On the Biodiversity and Biodeteriogenic Activity of Microbial Communities Present in the Hypogenic Environment of the Escoural Cave, Alentejo, Portugal
, Nick Schiavon 1,2, Guilhem Mauran 1, Cátia Salvador 1, Tânia Rosado 1, José Mirão 1,2,4 and António Candeias 1,2,3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors, your manuscript could be interesting but in my opinion needs to be rewritten and some parts reduced.
The aim to make a protocol should be deleted because is not original and the sampling techniques are often not appropriate.
More detailed comments are in the attached file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We greatly appreciate the time and efforts to carefully review this manuscript. The authors acknowledge all the comments and suggestions, that have been considered. The mistakes and the English of the manuscript were revised. Considering the recommendations, the authors supplemented the information to clarify some topics of this work. A new version of the manuscript is attached which includes alterations highlighted in green, considering the suggestions. Additionally, Fig 3 was substituted by 2 new figures to highlight the NGS results and allow a more comprehensive interpretation of the results.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Reviewers' comments:
Manuscript number: coatings-1085732
Title: On the biodiversity and biodeteriogenic activity of microbial communities present in the hypogenic environment of the Escoural Cave, Alentejo, Portugal.
Comments:
The manuscript reported on On the biodiversity and biodeteriogenic activity of microbial communities present in the hypogenic environment of the Escoural Cave, Alentejo, Portugal. The manuscript needs a detailed editing. It cannot be recommended for publication in the present form. I hope the following points would be helpful for the authors.
(1) The English of the manuscript needs to be improved.
(2) The abstract and introduction section should be improved.
(3) Fig. 2, is not clear make more clearly.
(4) Fig. 3, is not clear make more clearly.
(5) Fig. 4, is not clear make more clearly.
(6) Line number 352 - (Fig. 1 and 2)……to ….. (Figs. 1 and 2)
(7) 4.4. Microbial biodeteriogenic activity - should be improved.
(8) Several faults: are added or missing spaces between words: see PDF file.
(9) Conclusions, the author should add some qualitative data of the results.
(10) Line number 438 - SEM+EDS microscopy… to … SEM-EDS microscopy.
(11) References: there are recent references in 2019 and 2020 treating the same subject, you can use.
(12) The graphical abstract is meaningful; however, the size is not acceptable. I suggest authors to redraw it.
So that I recommended this manuscript to major revision and for future process.
Author Response
We greatly appreciate the time and efforts to carefully review this manuscript. The authors acknowledge all the comments and suggestions, that have been considered. The mistakes and the English of the manuscript were revised, and figures improved. Considering the recommendations, the authors supplemented the information to clarify some topics of this work. A new version of the manuscript is attached which includes alterations highlighted in green, considering the suggestions. Additionally, Fig 3 was substituted by 2 new figures to highlight the NGS results and allow a more comprehensive interpretation of the results.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors have addressed all the referee comments and manuscript looks much improved and clearer.
Reviewer 2 Report
Reviewers' comments:
The authors revised the manuscript according to the reviewers' comments.
So that I recommended this manuscript accept for publication in coatings.
