Variation in Fruit Morphology and Seed Oil Fatty Acid Composition of Camellia oleifera Collected from Diverse Regions in Southern China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic is relevant, and novelty seems to be sufficient. The technical procedures were mostly performed correctly (with some ambiguities that need to be resolved), the writing is very good with high level of English, and the text is relative clear and concise. The main (potential) problem is that authors did not reported if the collected samples belonged to a same variety and if all the plantations were subjected to same practices. If not, the diversity observed is probably not only a result of geographic and climatic variations, but derived also from genetic and technological factors.

Please find specific remarks bellow.

 

The title: reverse the order of fruit morphology and seed oil fatty acid composition, since this would be more appropriate and it was indeed followed throughout the paper.

Figure 1: Please identify the collection sites by attributing the numbers which correspond to data reported in Table 1.

Tables’ and figures’ titles should be self-explanatory without the need to consult the main text. For example, from the titles of Figure 1 and Table 1 readers cannot conclude that the data reported are related to Camellia oleifera. Update the titles throughout the text.

L95-103: How were the seeds removed/extracted? Were the seeds dried again (L102) and how? Did all the plantations have the same cultivation practices? Was it the same variety? This is crucial for the validity of your report, if the cultivation practices were different, and varieties were different, the difference observed cannot be attributed solely to geographical and climatic conditions.

L111-112: Please explain ELAT, what does equivalent latitude mean practically, what conclusions can be drawn about the environmental position/conditions from this parameter?

L114-119: Please add more details on the extraction of oil by Soxhlet, and especially on the determination of fatty acids (reference 37). Add instrumentation (Soxhlet, grinder, GC, etc.) and procedures details. Were there replicate analyses and how many? Specify this.

L124-125: Please, write in past tense.

L128: Which main statistics? Please indicate this.

L139: This is not average variation, but average width, I suppose?

L144-148: Explain the abbreviations in the text also.

Table 2: Some basic statistics should be performed, ANOVA (n=3?). Since there were 18 sites, maybe it would be appropriate to report only LSDs (to avoid a “messy” table)?

Figure 2: Explain what numbers (sites) and abbreviations (parameters) represent in the Figure legend.

L156-157: Rephrase the title, “the relationship in the variation…” is not completely correct English.

L161 and further: I suggest using correlation coefficients R instead R squared, in this way positive and negative correlations would be better distinguished.

Figure 3: Title – please exclude the first two sentences that remained from the MS Word template. Apart from this, this is a good example of a title, with all relevant information.

L255-256: Please explain what are continuous and what are regional variations, it is not so clear.

L284-294: Please discuss what other parameters related to geographical position except climatic parameters, are probably most responsible for the observed variability (soil composition, cultivation practices, etc?).

Conclusions need to be updated, authors only reiterated most important findings in short, while nothing is said about the possible future exploitation of the obtained results, new directions in research and practice in this area, main problems and challenges, etc. Authors should conclude something, not only repeat the results.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

 

Reviewer comments horticulturae-1890639

The manuscript entitled „Variation in seed oil fatty acid composition and fruit morphology of Camellia oleifera collected from diverse regions in Southern China“ represents a valuable study investigating the impacts of selected environmental factors, namely „equivalent latitude“ (ELAT) and „annual mean air temperature“ (MAT) on fatty acid composition in oil of Camellia oleifera grown at 18 sites in Southern China. Multidimensional statistical analyses such as principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and correlation analysis revealed a significant effect of ELAT and MAT on Camellia fruit morphology and fatty acid composition. I think that overal, the manuscript presents results of comprehensive multidimensional statistical analyses revealing a significant effect of the environmental factors of ELAT and MAT on fruit morphology and fatty acid composition in Camellia oleifera which is worth publishing.

However, I have several important comments on the present version of the manuscript which are given below:

1/ Inconsistency and redundancy in the codes used for the 18 study sites of Camellia oleifera. The authors use a numbering approach when sites are numbered 1 to 18, and a three-letter code approach when a three-letter code is  assigned to each study site. In some figures and tables, only one of these two ways is used while in others such as Figure 5, both the site numbers and the three-letter codes are used which is redundant. I thus think that only site numbers 1 to 18 should be used for the study sites and that this kind of study site determination is sufficient. Please, replace the three-letter codes by the site numbers in the whole manuscript!!

2/ Materials and methods, part 2.6. Statistical analysis: The description of the statistical methods used in the study is insufficient in this section. First, I do not understand the term „main statistics“ used by the authors in the statement „First, Microsoft Office Excel 2016 was used to process the main statistics." It should be clearly defined what does the term „main statistics“ mean?? Does it mean the mean values and standard deviations, etc., which can be calculated by MS Excel??

Furthermore, no software is given for cluster analysis whose results are presented in Figure 5. In addition, no information on the statistical software used is given on the heatmap analysis shown in Figure 2. In addition, no information on the statistical software is given regarding Mantel test analysis discussed on lines 199 and 284.

3/ Formal comments on the text:

Materials and methods, Line 128: The words „the main statistics“ should be replaced by a brief explanation of the basic statistcial characteristics calculated using MS Excel.

Materials and methods, Line 130: Remove the word „between“ in the statement „Cluster analysis was carried out using groups linkage method…“

Line 183, Figure 3 legend: Remove the following text: „This is a figure. Schemes follow the same formatting.“

Discussion, line 238: Replace the word „prior“ with „previous“ in the statement „These results of previous studies are generally consistent with our results.“

Discussion, line 261: Modify the verb form „leading“ to „lead“ in the statement „…which could further lead to the improvement of plant adaptability…“

Discussion, line 263: Use just the reference number „50“ and remove the full reference „She et al. 2008“ from the text.

Discussion, line 270: Remove the word „physiological“ in the statement „…and different environmental factors have difefrent effects on plants in various stages of plant and fruit development.“

 

Final recommendation: Revisions are required.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is now additionally improved, the authors accepted all the recommendations and revised the manuscript accordingly. I have only a few minor remarks regarding the titles of some tables:

Table 4 title should be: Correlation between morphological parameters (…) and fatty acid composition (…) of Camellia oleifera with climatic (..) and geographical (…) distance matrices? I suppose, something like that.

Table 5 title should be more like: Principal component analysis loadings of morphological and chemical parameters of Camellia oleifera and contributions of principal components to the total variance.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx