Relationship between Flower Phenotypic Traits and Fruit Yields in Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) Varieties

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The comments and suggestions were given in the text.

The attention should be paid to connect the aims and purposes of the research and have them in mind all along... Very important point as tea breeding, seed production and seed oil production, are just mentioned at the end of the article without sound relation to the topic.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Article title: " Relationship between flower phenotypic traits and fruit yields in Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) varieties".

1. In this reversion, we have rewritten many parts of the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comment.
2. The title has been rewritten to bring it closer to the topic of this study according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. We highlight the importance of flower morphology for fruit yield as well as tea plant breeding.
4. To give readers an idea of the possibility of pollination by insects such as bees being associated with flower morphology, we added two photos.
5. We have rewritten the abstracts, discussions, and conclusions to make the findings clearer and more readable.
6. Please grant your approval. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In this manuscript (horticulturae-2281151) entitled "Flower Morphology Attributes of the Fruit Yields of Tea (Camellia sinensis L.)" submitted to Horticulturae, authors analyzed 106 tea varieties to determine the relationship between flower morphology and fruit yields, and the yields of all of the tea varieties exhibited a positively skewed distribution in 2013 and 2015. In 2013, three phenotypic trait variables showed significant effects on yield: stamen bundle outer width(negative), stigma width(positive) and stigma width minus stamen bundle inner width(positive). In 2015, only the stamen bundle’s outer width had a significant negative effect on yield. In the TTC (2,3,5-triphenyl tetrazolium chloride) staining test, about 84% of the tea varieties had pollen viability over 70%. These studies indicate that most tea pollens have the ability to germinate normally after contact with cross-pollinated stigma, and flower morphology has an impact on tea tree fruit yields. This study is an interesting work, I have however several concerns that may be addressed to improve the quality of the work.

1. Three biological replicates are critical for drawing reliable conclusion. Authors only collected data from 2013 and 2015, please include date from at least one more year in the revision.  

2. For Figure 1, floral morphology is a developmental trait and varies among developmental stages. Author should show the floral morphologies with a time course to represent the major periods of floral development in the revision.

3. For Figure 3, difference between results obtained from 2013 and 2015 should be discussed in the revision.

4. For Figure 4, viable pollen grains should be indicated with arrows in the revision.

5. For Figure 5, analysis of significance in difference of pollen viability should be performed in the revised manuscript.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Article title: " Relationship between flower phenotypic traits and fruit yields in Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) varieties".

1. In this reversion, we have rewritten many parts of the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comment.
2. The title has been rewritten to bring it closer to the topic of this study according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. We highlight the importance of flower morphology for fruit yield as well as tea plant breeding.
4. To give readers an idea of the possibility of pollination by insects such as bees being associated with flower morphology, we added two photos.
5. We have rewritten the abstracts, discussions, and conclusions to make the findings clearer and more readable.
6. Please grant your approval. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors

The following modifications are required

Title

The title has no sense and should be changed:

Relationship between flower phenotypic traits and fruit yields in Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) varieties

Abstract

Page 1. The authors must define the issue clearly in a single line and explain why they chose this approach to study this research?

Page 1. (In this study, we investigated the relationship between the flower morphology and fruit yields of tea plants.): This sentence should be deleted

The authors should provide some quantitative data especially in the flower component traits

Title, abstract, materials and methods, results and discussion should all follow a standard or regular order. As a result, the sequence should be as follows:

Flower phenotypic traits

Pollen viability

Fruit yield

The type of experimental design and the number of studied factors should be mentioned.

The author should present the results of each year separately and also compare the output of two years

The authors should present a decisive conclusion that is derived from the research in the final line of the abstract and provide a single line of future prospects

 

 

 

Keywords

The content of keywords did not reflect the content of this manuscript and the words used for forming the title should not be used as the keywords. So, the structure of keywords should be changed.

Introduction

Some information about the impact of the environment on the flower phenotypic and yield of tea

The authors should give some lines about the knowledge gap which their research has covered along with the hypothesis statement.

Materials and methods

The order of measurements should be standardized in this manner:

Flower phenotypic traits

Pollen viability

Fruit yield

The calculation of intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) should be conducted

The test of Homogeneity of Phenotypic Traits should place in results section

These lines (Table 1 presents the homogeneity of phenotypic traits within the varieties based on ICC values. The ICCs of all the varieties were >0.9, indicating the presence of excellent homogeneity in each set of 10 flowers within the 106 varieties of C. sinensis. Thus, the averaged phenotypic traits were directly used in subsequent statistical analyses) should be placed in results section

Why did the authors use the non-parametric tests for analyzing their data?

The name of test used for the calculation of p value should be added

The median was chosen by the authors instead of the mean, why?

Results

The order of measurements should be standardized in this manner:

Flower phenotypic traits

Pollen viability

Fruit yield

Section (3.1. Yield Distribution of Test Tea Varieties within Two Years): This section has no sense and should be improved. In addition, the authors should write the positive value of skewed distribution

In figure 2, did the black line in the chart box represent the mean or median?

In addition, the symbol of significant should be inserted in Figure 2A

In Table 2, the term IQR should be defined clearly and the values in the round brackets

The name of test used for the calculation of p value should be added in all tables and figures

Table 3: The p-value ≤ 0.01 take two asterisks and the p-value ≤ take one asterisk

The captions of tables and figures are not clearly presented

Discussion

This paragraph is awkwardly constructed. The results should be explained by the authors. The highest odd ratio values found in this investigation should be explained by the authors. They should also incorporate the effect of environmental factors.

Conclusion

This section has to be rewritten because its content is the repetition of findings. The authors should conclude their findings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Article title: " Relationship between flower phenotypic traits and fruit yields in Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) varieties".

1. In this reversion, we have rewritten many parts of the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comment.
2. The title has been rewritten to bring it closer to the topic of this study according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. We highlight the importance of flower morphology for fruit yield as well as tea plant breeding.
4. To give readers an idea of the possibility of pollination by insects such as bees being associated with flower morphology, we added two photos.
5. We have rewritten the abstracts, discussions, and conclusions to make the findings clearer and more readable.
6. Please grant your approval. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

1.       Further discussion needs to the Discuss section.

2.       In fig. 3b，there was no significant difference (p-value = 0.122) between the flowers in the anther superior group and stigma superior group in 2015. So, the relevant description of Figure 3b needs to be modified.

3.       In the result part, the author found the fruit yield was affected by lengths of the pistils and stamens. Moreover, the fruits yield is also affected by the year of harvest (fig.2 and fig.3). Why the authors choose 2013 and 2015 years to obtain the samples?

4.       The samples were obtained in 2013 and 2015 in this experiment. So, how are samples stored for 8-10 years after collection?

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Article title: " Relationship between flower phenotypic traits and fruit yields in Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) varieties".

1. In this reversion, we have rewritten many parts of the manuscript according to the reviewer’s comment.
2. The title has been rewritten to bring it closer to the topic of this study according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
3. We highlight the importance of flower morphology for fruit yield as well as tea plant breeding.
4. To give readers an idea of the possibility of pollination by insects such as bees being associated with flower morphology, we added two photos.
5. We have rewritten the abstracts, discussions, and conclusions to make the findings clearer and more readable.
6. Please grant your approval. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This revision has addressed my concerns, and this new version looks much improved now.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 

Thank you very much for giving so much constructive comments. 

I would like to rewrite the last sentence of abstract as 

"These two traits have the potential to be used as reference indicators for early selection in future breeding programs."  

Thanks again  

Best regard

Lo Shih Kai

 

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors should provide some quantitative data for studied traits in the abstract section

Author Response

Dear reviewer 

Thank you very much for giving so much constructive comments. 

I would like to add a sentence of the abstract as your suggestion. 

"The average length and width measurements of certain phenotypic traits of tea plants, including pistil length, stamen length, stamen bundle's inner width, stamen bundle's outer width, and stigma width, were 11.8, 10.9, 2.5, 15.0, 3.7 mm, respectively."  

Thanks again  

Best regard

Lo Shih Kai