The Effect of Temperature on the Phenotypic Plasticity of the Invasive Perennial Weed Ambrosia confertiflora
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis manuscript investigated the effects of temperature on the development of aboveground and underground of alien Ambrosia confertiflora and found that the biomass allocation varies with temperature and growth stage. At lower temperatures and during the matured stage, plants invested more in underground growth while higher temperatures and early stage favored aboveground growth. These results provide robust evidence to prevent the invasion of this potential invasive species. Several points may be useful to improve the manuscript before published it. First, please provide the distribution or potential distribution of Ambrosia confertiflora in natural ecosystem to enhance the research significance. Second, it is better to divide the part “3 Results and Discussion” as independent “Results” and “Discussion” parts. Third, the part of discussion can be improved, and added some relevant references to enhance the application significance. Forth, some sentences can be improved, such as multiple predicates, punctuation, and other. Finally, the Latin names of the species should not be abbreviated in the first word of the sentence.
Line 74, what is “continuedon”.
Line 88 and other, please estimate the resource availability of growth medium.
Line 167, delete Y Data of Figure 2.
Line 230, a per leaf area.
Line 327, Figure 11, Aboveground/underground biomass ratio (blue) and Underground/aboveground biomass ratio (red) is reciprocal or not.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper should be of interest to weed scientists and others involved with invasive plant control. I have attached an edited version for your consideration. Minor wording changes and corrections are highlighted in yellow. More complex issues are described in notes (in red font), generally located along the left margin of the pages. I hope you will find these suggestions useful in polishing the presentation of your research.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Mostly, the quality of English was good. However, there is some room for improvement. See the attached version for details.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsLines 44-45.. “except A. confertiflora, which has be come an invasive species in Israel”." This statement is incorrect, according to experts, since an invasive species is part of the naturalized group. How can an invasive species not be naturalized?
Line 80. "This knowledge can help develop effective management strategies to control and prevent the further spread of this highly invasive and allergenic species." The authors should explain how the data obtained contribute to the development of ragweed control strategies.
Fig. 1. "Days after seeding”…What is " seeding"? Is this sowing seeds?
Most importantly, it is incorrect to write, especially in the conclusions, that the invasiveness of the A. confertiflora can be explained by the ratio of its above-ground and underground parts. To do this conclusion, a comparison with other closely related alien non-invasive species is necessary. In general, this ratio is very well controlled by environmental conditions. A similar pattern will be observed for native species. So invasiveness has nothing to do with it!!!
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsOk!
