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Dear Dr. Huang,
Thank you for preparing the revised version of your article. It now meets all the requirements and can be published in PeerJ. Congratulations!
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Julin Maloof, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Dear Dr. Huang,
An expert has re-evaluated your article. They believe the paper can be published in PeerJ in its current version, as you have introduced all the necessary corrections. However, the Section Editor has one more doubt about it.
This is a study of 25 individual trees with no replication of genotypes and no genetic analysis. Therefore, any between tree variation could be due to environment or stochastic causes rather than due to genetic differences. So statements like " ...indicating that C. oleifera has a rich genetic diversity" (line 259) or "There is rich genetic variation in various traits" (line 284) are not supported. Please rephrase this sentence.
With best regards,
The manuscript is now significantly improved. The suggested changes have been made by the authors.
A descriptions have been provided in the Materials and Methods section as as I suggested.
Parts of the Results and Discussion section have been rewritten as requested in the first review of the manuscript.
I would like to express my appreciation to the authors for thoroughly incorporating the corrections and suggestions I provided during the previous review round. These include adjustments to the formatting, writing style, and the integration of new figures.
The manuscript is now significantly improved. I am confident that the revised version meets the necessary standards for publication. Therefore, I recommend that the paper be accepted for publication in the journal.
Dear authors:
Thank you for submitting your manuscript for review. Two independent experts have evaluated your work. Based on their comments and a thorough assessment of the submitted article, we have requested a major revision before we can accept it.
Despite a well-written introduction and an interesting research topic, the manuscript in its current form cannot be accepted due to serious methodological flaws that undermine the reliability of the results. The study may have value as a preliminary analysis of plant material, but it requires substantial editorial, linguistic, and scientific revisions.
We strongly encourage the authors to carefully revise the manuscript and resubmit it after addressing the issues mentioned above.
We are excited to receive the revised version of the manuscript, along with a detailed response to all reviewer and editorial comments.
**PeerJ Staff Note:** Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and that any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate.
**Language Note:** The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at [email protected] for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title). Alternatively, you should make your own arrangements to improve the language quality and provide details in your response letter. – PeerJ Staff
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Camellia oleifera is a major woody oil crop with high comprehensive utilization value. However, poor management and a long-standing casual attitude towards oil tea cultivation have led to low yields. This article screened the H2 sample through a comprehensive evaluation and found that the single cultivation had the best overall performance among all traits. Suggest publishing on PeerJ, but there are still some issues, as follows:
1. Generally speaking, the abstract and the main text are two parts, so the full name of the crop, the Latin name, should be written when it first appears in the abstract. Similarly, the full name of the crop Latin name, should also be written when it first appears in the main text, and abbreviations should only be used when it appears later.
2. On line 31, to ensure the long-term history of oil tea cultivation in China, it is recommended to add clear reference articles to prove it, so that the article has better reference value.
3. The significance P in the correlation heatmap of Figure 2 is italicized.
4. For the scientific comparability of important trait data, it is recommended to perform a significant difference analysis (letter labeling method) on all trait parameters in the table using SPSS.
5. It is suggested to replace the handwritten paper numbering with electronic number insertion for Figure 1 and insert the numbering in the upper left corner of each image to make the overall image neat and beautiful.
The manuscript is generally understandable, but the quality of the English prose and scientific writing could be significantly improved.
The paper is structured logically, but certain sections are difficult to read due to excessive and repetitive text. The most significant example is the Correlation test and analysis section (Lines 115-142). This section is a long, dense paragraph that simply lists the correlations shown in Figure The text should be completely rewritten to summarize the most important trends and biological implications, directing the reader to Figure 2 for the full details.
The introduction is a strength of the paper. It is well-referenced and effectively establishes the context and needs for the research.
Figures and Tables:
Figure 1: Provides a helpful visual of fruit variation, although a higher resolution image would be beneficial.
Figure 2: This correlation map is excellent and conveys a large amount of information effectively. It is the primary strength of the results section.
Figure 3: The dendrogram is a standard and appropriate visualization for cluster analysis.
Tables: The tables are clear, well-formatted, and provide valuable summary data. The authors might consider replacing Table 2 with a graph (principal components), as a visual format would be more impactful for presenting these results.
The experimental design has a critical flaw: a lack of biological replication. The methods state one plant was used per monoculture (n=1), which invalidates the statistical analysis because it's impossible to distinguish genetic traits from environmental effects.
The Methods section (Line 70) states, "Twenty-five C. oleifera plants (labeled H1-H25)...were selected as test materials." The title and abstract refer to "monocultures," but the methods describe sampling from single plants. If only one tree was used to represent each of the 25 monocultures/varieties, then there is no biological replication (n=1). Regardig the datta set, only one fruit were measured in each trees?
If only a single tree was indeed used for each monoculture, the authors must explicitly state this as a major limitation in the Methods section. The manuscript must then be reframed from a "comprehensive evaluation" to a "preliminary screening," and the conclusions must be significantly toned down to reflect the low confidence in the findings. The authors acknowledge this limitation in the Discussion (Lines 239-242), but it is a fundamental design flaw that needs to be addressed upfront.
The conclusions are consistent with the presented data; however, the validity of that data is questionable due to the experimental design flaw noted above.
The ranking of monocultures (H2 as best, etc.) and the interpretations of the principal components are logical if one assumes the data is robust. But given the apparent lack of replication, these findings cannot be considered reliable or generalizable.
The conclusion that the study provides, "theoretical support for the selection and cultivation of suitable C. oleifera varietie,s" is too strong. The study provides no more than preliminary data that requires validation through a properly replicated, multi-year study, as the authors themselves rightly suggest in the discussion.
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