Isolation, Characterization, and Identification of Zinc-Solubilizing Bacteria (ZSB) from Wetland Rice Fields in Peninsular Malaysia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

There are numerous studies on these lines, though the authors claim that such studies in Malaysia are very few. 

What is iirelative abundance? pl correct in the introduction.

Is inorganic Zn applied to rice in Malaysia? If so, how much is applied per hectare? Pl mention in the introduction.

Details on sampling from rhizosphere are not provided in Methods section. For instance...What do you consider as rice rhizosphere? and non-rhizosphere?

Please mention how you computed the phylogenetic tree (Fig 3) in the methods section, like platform used, no of replicates for bootstrapping, model used for computing evolutionary distances with proper citation.

The description on soil properties (Results-soil characteristics) may please be reduced. 

Page 20-lines 14-16 Mere speculation. Please delete. Not relevant for this study.

All Serratia strains are opportunistic human pathogens. How do you justify its use in rice cultivation?

Zn release by promising strains in soil per se may included as future line of work. Also, further validation in actual field conditions for soil Zn solubilization by the promising isolates is imperative. Please mention in the conclusion

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

The manuscript (agriculture-1846142) entitled “Isolation, characterization, and identification of zinc-solubilizing bacteria (ZSB) from wetland rice fields of Peninsular Malaysia” has been improved as per suggestions and corrections that have been given by reviewers. Please see the attachment.

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for the author: Consult the instructions for authors, references must be numbered in order of appearance in the text.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

The manuscript (agriculture-1846142) entitled “Isolation, characterization, and identification of zinc-solubilizing bacteria (ZSB) from wetland rice fields of Peninsular Malaysia” has been improved as per suggestions and corrections that have been given by reviewers. Please see the attachment.

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is quite interesting. 

English revision is required. 

The introduction should be improved by adding more information about the most potential isolated strains and their contribution to the study. 

There is no clear hypothesis of the study. 

Elaborate research gap and why this study was performed.

Statistics need a bit more explanation. Please provide the details about all the tests and statistics. Did you subject the data to a normality test?

The discussion part doesn't exist a proper connection between the results and literature. It needs improvement. 

Conclusions must be improved. Elaborate on your findings. 

Future prospective should be added after conclusions. 

References are not following the norms of the journal. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

The manuscript (agriculture-1846142) entitled “Isolation, characterization, and identification of zinc-solubilizing bacteria (ZSB) from wetland rice fields of Peninsular Malaysia” has been improved as per suggestions and corrections that have been given by reviewers. Please see the attachment.

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx