Review History


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Summary

  • The initial submission of this article was received on November 17th, 2022 and was peer-reviewed by 3 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The Academic Editor made their initial decision on November 30th, 2022.
  • The first revision was submitted on December 20th, 2022 and was reviewed by 3 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The article was Accepted by the Academic Editor on January 10th, 2023.

Version 0.2 (accepted)

· Jan 10, 2023 · Academic Editor

Accept

The authors have included the reviewers' suggestions. Therefore, the manuscript is accepted for publication.

[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Julin Maloof, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

English level is much better than it was. The mistakes which were previosly found were corected

Experimental design

Experimental desing now is proper and is element very interesting article

Validity of the findings

Very interenting point of view for such kind of scientific problem

Annotated reviews are not available for download in order to protect the identity of reviewers who chose to remain anonymous.

Reviewer 2 ·

Basic reporting

Dear Authors,
Thank you for your response. I believe that the article is now much better. Last time, I recommended this article for rejection, however, now it seems to be acceptable after minor revision.

The most weighty comments still pertains to the language. I feel to be not an expert as non-native speaker, however, I advise you to ask a fluent speaker for text polishing or try to use some third-party service. However, decision on this matter should be done by Editorial Team.

Please check the dataset you provided: please indicate raw values and mean values and SD that you calculated (I can see it, but it must be clearly described for the audience).

The are some problems with linearity of standard curve for flavonoids.

Experimental design

You supported standard curve for measurements of flavonoids, however, it is not linear as R^2 is lower than 0.99, which is a golden standard in analytical biochemistry. This is unfortunatelly not acceptable. This should be checked once again.

Validity of the findings

Findings are now validate as the Authors showed results of statistical analyses.
Quality of the discussion is acceptable.

Additional comments

Legends in the figures and size of letters for statistical indicators could be greater in size, but it is for desiccion of Editorial Board.

Reviewer 3 ·

Basic reporting

no comment

Experimental design

no comment

Validity of the findings

no comment

Additional comments

The authors address all the reviewer comments. The paper can be accepted as it is.

Version 0.1 (original submission)

· Nov 30, 2022 · Academic Editor

Minor Revisions

Dear Authors

Kindly see the reviewers' suggestions and include their suggestions before re-submission. Thank you.

Editor

[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. #]

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

English clear and profesional without significant problems

Experimental design

Interesting experiment from scientific and landscape architectecture point of view . Sometimes there is not enough informations but generally text is good and interesting

Validity of the findings

Interesting point of view on well known phenomena of plants . Statistic analisys section is not write well but if it will corected it could be very interesting work

Additional comments

Intresinting experiment trying to solve from scientific point of view phenomena which is very common in natural enviroment but it explanation by sciece is very poor

Annotated reviews are not available for download in order to protect the identity of reviewers who chose to remain anonymous.

Reviewer 2 ·

Basic reporting

Dear Authors,
After detailed review of your manuscript, I can state that the topic you studied is very interesting but the present version of this manuscript is not suitable for revision. The main problem is method for gathering chlorophyll fluorescence-related data and lack of statistical analyses. Additionally, this manuscript is rather poorly written; ‘Introduction’ is too general and, due to lack of statistical analysis, ‘Results’, ‘Discussion’ and ‘Conclusions’ are not justified. There are also several minor errors (listed in section 4: Additional Comments).
This is why I recommend to reject this article, as amount of work that needs to be done is similar to write manuscript from scratch.

Experimental design

Number of biological replications is acceptable but number of measurements is not adequate (especially in the case of chlorophyll fluorescence).

Validity of the findings

The findings are not validate as results of statistical analysis is missing. Additionally, statistical analysis was not described in detail, thus it is hard to judge if described differences are significant or not.

Additional comments

Detailed list of comments:
L59-60: I believe that all ornamental traits are in fact related to growth (both qualitative quantitative). Alternatively, you can state that you mean morphological traits or physiognomy and (or) other traits, including these associated with phenology. All of them can be of ornamental importance.
L61: Always provide Latin name of species, even if just family of genus name. Please use APG system (e.g., from World Flora Online) or national checklist if some species are not included in WFO. Check and fix where applicable.
L66: I believe that “traits” or “factors” is better word than “elements” here.
L70: Please use correct terms and definitions, e.g., “chlorosis” or (if related to other pigments) “leaf discoloration” but not “leaf color fading”, “loss of turgor” or “wilting” but not “leaves shrink”.
L81-82: Always use one key when you name species. First, give full scientific Latin name and then decide to use common name or Latin name.
L99-104: List of detailed hypotheses is missing. Please provide list of 2-4 hypotheses and corresponding questions.
L106-115: Please provide detailed information about plant cultivation, including data on soil properties, type of light, photoperiod, PPFD, etc.
L118: Do you mean relative humidity?
L135: Please check chemicals and pH values of their solutions.
L143-145: Please provide R^2 values for this standard curve as well as purity grade of catechin.
L149-150: Please provide more details on measurements of soluble sugars. Why is this described with stomatal conductance?
L151-156: Unfortunately, the core feature of this manuscript is very poorly documented. Please describe how the leaves were dark adapted (if by clips, give the producer), which protocol for NPQ measurements was selected and why (I am sure that you used NPQ protocol but in FP110 there are three different modes related to NPQ measurements), how many leaves per single plants were measured, how many measurements from each variant were gathered per time point, etc. Additionally, it is better to state that you measured “effective quantum yield of photosystem II (ΦPSII)” but not “actual photosynthetic efficiency (ΦPSII)”. Additionally, why did you calculate F_V/F_M when it is already measured by FP110 in this protocol as Qymax (see page 20 from FP110 manual)?
L157-160: Statistical analysis is very poorly documented. If each parameter was measured only three times, I believe that they can be biased due to following reason. It is rather uncommon practice with handhelds, as they acquire data from small areas. As there is high heterogeneity of leaf lamina in terms of chlorophyll fluorescence (Lichtenthaler et al., 2005; Murchie and Lawson, 2013), it is reasonable to conduct a greater number of technical measurements (in most recent studies, 2, 4 or 8 per plant), even when you have three true biological replicates. A greater number of measurements allows a more accurate estimation of chlorophyll a fluorescence-related parameters, being close to the average value per leaf. Please give a rationale for number of measurements you conducted. I understand that measurements of NPQ are more time consuming than OJIP protocol. This is, however, worth doing.
Additionally, the normality of the data were not checked or checked but not described, thus the reader is not able to determine if the data met the assumption of ANOVA testing. Post-hoc test used in this study and p values are not described. Description of correlation analysis is missing. Name of software used for statistical analyses is not presented.
Figures and Tables: Unfortunately, only one item (Table 2) out of nine items (three tables and five figures) contains statistical indicators. Additionally, p values are not presented in the captions.
L162-350: As statistical analysis is missing, all statements from ‘Results’, ‘Discussion’ and ‘Conclusion’ sections are not justified.

References:
Lichtenthaler, H.K., Langsdorf, G., Lenk, S., Buschmann, C., 2005. Chlorophyll fluorescence imaging of photosynthetic activity with the flash-lamp fluorescence imaging system. Photosynthetica 43, 355–369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11099-005-0060-8
Murchie, E.H., Lawson, T., 2013. Chlorophyll fluorescence analysis: A guide to good practice and understanding some new applications. J. Exp. Bot. 64, 3983–3998. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ert208

Reviewer 3 ·

Basic reporting

no comment

Experimental design

The authors should provide high resolution images of the figures. make the x and y axis bold.

Validity of the findings

no comment

Additional comments

The authors present a thorough and comprehensive study of the role of various factors responsible for the leaf color change and photosystem function evaluation with heat treatment for Loropetalum chinense and L. chinense var. rubrum. Additional studies of the evolution of the leaf provide interesting insights into the fate of their color, and there is strong correlation between anthocyanins, flavonoids, and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, which is responsible for enriching leaf color and protection of photosystem. Overall, this manuscript is well-written and will be of interest to the broad readership of PeerJ, and I recommend publication with the following minor revisions:
1) The authors should show the images for the color change indices in Figure 2. Please explain the procedure for determining the color indices.
2) The authors should show the detailed procedure for determination of the change in pigment contents of the leaves in the martials and method section.
3) The authors should show a high-resolution image for Figure 3. They mentioned that the anthocyanin was decreased to 32% and 88% for H and F, respectively, on the seventh day of heat treatment. However, it is not clear from Figure 3.
4) The authors should show the chlorophyll fluorescence spectra in Figure 5.

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