PONE-D-21-09972

Phytolith profile of Acrachne racemosa (Heyne ex Roem. & Schult.) Ohwi (Cynodonteae, Chloridoideae, Poaceae)

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. BADGAL,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Umakanta Sarker

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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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: Manuscript Number: PONE-D-21-09972

Full Title: Phytolith profile of Acrachne racemosa (Heyne ex Roem. & Schult.) Ohwi (Cynodonteae, Chloridoideae, Poaceae)

The manuscript presents a very good, original & exhaustive piece of work done by the authors and the work has multidisciplinary applications. The phytoliths are very important taxonomic tools vis-à-vis aid in the reconstruction of paleo-environments and prediction of climate changes.

However, the manuscript needs a major revisionary work to make it worth accepting in PLOSONE Journal. Following are queries/points which need to be addressed and necessary changes should be incorporated in the manuscript accordingly.

1. The authority of the taxon under investigation is incomplete.

2. The abstract of the manuscript is not coherent & robust and needs to be re-written.

3. The manuscript entitled “A worldwide phylogenetic classification of the Poaceae (Gramineae) II: An update and a comparison of two 2015 classifications.” which has been cited in the abstract section as [2] has been wrongly interpreted as the number of sub-tribes under the tribe cyanodontae are 21 not 18.

4. The introduction needs a systematic arrangement of sentences as it lacks logical sequence of sentences.

5. The manuscript should be supplemented by the herbarium sheet of the taxon under investigation.

6. The methodology should be made brief and concise as the manuscript is already very much voluminous and lengthy.

7. The methodology for FTIR is not clear.

8. The methodology for XRD is not mentioned instead use of XRD is presented.

9. Silica is an amorphous material but you have observed the crystalline phases in XRD studies. Explain the reasons for this shift from amorphous to crystalline behavior of silica.

10. There is repetition of sentences like---- Acrachne racemosa (Heyne. Ex roem. & Schult.) Ohwi is an annual grass having erect, simple or branched, tufted culms and…..the repetitions of sentences should be avoided.

11. There is no need of the Table 1 an this information already exists in literature vis-à-vis on various taxonomic compilations and e-floras.

12. Explain the reasons for the accumulation of more silica content in leaves (The silica is absorbed by the plant roots from the soil and is then carried along the transpirational stream to different plant parts where it is subsequently deposited----correlate the silica content of various plant parts in relation to this statement)

13. The presence of saddle shaped phytoliths is characteristic feature of subfamily cyanodonteae……no such mention has been made in the manuscript despite of the presence of saddles in leaf peelings.

14. The results of In-situ locations of phytoliths should be rewritten so as to make then concise, brief and meaningful.

15. In Fig.2…Adaxial (B) should be presented before the Abaxial (A).

16. Incorporate the Fig. numbers in the morphometry tables of phytoliths against the each phytolith morphotype presented in morphometric tables.

17. The morphotypes in tables with and without data does not correlate with the data presented in the text. There is lot of ambiguity in the morphotype data (In Table 2A 27 morphotypes are mentioned from root.....data of only 11 morphotypes is presented and in text only 24 morphotypes in mentioned in total from the root).

18. ) There is also a lot of ambiguity in the figure number of morphtypes between the text and the legend of the figures.

19. No methodology for the study of undulations of phytoliths is presented. Mention the respective parts of the synflorescence from which these undulation patterns were reported (glumes, lemma, palea etc)…if not worked out in the present study…….give support from literature

20. The cumulative frequency data of all the phytolith morphotypes from a plant part should be equal to 100 or 100% but the values are lower that 100% which is inappropriate.

21. Present the FTIR RESULTS in a tabulated form.

22. The transition of amorphous silica to crystalline form does not take place at 550 0C but at a temperature higher than 10000C. Support your finding from literature and look for some other reasons that may have brought about phase shift from amorphous to crystalline form of silica.

23. NO mention is made in the manuscript about the method of deciphering of XRD peaks. Have you made use of literature in peak deciphering or any software package and if so send us the working pics of the methods of peak deciphering for surety of the results presented in the manuscript.

Thanks and best of luck

Reviewer #2: Dear Authors

I ask you to proofread the text for grammatical errors.

The main question on the article - what in your opinion is the biological role of shapeless phytoliths (Fig. A, B, D)? May be you will find some ideas in:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S036725301830495X?via%3Dihub

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/648326/

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.12692

https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/8/8/249

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Reviewer #1: Yes: SHEIKH ABDUL SHAKOOR, PG DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY, THE ISLAMIA COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND COMMERCE, SRINAGAR (J&K) INDIA

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: Reviewer comments.docx

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-09972_reviewer.pdf

PONE-D-21-09972R1

Phytolith profile of Acrachne racemosa (B. Heyne ex Roem. & Schult.) Ohwi (Cynodonteae, Chloridoideae, Poaceae)

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. BADGAL,

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.

The authors addressed all the comments raised by reviewers and the one reviewer is accepted the MS and another reviewer declined invitation due to his bussiness. Now, the manuscript improved substantially. However, before its acceptance, the authors should address these issues (Typos errors) again with minor revision.

Line 68: change “ha-1” to “ha^-1”. [superscript (-1)]. Follow this style throughout the whole MS where it exists

Line 122: change “50ml” to “50 mL”. change “80◦C” to degree symbol “80 °C”. Follow this style throughout the whole MS where it exists

Line 145: change letter “x” to symbol of cross “×”

Line 221: change “bar =40” to “bar = 40”. Add spaces before and after the symbol “=”. Follow this style throughout the whole MS where it exists

Table 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d: Add spaces before and after the symbol “±”.

Line 367: delete the space after the slash “/”

Line 443: add spaces before and after the symbol “>” and “˂”

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 24 2022 11:59PM. 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,

Umakanta Sarker

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.

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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 #2: All comments have been addressed

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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 #2: Yes

********** 

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

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 #2: Yes

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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 #2: Yes

********** 

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 #2: Your paper is devoted to very interesting and "hot" topic - biomineralization in plants.

Nowdays we need more data-based phytolith papers.

Please, go forward!

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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 #2: No

[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.

Phytolith profile of Acrachne racemosa (B. Heyne ex Roem. & Schult.) Ohwi (Cynodonteae, Chloridoideae, Poaceae)

PONE-D-21-09972R2

Dear Dr. BADGAL,

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.

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Kind regards,

Umakanta Sarker

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

During proofreading: address the following errors:

Line 60: Change “SiO2.nH2O” to “SiO2.nH2O”. (Subscript the number)

Line 111: Change “31.31 ºN and 74.55 ºE.” to “31.31ºN and 74.55ºE.”.

Line 150: Change “0.1mg” to “0.1 mg”.

Table 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d: reduce font size to accommodate all values in a single row.

References: Follow the journal style

Reviewers' comments: