Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow (Salix alba L.)

Xin Ran; Xiao Wang; Xiaokuan Gao; Haiyong Liang; Bingxiang Liu; Xiaoxi Huang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260086

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 16, 2021
8 Sep 2021 Decision Letter - Mayank Gururani, Editor PONE-D-21-23173Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow(Salix alba L.)PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Liu, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by 24th Sept. 2021. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Mayank Gururani Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide 3. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: No ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The study is carefully concepted and methodological approach is satisfactory explained. The manuscript deals with interesting and important changes in response to salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow (Salix alba L.). Results and discussion portions are well written. The authors also draw an accurate picture from the results. However, few parameters are missing. The authors should review and cite some more relevant references, and follow suggestion given in detail below. Also needs a proper revision of English language Many sentences are very confusing. English language and writing style needs to be improved sufficiently Do not repeat words of the title in the Keywords. Please for the first use Salix alba L., then please follow the only Salix alba in the manuscript. Add economic and other importance of plant in introduction to make it more valuable. It is better to NaCl concentration in mM instead of %. Line: 25- 27. Please site the reference for hydroponics. Objective of the study needs to be refined. Line: 98. Which instrument (its name model, company) used for the determination of ions? In my opinion, chlorophyll content (a, b, and total) and carotenoids needs to be measured. It have direct link with salt stress and adaptability. NaCl and RWC have direct link when talking about stress and adaptability. So, I will suggest to study RWC (relative water content) under salt stress. The effect of salinity on physiology is obvious in every plant. Therefore, authors should narrate and conclude that how their research is different from others and what is the new or strong points of this manuscript. References need to be revised. Many articles on salinity response are published in high impact factor journals. So try to cite them, so everyone can access the references as well. Also, try to cite the latest articles. Reviewer #2: As strong adaptability to environmental stress, Salix alba L. has great potential for use and promotion in the ecological management of coastal saline-alkali soil. To investigate the salt tolerance mechanism of Salix alba L, Ren et al treated one-year-old Salix alba L. cuttings with different NaCl concentrations in a hydroponics system. The growth of roots, the ion contents, and the photosynthetic fluorescence parameters under different salt concentrations were detected to evaluate the salt adaption. The manuscript was well written and the logic of story was clear. All the data supported the issue which is lower salt treatment can not affect the growth of Salix alba L., but the higher salt concentration will destroy the growth of roots then to the plants. To defense the salt stress, Salix alba L. could restrict the ion transportation to maintain normal ion content in leaf. However, this mechanism seems to be general in many plants, as the authors mentioned in the discussion part. But the differences between this paper and previous work was not reflected. I think the most problem of this work is the lack of innovation. And also, as lack of data, the conclusions can not be rich and for further discussion. Reviewer #3: The manuscript titled “Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow (Salix alba L.)” one of classic example of tree species response to salt stress. The manuscript is well organized and language easy to follow although there were few grammatical and Syntex errors besides SI units. The manuscript can be improved so many ways before making the technical comments and some of my major concerns are; 1. Adapting a hydroponic system to research salt stress may be the most recent best strategy, but there is no way of knowing how the experimental setting was done. Authors may include a photo of the same in order to make any relevant comments. 2. Similarly for rooting length, kindly provide some photo to understand plant response. 3. Throughout the manuscript I can see that salt stress has a significant impact on above-ground biomass, such as leaf area index, shoot length, and so on, but the fact that it was not included in this study is a significant disadvantage. In the meantime, various physiological characteristics have been subjected leaves. 4. When it comes to hydroponic systems, CK medium may be the best option, however, the reaction of Salix alba seedlings is substantially higher than 0.1% NaCl, but no justification from authors how or why although the salt concentration less than 0.1% NaCl. 5. A statistical analysis was performed, however it was not up to scientific merit. For example, the manuscript frequently mentions significance of attributes, but there are no ANOVA tables (except LSD rank), at least as a supplemental to support. I request the authors to include F=xxx, df=xxx, and sig.=>0.001 wherever statistical significance was indicated. 6. Throughout the article, there are discussions about the trends of the morphological and physiological response of plant to the treatments, but the presented table does not provide viewpoints. Authors profusely mentioned the response trends widely without statistical analysis about trends which containing the scatter plot and best fit regression models (r2 and P). I advise authors to use graphs instead of tables, and I've included a sample presentation for ready reference. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Sunjeet Kumar Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: Yes:** Edwinraj Esack https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4264-718X [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PlosOne-D-21-23173_Review.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r001
Revision 1
28 Sep 2021 Author Response Reply to all comments point-by-point (Manuscript Number: PONE-D-21-23173) The authors’ replies are in blue. Editor’s comments: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf [Reply] We have modified the manuscript according to the PLOS ONE's style requirements. 2. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. [Reply] We will provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access our data. 3. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ [Reply] We create a new iD:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1699-7648 COMMENTS FOR THE AUTHOR: Reviewer 1# - The study is carefully concepted and methodological approach is satisfactory explained. The manuscript deals with interesting and important changes in response to salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow (Salix alba L.). Results and discussion portions are well written. The authors also draw an accurate picture from the results. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable feedback. We have made corrections based on the suggestions. Please see the manuscript. - However, few parameters are missing. The authors should review and cite some more relevant references, and follow suggestion given in detail below. [Reply] We have reviewed and cited more relevant references. Please see line 472-495. - Also needs a proper revision of English language. Many sentences are very confusing. English language and writing style needs to be improved sufficiently. [Reply] We have modified the English language appropriately. Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. We will continue our efforts to improve our English in the future. - Do not repeat words of the title in the Keywords. [Reply] We have rewrote Keywords. Please see line 41-43. - Please for the first use Salix alba L., then please follow the only Salix alba in the manuscript. [Reply] We have rewrote the name throughout the manuscript. Please look at the example from line 15+18. - Add economic and other importance of plant in introduction to make it more valuable. [Reply] We have added economic and other importance of plant in introduction. See Line 64-69 . - It is better to NaCl concentration in mM instead of %. [Reply] We've changed % to mM. Please see line 91. - Line: 25- 27. Please site the reference for hydroponics. [Reply] We've cited the reference for hydroponics. Please see Line 89 +92-95+441-447. - Objective of the study needs to be refined. [Reply] We have refined our research objectives. Please see Line 14-17. - Line: 98. Which instrument (its name model, company) used for the determination of ions? [Reply] We have added information about this instrument. We used the atomic absorption spectrometer of Analytikjena in Germany for atomic absorption determination.Please see line 116-117. - In my opinion, chlorophyll content (a, b, and total) and carotenoids needs to be measured. It have direct link with salt stress and adaptability. NaCl and RWC have direct link when talking about stress and adaptability. So, I will suggest to study RWC (relative water content) under salt stress. [Reply] This study mainly focuses on the effects of salt ions in plants on photosynthetic performance, without considering chlorophyⅡ and water. Thank you for your valuable suggestions, which will be added and improved in our future studies. - References need to be revised. Many articles on salinity response are published in high impact factor journals. So try to cite them, so everyone can access the references as well. Also, try to cite the latest articles. [Reply] We have deleted some references. We have added some influential and recent articles. Please see line 472-495. COMMENTS FOR THE AUTHOR: Reviewer 2# - However, this mechanism seems to be general in many plants, and also, as lack of data, the conclusions can not be rich and for further discussion. [Reply] Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have revised the manuscript. Most of the researches on White Willow mainly focus on the medicinal value of substances such as salicin contained in the bark, or the value of studying the enrichment of heavy metals in white willow, which is mainly used to purify water resources and realize agricultural irrigation and fishery breeding. Habitat stress is mainly drought and flooding, but there are few literatures on salt stress, most of which focus on the responses of physiological indexes and photosynthetic indexes of plants to ion absorption and transport under salt stress. This is also one of the reasons for our research. We hope to use white willow as experimental material to observe the various effects of salt stress on plants from this perspective. COMMENTS FOR THE AUTHOR: Reviewer 3# The manuscript titled “Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow (Salix alba L.)” one of classic example of tree species response to salt stress. The manuscript is well organized and language easy to follow although there were few grammatical and Syntex errors besides SI units. [Reply] Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have corrected grammatical and syntactic errors .Please see the manuscript. -1. Adapting a hydroponic system to research salt stress may be the most recent best strategy, but there is no way of knowing how the experimental setting was done. Authors may include a photo of the same in order to make any relevant comments. [Reply] We have added a picture to the manuscript. Please see the Figure 1. -2.Similarly for rooting length, kindly provide some photo to understand plant response. [Reply] We have added a photo. Please see the figure 2. -3. Throughout the manuscript I can see that salt stress has a significant impact on above-ground biomass, such as leaf area index, shoot length, and so on, but the fact that it was not included in this study is a significant disadvantage. In the meantime, various physiological characteristics have been subjected leaves. [Reply] This study mainly focuses on the effects of salt ions in plants on photosynthetic performance, without considering the aspects of leaves and stems. Thank you for your valuable suggestions, which will be added and improved in future research. -4. When it comes to hydroponic systems, CK medium may be the best option, however, the reaction of Salix alba seedlings is substantially higher than 0.1% NaCl, but no justification from authors how or why although the salt concentration less than 0.1% NaCl. [Reply] we have made an explanation, please see line 263-269.Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. -5. A statistical analysis was performed, however it was not up to scientific merit. For example, the manuscript frequently mentions significance of attributes, but there are no ANOVA tables (except LSD rank), at least as a supplemental to support. I request the authors to include F=xxx, df=xxx, and sig.=>0.001 wherever statistical significance was indicated. [Reply] We added some these information throughout the manuscript. Please see the example form line 173-175+179+181. 6.Throughout the article, there are discussions about the trends of the morphological and physiological response of plant to the treatments, but the presented table does not provide viewpoints. Authors profusely mentioned the response trends widely without statistical analysis about trends which containing the scatter plot and best fit regression models (r2 and P). I advise authors to use graphs instead of tables, and I've included a sample presentation for ready reference. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. We have changed some tables into charts. Please see figure 7. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r002
11 Oct 2021 Decision Letter - Mayank Gururani, Editor PONE-D-21-23173R1Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow(Salix alba L.)PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Liu, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by 25th October 2021. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Mayank Gururani Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #3: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: No ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #3: No ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: All the comments have been addressed. Few minor corrections and suggestion are given below, which needs to be improve Proper writing style is “Salix alba L.”, not “Salix alba. L”. Correct it and L. should not be italic (keywords and introduction). Also delete the dot after alba “Salix alba.” Line 40-41: you can cite the 10.3390/antiox9100940 manuscript for latest update about the Chinese areas affected with salinity. For global scenario cite 10.3389/fpls.2021.660409 manuscript No need to write mM/L. mM is explaining the unit by itself Still there are many typing and spelling mistakes. Revise the manuscript thoroughly. Reviewer #3: The author has improved the revised manuscript in numerous ways, but it still lacks scientific merit, novelty, and grammatical errors, in addition to serious issues with SI units. Despite the authors' efforts, to revise the manuscript failed to address the serious concerns of reviewers regarding the experiment's leaf/above ground biomass to support the research. However, without any reasonable justification, the authors submitted the manuscript with careless revision. Next is statistics and graphs part. The authors made a few changes, but the manuscript required extensive revision. They modified Fig 7, but similar revisions are required for all graphs except Figs 1, 2, and 10, which must be included in the manuscript. The anova results have been included in 165-175 lines, but they must be given wherever the word significant is used. Figures are should be modified, XY axis legend and labels have to be edited carefully. The pdf file enclosed contains a list of all typos, grammatical errors, and suggestions. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Sunjeet Kumar Reviewer #3: Yes:** Edwinraj Esack [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-23173_R1.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r003
Revision 2
24 Oct 2021 Author Response REVIEW COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR: Reviewer 1# 1-All the comments have been addressed. Few minor corrections and suggestion are given below, which needs to be improve. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. We have corrected the question you raised. Please look at the following words. 2-Proper writing style is “Salix alba L.”, not “Salix alba. L”. Correct it and L. should not be italic (keywords and introduction). Also delete the dot after alba “Salix alba.” [Reply] Thank you very much for your advice. We have corrected this writing error in its entirety. We changed ‘Salix alba. L. ’ to ‘ Salix alba L. ’ You can look at line 13 for an example. We used Salix alba L. at the beginning of the manuscript and Salix alba later. 3-Line 40-41: you can cite the 10.3390/antiox9100940 manuscript for latest update about the Chinese areas affected with salinity. For global scenario cite 10.3389/fpls.2021.660409 manuscript. [Reply] Thank you for providing us with these two articles, they are very helpful to our article, we have quoted them in line 42-44+421-424. 4-No need to write mM/L. mM is explaining the unit by itself. [Reply] We have changed mM/L for mM throughout the paper.You can look at line 19 for an example.Thank you very much for your suggestions. 5-Still there are many typing and spelling mistakes. Revise the manuscript thoroughly. [Reply] Thank you for your advice. We have revised the manuscript thoroughly. We will continue to study English hard in the future. Finally special thanks to you for your valuable advice. Every suggestion you make will make our manuscript better. REVIEW COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR: Reviewer 3# 1-The author has improved the revised manuscript in numerous ways, but it still lacks scientific merit, novelty, and grammatical errors, in addition to serious issues with SI units.Despite the authors' efforts, to revise the manuscript failed to address the serious concerns of reviewers regarding the experiment's leaf/above ground biomass to support the research. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.We have changed the error according to the SI units. Most of the researches on White Willow mainly focus on the medicinal value of substances such as salicin contained in the bark, or the value of studying the enrichment of heavy metals in white willow, which is mainly used to purify water resources and realize agricultural irrigation and fishery breeding. Habitat stress is mainly drought and flooding, but there are few literatures on salt stress, most of which focus on the responses of physiological indexes and photosynthetic indexes of plants to ion absorption and transport under salt stress. This is also one of the reasons for our research. We hope to use white willow as experimental material to observe the various effects of salt stress on plants from this perspective. In this study, water culture was used to set different salinity gradient, and hard branch cutting was used to analyze the rooting of willow in different salinity. All these measures were to provide theoretical support for willow seedling cultivation in saline-alkali land. In this study, the growth of root system was the key factor to the survival of seedlings, so the rooting index was used in this study. The aboveground biomass can not be used to evaluate the condition of the seedlings because the shoots will die even if they do not take root. 2-Next is statistics and graphs part. The authors made a few changes, but the manuscript required extensive revision. They modified Fig 7, but similar revisions are required for all graphs except Figs 1, 2, and 10, which must be included in the manuscript. [Reply] Thank you for your advice. We have modified Figs 3,4,5,6,8,9,11,12 and 13. We also used PACE to check our figures. 3-The anova results have been included in 165-175 lines, but they must be given wherever the word significant is used. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.We put these data next to the word ‘significant’. Please see line 177-186. 4-Figures are should be modified, XY axis legend and labels have to be edited carefully. [Reply]Thank you very much for your suggestions. We revised all our Figures according to the journal's requirements. 5-The pdf file enclosed contains a list of all typos, grammatical errors, and suggestions. [Reply]Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We corrected these errors according to this PDF file. We will continue to improve our English in the future. Once again, thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.. We appreciate for Editors and reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the corrections will meet with approval. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.doc https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r004
1 Nov 2021 Decision Letter - Mayank Gururani, Editor PONE-D-21-23173R2Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow(Salix alba L.)PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Liu, As you had requested earlier, I am sending this submission back to you so you can upload the correct images as mentioned in your email. Please submit your revised manuscript by 10th Nov. 2021. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Mayank Gururani Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Dear authors, As you had requested earlier, I am sending this submission back to you so you can upload the correct images as mentioned in your email. Kindly submit the revised manuscript asap. Best regards, Mayank Gururani Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r005
Revision 3
2 Nov 2021 Author Response Reviewer 1# 1-All the comments have been addressed. Few minor corrections and suggestion are given below, which needs to be improve. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. We have corrected the question you raised. Please look at the following words. 2-Proper writing style is “Salix alba L.”, not “Salix alba. L”. Correct it and L. should not be italic (keywords and introduction). Also delete the dot after alba “Salix alba.” [Reply] Thank you very much for your advice. We have corrected this writing error in its entirety. We changed ‘Salix alba. L. ’ to ‘ Salix alba L. ’ You can look at line 13 for an example. We used Salix alba L. at the beginning of the manuscript and Salix alba later. 3-Line 40-41: you can cite the 10.3390/antiox9100940 manuscript for latest update about the Chinese areas affected with salinity. For global scenario cite 10.3389/fpls.2021.660409 manuscript. [Reply] Thank you for providing us with these two articles, they are very helpful to our article, we have quoted them in line 42-44+421-424. 4-No need to write mM/L. mM is explaining the unit by itself. [Reply] We have changed mM/L for mM throughout the paper.You can look at line 19 for an example.Thank you very much for your suggestions. 5-Still there are many typing and spelling mistakes. Revise the manuscript thoroughly. [Reply] Thank you for your advice. We have revised the manuscript thoroughly. We will continue to study English hard in the future. Finally special thanks to you for your valuable advice. Every suggestion you make will make our manuscript better. Reviewer 3# 1-The author has improved the revised manuscript in numerous ways, but it still lacks scientific merit, novelty, and grammatical errors, in addition to serious issues with SI units.Despite the authors' efforts, to revise the manuscript failed to address the serious concerns of reviewers regarding the experiment's leaf/above ground biomass to support the research. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.We have changed the error according to the SI units. Most of the researches on White Willow mainly focus on the medicinal value of substances such as salicin contained in the bark, or the value of studying the enrichment of heavy metals in white willow, which is mainly used to purify water resources and realize agricultural irrigation and fishery breeding. Habitat stress is mainly drought and flooding, but there are few literatures on salt stress, most of which focus on the responses of physiological indexes and photosynthetic indexes of plants to ion absorption and transport under salt stress. This is also one of the reasons for our research. We hope to use white willow as experimental material to observe the various effects of salt stress on plants from this perspective. In this study, water culture was used to set different salinity gradient, and hard branch cutting was used to analyze the rooting of willow in different salinity. All these measures were to provide theoretical support for willow seedling cultivation in saline-alkali land. In this study, the growth of root system was the key factor to the survival of seedlings, so the rooting index was used in this study. The aboveground biomass can not be used to evaluate the condition of the seedlings because the shoots will die even if they do not take root. 2-Next is statistics and graphs part. The authors made a few changes, but the manuscript required extensive revision. They modified Fig 7, but similar revisions are required for all graphs except Figs 1, 2, and 10, which must be included in the manuscript. [Reply] Thank you for your advice. We have modified Figs 3,4,5,6,8,9,11,12 and 13. We also used PACE to check our figures. 3-The anova results have been included in 165-175 lines, but they must be given wherever the word significant is used. [Reply] Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.We put these data next to the word ‘significant’. Please see line 177-186. 4-Figures are should be modified, XY axis legend and labels have to be edited carefully. [Reply]Thank you very much for your suggestions. We revised all our Figures according to the journal's requirements. 5-The pdf file enclosed contains a list of all typos, grammatical errors, and suggestions. [Reply]Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We corrected these errors according to this PDF file. We will continue to improve our English in the future. Once again, thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. We appreciate for Editors and reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the corrections will meet with approval. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.doc https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r006
3 Nov 2021 Decision Letter - Mayank Gururani, Editor Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow(Salix alba L.) PONE-D-21-23173R3 Dear Dr. Liu, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Mayank Gururani Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r007
Formally Accepted
9 Nov 2021 Acceptance Letter - Mayank Gururani, Editor PONE-D-21-23173R3 Effects of salt stress on the photosynthetic physiology and mineral ion absorption and distribution in white willow (Salix alba L.) Dear Dr. Liu: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Mayank Gururani Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260086.r008

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