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Dear authors, congratulations, your paper has been accepted.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Julin Maloof, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
The authors have revised the manuscript according to my previous comments. I only have some minor comments for language.
Line 24, delete ‘in alpine plants’.
Line 133, delete ‘entirely’.
Lines 209-211, confusing sentence.
Line 219, delete the first ‘and’.
Line 246, delete ‘regular’.
Line 322, clarify ‘farm cultivation’.
No additional comments.
No additional comments.
Dear authors
As noted by Reviewer 1 you have not provided a formal response to their comments. Please resubmit your article, this time including a full response letter dealing with the comments of the first reviewer on the original submission.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Your current rebuttal letter simply reads: "Thank you for your comments. We have made a lot of revisions and hope to change your comments." Simply providing a tracked changes manuscript is not sufficient. Reviewers need to read your response to each of their comments, along with a description of how you edited the manuscript (in addition to the tracked changes document). Therefore, please resubmit, and 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. Directions on how to prepare a response letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/. #]
I cannot find a point-to-point response to my previous comments.
See above.
See above.
The experiment is very basic and finding is cleared. Authors has been incorporated and modified as per suggested.
No comment
The finding results are well explained. Tables and figures well stated.
The experimental finding could be use to propagate such of type of alpine forest plant by breaking the seed dormancy.
It's very much necessary to understand the type of dormancy and every seed require a very distinct set of condition for germination.
So, the present result will helps in directly or indirectly in conservation of plant genetic resources.
Dear author, considering the report of the reviewers, your article can not be published in its current form.
However, the Section Editor noted that
> I disagree with the reviewer's statement that 400 seeds are required for a germination test. That may be the standard for crop plant agricultural tests but the literature relevant to this type of study (see for example papers by Kathleen Donohue, Leonie Bentsink, or Johanna Schmitt) have a study size similar to this
[# 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. #]
Not clear about the topic
confusing statements given
Unstructured methodologies followed
Research and questions are not well defended
Meaningful methodologies and statistical methods are not adopted
.
Abstract
It should give message about carried experiment in proper channel and flow of work which is missing in writing. One or few sentences are needed for methodologies. Some important experimental findings should be included in the abstract with proper reasoning.
Introduction
The subject of manuscript is remarkably interesting, but author should more relay on the subject of manuscript. They give classification of all kinds of dormancy which is not needed. They must be described only non-deep physiological dormancy. Why it is important? What is the actual mechanism? Where it is found. Like that. Introduction part explained only about dormancy but not for the Primula florindae, its importance in forest, its overall distribution etc. This is an insufficient information for dormancy as well as for Primula florindae. Objective of the study are unclear. Overall introduction has very confusing statements without proper formation.
Line no 43: change the first sentence. Start with positive sentence
Line no 53: remove “environmental” word
Line no 55: Change the Defination of dormancy
Line no 61: Baskin and Baskin give classification in 1998 and 2004.
Line no 67 to 69: confusing statement
Line no 78: Reframe the sentence
Line no 86: add “family” after “flowers belonging to the….”
Line no 88: Grammatically incorrect sentence
Line no 105 to 107: Reframe the objective of the study
What is non deep physiological dormancy?
What is the history and how it works in alpine regions?
Who classify this (non-deep physiological dormancy) in which category?
What is the relation of light and non-deep physiological dormancy?
Materials and methods
Materials and methods written unambiguously. Aim of study cannot be addressed without proper methodology and description of materials. Pictorial proof is needed as a supplementary material.
Line no 125: Unclear
Line no 142: Incomplete heading
Line no 158: Give citation
Line no 162: Give citation who suggested it?
How authors select constant temperatures? Cite the methodology or describe the temperature and conditions and assumptions of selecting specific temperature. Similarly, describe about all experiments regarding temperature.
Results
Authors working with two different collections but how these collections are different from each other is not mentioned. It is recommended to add in the study. Graphical results are easy to understand but to prove its actual effect one or more comparative photographs of experiment is mandatory to increase effectiveness of carried experiment.
Line no 176: correct the unit as 200 mg L-1
Line no 180: Remove ( ) from “except light × GA3 concentration at 15/5°C for LL)”
Discussion
It is written well but it needs to improve by giving perfect reasons of results with proper citations. Given citations must be explained with their results and conclusions. Pictorial presentation may increase the understanding of experiments.
Conclusions
Conclusion only contain results of the experiment. It should have novelty in findings. It may include some recommendations regarding preservation of the species. Novelty and proper findings are missing from the conclusion.
The authors investigated seed dormancy and germination characteristics of an alpine plant Primula florindae in Southwest China. Seed dormancy is an important mechanism for ensuring seedling establishment in the right place and time. The results from this study could be of interest to those working on seed ecology in the alpine ecosystem.
See additional comments.
No comment.
Introduction. In the last paragraph, the first question includes two parts that should be combined.
Materials & Methods. More detailed information is needed. For example, how many individuals are the capsules collected from, and can they represent the tow populations? How long were the seeds air-dried? It is important because dry storage can affect seed dormancy. Are the constant and alternating temperatures representative the seasonal temperatures in the natural habitat?
In addition, the reference for calculating GP and MGT should be provided.
No information for the vegetation of the two populations (LL and SJL) is provided (although Table 1 shows the location and altitude).
Results. The description in line 185-187 cannot been seen in Fig. 3-6.
Discussion. Line 212, unclear about ‘surface sowing’.
Lines 214-217 is not suitable for the discussion.
Line 235, need to provide more detailed information for type 2 non-deep PD.
In all figures, need to give the full names for LL and SJL in the legend.
Fig. 3 and 4 (also Fig. 5 and 6) should be combined, because the two figures show the same information.
English needs to be improved. I noted some errors below (only for the Abstract).
Line 21, ‘conditions’ should be ‘probability’.
Line 24, ‘Xizang’ should be ‘Tibet’.
Line 26, unclear about ‘the first opportunity’.
Line 28, ‘we-re’ should be ‘were’.
Line 33, ‘It’ should be ‘Our results’. ‘undergo’ should be ‘have’.
Line 34, delete ‘in’.
There are some unclear statements was raise in introduction part as well in materials and methods section.
No. of replication used in experiment should be very specific.
No comment
There is a one major mistake was done in this experiment that was number of seed used in the experiment. As per the ISTA, minimum seed required for germination test is 400.
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