Physiological Responses of Hollyhock (Alcea rosea L.) to Drought Stress
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThese data showed that the effect of drought stress is dependent upon the drought level, genotype (varieties Isfahan 1, Shiraz 1 and Shahin Shahr), and the trait in question. In this regard, future plant breeders for this species may find it useful to utilize APX, CAT, and POX activities as biochemical markers, to select for drought tolerant genotypes.
In the title and abstract, please add the author's name to the name of the plant, e.g. Alcea rosea L.;
Some abbreviations, when they appear first in the abstract, require the full name; e.g. APX, CAT, and POX
Table 1, the second column can be deleted because they are all the sameï¼›
All tables should be arranged on the same page, such as Table 1, Table 5 and Table 8;
When there are 3 references or more, they can be treated with separators, such as [1,2,3,4] changed as [1–4], [5,6,7] can be changed as [5–7]ï¼›
In the references, the title of the cited article should be lowercase except for the first capital;
According to the journal publishing requirements, DOI can be deleted, some references lack pages, please addï¼›
In addition, I feel that the proposed layout does not seem to organize the manuscript according to the requirements of the template.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript presents potential and interest to the reader. However, it requires some modifications and I suggested some analyzes that will bring more robustness to the data, as seen in the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The manuscript presents potential and interest to the reader. However, it requires some modifications and I suggested some analyzes that will bring more robustness to the data, as seen in the attached file.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript has novelty and follows the scientific method; however, it requires deep reformulation before it can be considered for publication. Overall, it brings few results which require a new data analysis. Introduction and discussion should be more in-depth, as they are very general. References must be updated.
Further comments were made in the revised PDF, and are presented bellow:
· Line 12: remove the dot after “rosea” and add the “L.” from Linnaeus.
· Line 75: This paragraph should be place with the previous paragraph.
· Line 125: Only one temperature is provided. Which one is day/night? Correct providing the correct information.
· Line 162: 35 or 30%? In line 145 it was mentioned to be 30%. Please, revise it.
· Line 165: Please, explain the relation of MAD with irrigation???
· Line 187: Please inform how many days after planting, and days after the onset of stress the collections were carried out.
· Line 198: Please, describe all acronyms the first time they appear on text.
· Line 228: Be consistent on how you call the variables in the manuscript. Is it electrolyte leakage or MSI???
· Please, provide more information about the effects of drought in plants in the introduction, as well as how they respond to these effects. What is the relation of proline with osmoregulation? How does the antioxidant system of plants work? Which enzymatic and non-enzymatic mechanism are present?
· Please, provide more information regarding hollyhock in the introduction: what is the life cycle? What are their main compounds? What is known about their responses to other abiotic stresses (such as salt stress)?
· Table 2: The electrical conductivity value is too high. How authors justify the use of saline soils? A clear justification must be presented in the text.
· Table 3: Or MSI??? Please, correct.
· Figure 2: In the y axis, temperature is written wrongly (temoerature), please, correct.
· Why authors did not evaluate plant growth (biomass, leaf area, height)?
· Authors must reanalyze the data by unfolding the factors. The ANOVA is ok, but the means must be compared separating the effects of drought x variety, as all variables had interactive effects from the factors. Thus, only means from Tables 5 and 8 should be analyzed and presented. Moreover, authors must use different symbols to compare the effect of irrigation from the effect of variety. For example: use capital letters to compare within irrigation and lowercase letters to compare within varieties. Separating one factor in the lines and one factor in the columns also helps to visualize the comparisons (e.g.: capital letters compare varieties within each irrigation levels (columns), and lowercase letters compare irrigation levels within each variety (lines).
· References are outdated and need to be updated. From the 63 references, only two are from the last 5 years (2020), with no reference from the last 3 years. Moreover, some references are not about the subject mentioned in the text, for example ref. 42.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe quality of the manuscript is improved after revision, and as the manuscript is accepted, the author needs to correct a few places:
The layout looks narrow, and it is recommended that the number of words per line should be increased by a few points, so the page is reduced;
The Table is placed on the same page, as shown in Table 5;
The temperature display should be oC;
Fig should be changed to Figure;
The serial numbers of the citations in the text are marked in blue; In addition, the ordinal numbers of Figures and Tables are marked in blue.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
A few mini revision needed.
Author Response
Reviewer Report
Physiological Responses of Hollyhock (Alcea rosea L.) to Drought Stress
The quality of the manuscript is improved after revision, and as the manuscript is accepted, the
author needs to correct a few places:
The layout looks narrow, and it is recommended that the number of words per line should be
increased by a few points, so the page is reduced.
Response: The manuscript has been amended as suggested.
The Table is placed on the same page, as shown in Table 5;.
Response: All the tables have now been placed on one page not split on two pages.
The temperature display should be oC;
Response: The manuscript has been amended as suggested.
Fig should be changed to Figure;
Response: The manuscript has been amended as suggested.
The serial numbers of the citations in the text are marked in blue; In addition, the ordinal
numbers of Figures and Tables are marked in blue.
Response: The manuscript has been amended as suggested.
