Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I felt the presentation of the evidence for the species designation of A. hejiaqingii was sound.  Both the morphological and molecular phylogenetic analyses seem to support separation as a separate species.

The taxonomic descriptions seem thorough and the taxonomic key is clearly described in proper parallel formation.

A few minor editing concerns:

Line 36: "Genomic DNA was...", not were;

Table 1: make sure accessions for plastome sequences are submitted and filled in prior to publication.

Figure 1: In legend, make it clear that heat-map is referring to altitude (and if it is, the units should be listed in the figure).  

Line 49: "Morphological observations served..."; not "were served"

Line 64: I'm not familiar with the term "droppers", can you define what organ you are referring to?  (I assume roots)

Table 2: Bract length in column 1 is missing units

 

Lines 130-132: Please rewrite as complete sentence(s).

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

It is well designed and presented paper regarding new Amana species found in China. If appropriate, inclusion of photos comparing the A. hejiaqingii  with the other two Amana species included in the paper will help readers to understand the morphological differences among those Amana species. 

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful comments!

We add the photos of Amana anhuiensis in the article. The photos of Amana tianmuensis has been published (see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pld.2022.03.001).

Reviewer 3 Report

The contribution is original and interesting. However, the introduction is too concise and must be integrated with information and references relating to the biogeography of the genus Amana, at the origin of the endemism, and to the ecology and biology of the species.

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful comments!

We have added the  biogeography information of the genus Amana in the modified article.

Reviewer 4 Report

The presented manuscript is devoted to the study of newly described species Amana hejiaqingii. The work includes detailed morphological description of the species, distribution map, cytological analysis, morphometric analysis and complete plastid genome analysis. A key to the Amana species is also included. The study was conducted at a good level and provided with good illustrations.

However, I have several comments and suggestions:

1.                The principal component method is applicable for quantitative data. The variables should have a normal distribution. Small deviations from normality are allowed, but qualitative data, including binary data, cannot be used. Four of the eleven variables included in the dataset are qualitative and binary. These are the following variables: position of the widest part of lower leaf (top: 0; upper: 1), shape of bracts (linear:0; lanceolate:1), color of flowers (white:0; pink:1), color of anthers (yellow:0, light-purple:1). Their inclusion is incorrect. For a set of data of different types (qualitative and quantitative), other ordination methods are used, for example, the method of principal coordinates, non-metric multidimensional scaling.

2.                In the table S1 newly described species is named Amana dabieensis, while in the main text it is named Amana hejiaqingii. Please, use the same names in the Supplement as in the main text.

3.                The introduction is very short. The information about Amana species closely related to Amana hejiaqingii is not presented. I would recommend including the following information in the introduction: - previous phylogenetic studies of Amana and related taxa, - previous studies of cytology and chromosome number of Amana species.

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful comments!

1.We have reanalyzed the morphological traits using principal coordinates analysis to include both the qualitative and quantitative data.

2.Thanks, we have modified.

3. The information of previous phylogenetic and cytology studies of Amana have been added in the introduction.