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Peer-Review Record

Genetic Diversity and Geographic Differentiation of Tung Tree, Vernicia Fordii (Euphorbiaceae), A Potential Biodiesel Plant Species with Low Invasion Risk

Agronomy 2019, 9(7), 402; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9070402
by Lingling Zhang 1,2, Xionglun Liu 1,* and Junhua Peng 1,3,*
Reviewer 1:
Reviewer 2: Anonymous
Reviewer 3: Anonymous
Agronomy 2019, 9(7), 402; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9070402
Submission received: 4 June 2019 / Revised: 5 July 2019 / Accepted: 16 July 2019 / Published: 20 July 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Genetic Diversity and Invasion Risk of Cultivated Plants)

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comment:

Congratulations for this nice work, very simple and clear. Some grammatical issues remains in the text and the whole Ms could be improved with the review of an English native speaker, and the geographical distribution of your genotypic groups are not easy to show on your two figures (maybe choose better symbols and colors, and map the symbols also on the phylogenetic tree).

Specific points:

Title

Please correct:

“ Genetic diversity and geographic differentiation of tung tree, Vernicia fordii (Euphorbiaceae), a potential biodiesel plant species with low invasion risk ”

Abstract

- l.14; in order to insist on its cultivation within its native area please write something like “is a woody species native from South-East Asia, but also cultivated in China for oil-bearing production”.

- please introduce in the first sentences the invasive risk for this species (e.g. some observations in the US), and the lack of genetic consideration for natural population until the present study.

- l.20: “A significant genetic…”

Introduction

l.39: Please correct: “Tung tree, Vernicia fordii (Hemsl.) Airy Shaw (Euphorbiaceae), is a woody plant species used for oil-bearing production.”

l.42: “These areas were historically the main…”

l.48: “Tung tree is a northern subtropical deciduous species “

- l.54: please add comments on its putative invasive risk in the US if the species regains its fertility, and the importance of genetic diversity in these processes. Please find link with the scope of the special issue, otherwise your paper is not revelant for this issue.

Results

Please improve the link between the two figures considering individuals

Discussion

I do not understand this sentence l.267: “However, wild tung tree species has not been found “. You said in the M&Ms that you sampled the species in the wild… Please clarify when the samples were collected in cultural context or in natural population.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article entitled “Genetic diversity and geographic differentiation of tung tree (Vernicia fordii), a potential biodiesel plant species with low invasion risk” by Zhang and Peng described the genotyping of germplasm using SSR primers. Tung tree’s seed are rich in unsaturated oils and has been used in various industries including textiles, varnishes, paints and artificial leather to name few. Authors have collected about 100 accessions from different parts of the China and then have used both tung tree specific as well as cross-species specific SSR primers. The authors have emphasized largely on the fact that tung tree has low risk of considered as invasive species in the new environment. The authors based that assumption on the few facts described in introduction section. Although authors fail to mention that how all parts of the tung tree are poisonous to humans. In spite of it considered as low invasion risk the tree has been adopted to new environmental conditions throughout the world. Though it has not been included in the list of invasive species in Florida, USA but it’s considered as one of the invasive plant. Irrespective of the flaws in the paper it has good information on the genetic variability of the tung tree and how the polymorphism rate differs between the main production region and marginal region of tung tree production. Based on overall merit, the article can be accepted for the publication but with the major changes. I am suggesting following changes to be made to an article before it can be accepted.

1.       Authors should describe the danger of tung tree and how it can be harmful to humans.

2.       The facts presented in the paper to emphasize that tung tree possess low risk as invasive species are not sufficient. Authors should bring out few more facts to substantiate their claim.

3.       The authors also need to include few other facts about the collection sites of accessions. They should provide information about latitude, longitude, altitude, air temperature and annual precipitation of the area.

4.       The authors should mention the reason for choosing SSR developed from Cassava for their experiment.

5.       In Table 1, the authors should provide the fragment length along with the primer set.

6.       They should provide a table describing genetic distance and pairwise Fst among different groups of tung tree used in the present study.

7.       There are few typos such as between lines 162-165: the na, ne and h should be in capitals and not small letters. Authors can check for typos, if any, in other parts of the manuscript.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

SSR markers are generally codominant and analyzed as codominant markers.  Explain why you scored all your SSR loci as dominant, binary, and not codominant markers.  Treating all of your SSR loci as dominant markers is very unorthodox, see doi: 10.1590/1678-4685-GMB-2016-0027.  A detailed description of exactly what was done and defense of why the SSR loci are treated as dominate markers is required before the merits of this work can be judged.

Tung tree was introduced to the USA and is now considered an invasive species in Florida, http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/plant-directory/aleurites-fordii/.  It should be noted the tree is invasive in at least some of its introduced range and has the potential to be invasive if introduced into new areas.  This should be included and discussed in the text.

Figure 1. The description is very unclear.  Also describe what the different fill colors represents.

Lines 157-158     Reword, I’m not sure what this means.

Sizing amplicons with Polyacrylamide gels is difficult.  A discussion of the genotyping error must be included and the error rates reported.

Figure 2   Identify the two mega groups in the figure.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round  2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors did able to reply satisfactorily to raised queries and the revised manuscript can be accepted for the publication.

Round  3

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors are able to reply to the queries satisfactorily. The revised version of manuscript can be accepted for the publication.

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