A Comparison of the Microbial Populations in a Culture-Dependent and a Culture-Independent Analysis of Industrial Water Samples

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

    The manuscript was well written. The figures and data could well support the conclusion.

    The biggest shortcoming is the small size of samples, Carefully comparisons of public data from other papers would be better. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

NO

Author Response

Reviewer 1 says the following:  "The biggest shortcoming is the small size of samples, Carefully comparisons of public data from other papers would be better." 

Thank you very much for taking your time to review our paper.  We appreciate your thoughtful comments.  While there are many papers in the literature that discuss the use culture dependent vs culture independent methods to analyze microbiological populations, most of those papers are focused in the food, healthcare or environmental areas.  There are very few examples of researchers using culture dependent vs culture independent methods to analyze industrial water (including oilfield) samples.  This paper was designed to add to the limited body of knowledge in this industrial water treatment segment.  Would you want us a note saying that there is a body of knowledge in those other areas but not in the industrial water and oilfield areas?

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I found the presented manuscript well-performed and extremely interesting. I have no significant comments to the text. 
In my opinion brief costs comparison for the methods mentioned should be added in the discussion section.

Supplementary materials - "Confidential. Company proprietary" should be removed.

Author Response

Reviewer 2 says:  "In my opinion brief costs comparison for the methods mentioned should be added in the discussion section.  Supplementary materials - "Confidential. Company proprietary" should be removed."

 

Thank you for your thoughtful review of our paper.  I've added a brief note, in red and highlighted in yellow, that mentions cost of these methods.  .  Ultimately the  paper addresses the microbial community composition of BART vs raw sample, and was not meant to be a holistic comparison of analysis methods that addresses time to result, the simplicity or the cost. 

Lastly, thank you for noticing the oversight on our part with the supplemental material.  I've removed the words "Confidential - Company Proprietary."  I apologize that I missed that before submitting.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is clear and well-written. However, it would benefit from a more detailed description of the number of samples tested in the methodology section. I recommend this manuscript for publication.

Author Response

Reviewer 3 says:  "The manuscript is clear and well-written. However, it would benefit from a more detailed description of the number of samples tested in the methodology section."

Thank you for your thoughtful review of our paper.  I have added a description of the number of samples used in the study to the Materials and Methods section.  It is highlighted in yellow.  I hope that addresses your comments.