Growth Performance of Jatropha curcas Cultivated on Local Abandoned Bauxite Mine Soil
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The document has to be carefully edited for minor problems:
Line 82, please indicate with geographical coordinates the site of the bauxite mine.
Line 133, Write the full name of each of the chemical elements, then during the manuscript, you do not need to write the full name again, just the symbol. For example, Cadmium (Cd).
Line 237, change different soils for evaluated soils
Line 244, how much light the plants receive? only natural light or artificial lights were applied (units), humidity of the green house.
Line 258,259, The methods that you described Bray 2 and Dumas, are methods within the reference 26? manual of methods?
Line 320, the only statistical method used was the T-test? No ANOVA or comparison tests? in each table, you should add the (p>0.05)?? when significant.
Line 329, For your tables, after Table1. remove shows, and just write the title: Physicochemical...
Line 405, the same as before for Table 2. Concentrations...
Line 468, Figure 1, you should organize the parameters as appears on the graphs.
Line 469. there is not letters for the nursery soil
Line 505, fix the parenthesis / brackets are are not correct [41,42 )
Line 518, Figure 2, remove the (in) before grown
Line 549, rewrite the last sentence for the Figure 2.
Line 551, change the verb, for major or most evident difference
Line 564, In the lecture or the description of the Figure 3, should be said the test, the probability (p>0.05) not on the test. the same for Figure 4.
Line 676, remove the extra period (.)
Line 699, remplace the word encouraging for a more proper word in agriculture, like (promotes, stimulates, contribute, etc)
Discuss some of the probable correlations that provides higher K for plant growth in your discussion
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Additional comments are in the attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I’ve reviewed the study by Lim et al. previously. Overall, the manuscript is improved but is still thin (e.g. minimal comparisons, minimal advancement in knowledge).
I don’t think there are major flaws to the study. Similar to my prior review, this is an incredibly basic study and with a very simple aim (L89-91). With it being such a thin study, I don’t feel strongly that it qualifies as publishable, except as a field or plant note… The study’s comparisons and presentation feel like data from a trial or something most suitable to publish as a report to a mining company, oversight agency, or abstract at a mining reclamation conference. That said, it wouldn’t be the first thin study to be published!
Fig. 4 was reorganized. Personally, I’m not sure which is the corrected figure. Either way, I would prefer seeing a separate panel for each response variable, and a y-axis label for each panel. Combining the responses variables and having them differentiated in the legend is atypical and unprofessional. The x-axis should relate to the treatments (soil type) and not the response variables.
Fig. 6 If I understand correctly which is the new (revised) figure panels then it appears that the authors have symbols differentiating soil layers. This is fine but they also need to report standard regression output and ideally include the best fit lines. This could be addressed by including the regression details in the panels (like the original), in the Fig. 6 header, or in the text (e.g. L372).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
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
Your manuscript needs to incorporate important references, like https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/308/1/012006/pdf
Mathiyazhagan N, Natarajan D. Impact of mine waste dumps on growth and biomass of economically important crops. J Environ Biol. 2012;33(6):1069-1074. and other more, the references are very poor and there is a lot of work with Jatropha in phytoremediation that need to be mention.You need to be consistant with the citation of the references: some are with a (.) period after the journal name, others are not, some are with the journal abbreviated others are not, some references contain doi address, others not, so be consistant with the citation format.
For phytoremediation, what are you looking for using Jatropha? it is not clear, in the manuscript.
Also, the line 17 and in the title the name Jatropha curcas need to be in itallics becuase it is a scientific name.
The Jatropha growth in those soils with high content of aluminum (Al) and low pH in topsoil (4.94-4.83) could affect root growth and morphology, why the root biomass was not considered in this study? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290868837_Effect_of_aluminum_in_plants_of_Jatropha_curcas_L_grown_in_nutritive_solution
The measurements of # of leaves, height why the table didn't add the control in comparison with the mining soils? or you didn't use control soil for comparison?
I do not see the measurements of the metal content in plant tissue...
What was the amount of heavy metals in soil after plant harvest and Jatropha was able to uptake or immobilize aluminum? this is a very important data for this particular paper with aluminum phytoremediation.
Jatropha it is a very well known plant used in biofuel, with the data that you obtained for oil, you should stress even more that advantage that this plant is providing not only to help in cleaning the soil but potentially to be used for biofuel in landen soils.
Reviewer 2 Report
The Authors of the article describe research related to the use of Jatropha curcas for the treatment of soil degraded by the extraction of bauxite. The preliminary experiment (?) carried out is interesting and promising. Searching for plant species with exceptional phytoremediation capacity for specific pollutants is very important because the phytoremediation capacity is specific to each species.
Preferably, native species are used for this purpose, due to the protection of biodiversity (but non-native species are often used for remediation and reclmation).
Jatropha curcas is not a native species for this area, but it is a plant that has a number of other uses, e.g. biofuel production, which is also beneficial for the environment.
Conclusions from the experiments could be more exposed, but the current version does not reduce the scientific value of the article.
Reviewer 3 Report
Lim et al. evaluate the ability of the tree Jatropha curcas to grow in either surface or subsoil of a Bauxite Mine Soil. Although not well tested, I believe that it is worth testing for a suitable phytoremediation species in their system.
Overall, the study feels very thin in terms of tests, comparisons, and data. I agree with the authors that their study feels like a preliminary trial (or “preliminary investigation” (L280)) of whether a tree routinely used in phytoremediation can grow in Bauxite mine soil or not.
The study vaguely refers to phytoremediation throughout. However, the study does not provide clear evidence that J. curcas will be useful in phytoremediation or not because their study lacks a control and/or contrast to one or more other plants/trees. For example, the only treatment in their study is soil source (topsoil, subsoil) but these are rather mundane and unimportant (e.g. not even mentioned in the Introduction). The authors don’t include appropriate controls or treatments for testing the suitability of J. curcas as a phytoremediation species. The hypothesis, experimental design, manuscript organization, and writing needs considerable work.
Additional comments (not exhaustive)
L18 “phytoremediation potential”- concept is referred to vaguely. What response variables are you measuring that are useful for making this assessment? Are you simply measuring plant growth in a mine contaminated soil? Do you have controls? What is your hypothesis (or test)? This feels like very soft science. In other words, I’m not really sure what a success or failure of the hypothesis is likely to look like.
L20 “growing J. curcas for 90 days under greenhouse conditions” Don’t you want to compare growth or nutrient (chemical) uptake of different plants to evaluate the suitability of any one plant species in phytoremediation?
L22 Low compared to what?
L24 “Subsoil produced better” awkward phrasing. Here is seems you are comparing plant properties when grown in surface versus subsoil. Again, this isn’t a very strong comparison.
L27 “cultivated in bauxite mine soil as a phytoremediation plant” I don’t know how this statement is supported by data. In other words, how is the tested plant better or worse than any other plant?
Phytoremediation typically refers to using living plants to clean up soil, air, and water contaminated with hazardous contaminants. It isn’t clear how this study confirms/tests/shows that J. curcas is an effective phytoremediation plant.
L31-6 Describes a plant but not a problem.
L37-45 Problem described. Introduction should start general (problem) and work towards something testable. The section’s paragraphs need to be restructured to go from general to specific.
L48 phytoremediation can also be expensive…
L50 “phytoremediation” presented without a clear description of what is done.
L57 “effectiveness of phytoremediation” As written, I don’t know what this would look like.
L65 “a preliminary investigation” I agree that this study feels like a trial and not something that is ready to be published.
L66 “The growth performance of J. curcas was evaluated to determine the feasibility of using it to revegetate bauxite mines.” Evaluated relative to what? It doesn’t seem that you have a control.
L86 It isn’t obvious that you are conducting a comparative experiment.
L88 Here two treatments are mentioned. However, these feel unimportant because this comparison was not mentioned in the introduction.
L280 “preliminary investigation”
