Fusarium and Sarocladium Species Associated with Rice Sheath Rot Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa
, Vincent de Paul Bigirimana 1,2, Gia Khuong Hoang Hua 1, Feyisara Eyiwumi Oni 1,3, Lien Bertier 1, John Onwughalu 4, Olumoye Ezekiel Oyetunji 5, Ayoni Ogunbayo 6, Mario Van De Velde 7, Obedi I. Nyamangyoku 2,8, Sarah De Saeger 7 and Monica Höfte 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript was aimed at identifying, characterizing, as well as assessing the genetic, pathogenic, and toxigenic diversity of the pathogens associated with rice sheath rot disease in Mali, Nigeria, and Rwanda. The manuscript contains data of great interest for the area, is well described and makes for good reading. However, this reviewer thinks that there are few isolates, specially from Mali. It might affect the outcome of the analysis or even the conclusions. The sample size for outside of three countries are unbalanced. Maybe you can be used in UPGMA and PCA for data analysis, because they do not depend on large samples. In general, the authors should be cautious with your conclusions, taking into account that the total number of isolates is not very large, and the number of isolates obtained in each country is very unbalanced.
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Reviewer 2 Report
Very interesting paper showing new informantion of diversity of fungi causing rice sheat rot in African countries.
Manuscript needs only some corrections marked in PDF file.
One comment to chapter '3.3. Pathogenicity Testing'. Authors tested pathogenicty. Pathogenicty has two components: virulence (qualitative) and aggressivenss (quantitaive). According to the results all isolates were virulent - induced disease but differed in aggressiveness (disease severity). But authors used these term as synonyms:
422 Isolates affiliated with S. sparsum, all of Nigeria origin, were the most aggressive
426 SEMA0013A from Mali appears to be the least virulent
It should be rewriten to use these terms correctly.
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to thank the authors for the corrections made in the new version of the manuscript, which incorporate the suggestions made in the previous revision.
I think that the manuscript in this new version can now be published.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for evaluating our manuscript again. The reviewer is satisfied with the changes we made and does not ask for further corrections.
