological, Biochemical, and Molecular Response in Siete Caldos Chili Pepper Plants (Capsicum frutescens) Exposed to Water Deficit

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We appreciate your review of the manuscript. The observations were attended to.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

 

I have carefully reviewed your manuscript on the effects of drought on Capsicum frutescens. The topic of the manuscript is interesting, with high relevance, but the manuscript needs a very substantial revision. The experiment is not very well described and the options used are not justified (for example, the duration of the study and the recovery period). The statistical analysis is very simple and could be improved by using repeated measures analysis, correlation analysis or even PCA. The weakest part of the manuscript is the discussion. In this section, there are many references to other studies that are not relevant for comparing the results of your study. References to species with different architecture and different experimental conditions make the comparisons inappropriate . I believe that you can improve the manuscript (please see the attached document with my comments) and submit it later. Unfortunately, I cannot consider it suitable for publication at this time.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The english needs a moderate revision. There are several imprecisions that should be resolved.

Author Response

We appreciate your review of the manuscript. The observations were attended to.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study examines the effects of drought on "Siete Caldos" chili pepper plants (Capsicum frutescens). In the experiment, irrigation was withheld for 14 days, and the plants were compared with control plants that were watered every 48 hours. Significant differences in growth parameters were observed between control and stressed plants; stressed plants showed decreased relative water content, membrane stability, and chlorophyll content, as well as increased electrolyte leakage, proline content, and antioxidant activity; and finally, stress response gene expression differed between treatments.

The introduction is well structured in that it provides critical information about the problem of climate change and water scarcity, the economic importance of Capsicum, and the defenses used by Capsicum and other plant species in response to drought at both biochemical and genetic levels. The introduction concludes with a more detailed presentation of what the authors have studied. I have no specific comments.

The Materials and Methods section also seems to me to be very comprehensive. The experimental tests are described in detail, and I have no further comments to make.

Please delete the sentence ("They showed a positive physiological and biochemical recovery 24 h after irrigation") in line 253, as this conclusion cannot be drawn from the images in Figure 1. It is possible to evaluate morphological and turgor recovery, but not physiological or biochemical recovery.

There are two tables called Table 2. You must rename the second table.

The second "Table 2" (which should be Table 3) contains interesting data on some physiological parameters of the aerial and root parts of plants exposed to water shortage and recovery. The data are consistent and logical. I just wonder if using a graph view would help the reader understand more quickly.

The data in Table 3 (which should be Table 4) are also very interesting because they clearly show how plants respond to water shortages and how they recover once water is restored. The vertical orientation of the table makes it even more difficult to read. I strongly recommend that authors, if possible, convert the data in the table into graphs that visually demonstrate the significance of the observations.

In Figure 2, it is preferable to include a legend so that the bars can be quickly interpreted without having to read the description of the figure. Also, since the control is set to 1 (correctly), I think it is useless to include the control bars, which are all set to 1; they could easily be removed in both Figure 2 and Figure 3. This could easily be explained in the figure legends. The same observation applies to Figure 4.

There is one experimental point that needs to be clarified, which is why the authors chose day 3 as the first time point for gene expression analysis. This is not the midpoint of the 14-day treatment, so it is necessary to explain why this point was chosen.

In the text, the expression of the LOX gene is described first and then that of the AP2/ERF gene, but in the corresponding figure, the AP2/ERF data come before the LOX data, so I ask the authors to correct this minor error.

The first paragraph of the discussion does not make sense. It repeats some very broad concepts that can be applied to any manuscript on drought and plant tolerance. Please remove it.

Line 491 describes cell membranes as one of the first organs to be affected by drought treatment. Cell membranes are not organs...

I found the conclusion to be well written. It comments on the various data obtained by the authors, and the authors' conclusions are consistent with the data obtained. Also, the discussion avoids going too deep into speculation. So, I enjoy this discussion. As a general comment on the manuscript, I would say that it is consistent with many other recent publications that describe the physio-biochemical responses of a specific plant species to water scarcity. This manuscript focused specifically on the timing of the response of Capsicum to drought conditions. Although it cannot be considered a new manuscript, it did shed some light on the response mechanism of this economically important crop.

Author Response

We appreciate your review of the manuscript. The observations were attended to.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

In my first revision I mentioned several issues that needed to be addressed. Some of them were properly addressed, but others were addressed with some success. One of my biggest concerns was the statistical analysis, which was too simplistic. In this version of the manuscript, the results of a completely randomized two-factorial design were added to all tables, but the presentation and discussion of such analysis was not included in the text. In fact, the text is almost the same, which seems strange. Could you explain this?

Other issues:

Lines 250-253. The statistical analysis should be detailed. You refer that “A completely randomized factorial design was carried out with two factors, considering the amount of water (irrigated and non-irrigated) and the time of exposure to drought. Therefore, the statistical analysis was performed using a factorial ANOVA, followed by Tukey's analysis, to determine the possible differences between the response variables. “, but this information was not added in the manuscript.

Lines 283-285 and others. You refer that “Different lowercase letters in each column indicate significant statistical differences between treatments simultaneously, while different uppercase letters indicate differences across different times, Tukey's (P ≤ 0.05), n=22.” However, in your cover letter it appears “Two types of analyses were carried out: one comparing the data at a single point in time and the other covering all times.”. So, in my opinion, the headers of all figures should be revised.

Line 312. “IMS” should be changed to “MSI”

In table 3, Electrolyte leakage of WW 14 d needs a uppercase letter.

Lines 356-358. Please verify the values of catalase.

 

Line 403 and 417. I cannot see “bars with diagonal lines.” Please, verify.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The text needs a minor editing.

Author Response

Dear reviewer: we appreciate your time in reviewing the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf