Morphological Characterization of Some Local Varieties of Fig (Ficus carica L.) Cultivated in Southern Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The work concerns the classification of fig varieties grown in the Mediterranean basin in Italy and were performed in 2018.
The cultivation of the investigated figs was in specialized orchards and in combination with other fruit trees in mixed orchards.
Thirty local varieties of figs were examined.

The study used location data, data on orchard, data on the variety, fruit data, and precise data on leaves.
The Authors created an informative database of fig features.

The work is written quite clearly, the language is correct.
The authors could better explain the sustainability aspect of their work to better fit the profile of the journal.

They just said: "traditional agroecosystems are relevant for biodiversity conservation purposes".

Under Figure 1, first please write what is on the horizontal axis (municipalities).
L102-112 The description below the figure is too long. Explanations should be included in the main text.

There is an explanation under table 1 that is not understandable, I can not find figure 8.

The authors very meticulously described the method of fig leaves evaluation
and all the methods used to statistically analyze the collected results besides Linear discriminant analysis.

Figure 3. Regression equations are given for Figures B and D only. They are too small and have too many decimals.
If the equations and values ​​of the determination coefficients are placed in the drawing, the Table 4 can be deleted.

The authors use the word variation and the name of the accession.
Sometimes they use different names for the same variant. It should be sorted out.
Why are the variety names not used in the PCA, only the accession names? These names are decoded in the Supplement,
but there are combined the names of the varieties with the names of the places where they were grown.

PCA chart would be clearer if only the first two components and the legend in the chart (next to points) were presented.
Authors can also put variables on the same chart, create a biplot.
The chart of rest components can be put in the supplement.

Author Response

Please, see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please, see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors changed a lot in the article. All my comments have been addressed.