Significance of Soil Siderophore-Producing Bacteria in Evaluation and Elevation of Crop Yield

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper aimed to review the classification and identification of siderophore producing bacteria and their effects on ecological service, regulation, and restoration of cultivated land.

Overall, a decently written and very informative paper but with some grammatical errors, typos, long sentences with too many commas (making those long sentences difficult to read) and a potential need to elaborate aspects.

 

Below are my comments and recommendations:

 

Lines 19: delete and

Line 20 : ..plants and microorganisms can use

Line 20: delete make it

Line 21: unable??

Line 31: doesn’t read well. Maybe write ….for almost all life because it is a limiting factor for the growth of plants and microorganisms.

Line 45: delete the comma after viability

Line 45: change acid to acidic

Line 48: Iron deficiency leads to a decrease in chlorophyll…

Line 49: Severe iron deficiency may cause plants death at the seedling stage…

Line 72: Figure 1 change Iron deficiency to iron deficient and cytomembrane to cytomembrane

Line 77: change environment to concentration.

Line 118 -119: Since this is a review, can the authors elaborate a bit more on the effects of these (temperature, pH, C/N and medium type) on the production of siderophores?

Line 137: Change “The Arrow reaction” to “Arrow reaction”

Line 138: “turns” not “turned”

Line 139: What corresponding chemical reaction?

Line 144: The title (5. Factors affecting siderophore production) has used earlier (3. Factors affecting siderophore production) moreover, the contents of this section do not match the title. So, I am guessing this is a mistake of some kind.

Lines 149 – 150: ether replace the commas before “but” on line 149 and after “grow” on line 150 with hyphen or brackets.

 

Line 157: change “the report” to “previous reports”

Line 162: delete “the toxicity”

Lines 167: add a reference after “gradually increased”.

Lines 153 and 177: the subheadings are difficult to understand and sometimes misleading thus making it difficult to link their contents with the headings. For example, I can summarize the contents of Lines 154 – 176 (subheading 1) as how siderophores promote the growth of plants and soil microorganisms. This section in my opinion should be broken into two paragraphs. One about how siderophores promotes the growth of plants (Lines 154 - 167) and the other on how it promotes the growth of microorganisms (Lines 169-176).

Furthermore, Lines 177 – 198 can be summarized as the inhibitory effects of siderophores via plants growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) on plant pathogens.

 

Line 182: …competing with environmental trace iron ….

Line 196: change pathogenic to pathogens.

Line 234: change such as to “for example,”

Line 237-249: This sentence is long and difficult to understand. Please break it up to enhance comprehension and readability.

Line 249: I could not understand this sentence no matter how many times I read it.

Line 251: change such as to “for example,”

Line 257: change “On the one hand” to “On one hand”

Line 274: change “which is the most widely used are microorganisms” to “the most widely used microorganisms.” Furthermore, break this sentence into two. The second should be “If siderophores growth-promoting and control effects are well studied, 275 it is expected to be widely used in the field”.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. I have put my responses in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is interesting but needs some minor improvements.

Please indicate the strengths of the research you describe. Also indicate gaps and research directions for the future.

Check the manuscript carefully. Often there is a missing space between the number and the unit, e.g. line 36, 38, etc.

Please write Latin names in italics, e.g. line 78, 80, 86, 214, 215.

Please, be sure that all the references cited in the manuscript are also included in the reference list and vice versa with matching spellings and dates.

Make sure all items are cited in the text and in the table of contents and vice versa.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. I have put my responses in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript “Significance of soil siderophore-producing bacteria in evaluation and elevation of cultivated land quality” by Zhang et al. analyzes data regarding the effects of siderophore-producing bacteria on plant development published over the past 5 years. After screening, the data analysed revealed as expected that the use of SPB improves the plant growth (translated into different parameters raging from germination rate, dry weight, plant height, etc. till biomass). Interestingly, gramineous plants have been the most studied in recent years, although they are the ones that show less expressive effects.

The article presents interesting results, but which should be further explored. For example, how many of these studies were conducted on iron deficient soil and whether there is a difference between the effects on plant performance in laboratory tests and in field tests. Are all works referring to bacteria or are fungi also included? The search terms do not discriminate between them, but the manuscript title refers only to bacteria…

Other comments:

-          The title: “…elevation of cultivated land quality” not suitable for this work, as the quality of the cultivated land is not analyzed.

-          Introduction should be restricted to the effects and importance of SPB and not include examples of siderophore-producing fungi. Include more the applied perspective of these microorganisms in the field.

-          there are several errors or mistakes in the text regarding formatting and location of the text. For example: the first paragraph of the results section should be deleted (L145-147). The first paragraph of the discussion (L185-191) belongs to the results section.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. I have put my responses in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx