Impacts of the Green Revolution on Rhizosphere Microbiology Related to Nutrient Acquisition

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript authored by Dixon et al. reviewed the impacts of the Green Revolution (GR) on rhizosphere microbiology related to nutrient acquisition. In brief, the authors concluded how the microbiology and function of beneficial microbes in the rhizosphere of staple crops (wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, and barley) had been impacted by the breeding efforts and fertilization practices of the GR. I suggest the authors should rewrite Part 4 (conclusions), the suggestion or plan based on this review is missing.

If the authors add some mechanism diagrams in parts 3.4 and 3.5, it should be beneficial for readers to understand.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

The revised version of the review of Dixon et al. entitled “Impacts of the Green Revolution on rhizosphere microbiology related to nutrient acquisition” has been significantly improved in all sections.

Minor points:

Line 1276-1278

The final conclusions are really weak.

 “ One method to address nutrient use efficiency is to examine the potential of a second and revised GR. Emergent technologies may be emphasized such as biotechnology and innovative urban agriculture to concomitantly enhance crop production and soil health [103-104].”

Why the second and revised? Of course, the second has to be a revised version of the first one or a completely novel version.

Biotechnology is a too vague description of what can be done next. Innovative urban agriculture is a non-sense considering the species described in this review. Is anybody going to grow wheat, maize, barley, rice or sorghum in urban areas? Really!

Figure 1.  Is this figure original? Maybe a better-quality illustration could be generated.

Figure 2.

The diazotrophs are represented by the light blue “pollen grain”- like dot? The higher diversity of microorganisms is indicated by dots with different colors? Only a new color is shown, that is, purple. Where is C explained in the legend of figure 2? The sentence ending “greater root length of modern varieties (A).” likely should be: “greater root length of modern varieties (C).”

Is this figure novel or inspired from somewhere else?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The MS entitled “Impacts of the Green Revolution on rhizosphere microbiology related to nutrient acquisition” represent a rather modest contribution aiming to summarize new data on the relationship rhizosphere microbial communities and nutrient acquisition of several cereals which, following selective breeding, display less genetic diversity than their wild relatives.

Most of the work summarized indicate that fertilization as well as most advanced varieties are associated with reduced microbial diversity.

Major points

The presentation of the origin and the most important varieties is below average. For example, for wheat it is mentioned the origin of tetrapoid durum. Actually, this is one of the contributors to Triticum aestivum which is allohexaploid. Clearly, the authors read only the summary of reference 39. The next 2 citations are from 1997 and 1968. Especially the one from 1968 is quite surprising! The paragraph from lines 111-121 should be revised in depth.

The same issue transpires in the intro of rice. The origin is described in the most expedited way: “Domesticated rice comes from [51-54].” Moreover, reference 51 is not even related to rice but to sorghum! Unacceptable!

Regarding maize, sorghum and barley -  the same story. The story from reference 68 is added out of context. So many collaborations were established during Green revolution for maize improvement!

The authors could re-write these sections and bring them to a better scientific level.

Minor points

1. Lines 144, 148, 156 and 160. It is unusual to start a sentence with a number, for example, in line 144, “[46] investigated the Rht-B1b allele and contended…”

The sentence should be “Li et al. [46] investigated the Rht-B1b allele and contended

The same in line 148, it should be Subira et al [47], in line 156, Kavomura et al. [48], line 160, Chen et al [49] and so on.

References should be thoroughly checked, for proper citation, spelling and so on.

Scientific names should be always italicized in the main MS.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presented by Dixon et al. “Impacts of the Green Revolution on rhizosphere microbiology related to nutrient acquisition” is quite attractive but this manuscript needs to be gone through by a native English speaker. I struggled to make sense of some sentences and paragraphs. I propose some changes in the below, but the manuscript still needs to be gone through by a native English speaker.

Keywords are so many, need to remove

Scientific name should be in italics. There are need to check in whole manuscript.

Conclusion section is not properly written.

In present form, I cannot recommend the manuscript for publication.