PONE-D-22-30734Physiological response of anthocyanin synthesis and accumulation to light intensity in blueberryPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

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,

Zhenhai Han, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure:

“Yes.

Delu Wang, grant number 31760205,National Natural Science Foundation of China.”

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

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Additional Editor Comments:

Reviewer #1:

In my opinion, this article is scientifically valuable and can be accepted with some revisions.

1- Quantify the abstract part of the article by adding the percentage of reduction and increase of studied traits.

2- Add complete explanations to the materials and methods section about plant growth conditions (environmental temperature during plant growth, the characteristics of the growth medium such as the content of nutrients, pH, cation exchange capacity, soil texture, plant nutrition conditions, irrigation, etc).

3. In figures: Add information about the bars on the columns to the captions of the figures (Bar type? SD or SE?).

Reviewer #2:

1. Title

• The title is not adequate in terms of description and declaration but “I recommend to add varying or different light intensity” and also rephrase it because after synthesis there is accumulation I think this repetition.

2. Abstract

• The abstract is clear and straight to the point and gives a clear summary of the study.

3. Introduction

• The introduction of this manuscript is clear as it motivates and the objective of the study is concise and to the point.

4. Materials and Methods

• This section is well written with clear steps that are precise

• The procedure and material used are relevant to the study.

• The equipment used are also well described

• However, some section is not clear in terms of language flow. For instance, Lines 102-104 "After one month of treatment, according to the test scheme, 5 to 8 blueberry plants with consistent growth and normal fruit yield, were as the source of a biological duplicate sample. "

5. Results

• The results are clear with adequate pictures, figures, tables, graphs and supplementary materials

• The sentence flow is not so well written and it is not easy to understand. For instance, Lines 162-163 ". In contrast, the content of JA, ABA and ETH increased with the growth and development and the light intensity increased."

6. Discussion

• The discussion is also very adequate and relevant for this study, it well cited with current research relevant to this study.

• There is no need of subtitles in the discussion part i.e 4.1, 4.2.

7. Conclusion

• The conclusion is not very conclusive because it does not show what is the next step or direction of research.

8. References

• The references are written well and there are consistent through the text

9. Tables and Figures

• The tables and figures in this draft manuscript are emphasized accordingly. However, Figures 2, 3 and 4 are not very visible.

• The figure and tables are also clearly labeled

10. Supplementary materials

• There are no supplementary materials to support the findings results of this research

11. General comments

• The manuscript is adequate as it has tried to address the relationship between different light intensity and anthocyanin biosynthesis and accumulation in respect to hormones and the activity of various enzyme involved.

• This draft manuscript meets minimum objective of research in terms of materials and methods, results, discussion and conclusion, the figures and tables are also well organized. A little improvement is necessary as per recommendation.

• I would recommend further editing of the manuscript so as to improve the manuscript and then it can be accepted.

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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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: 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: Yes

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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: Yes

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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: In my opinion, this article is scientifically valuable and can be accepted with some revisions.

1- Quantify the abstract part of the article by adding the percentage of reduction and increase of studied traits.

2- Add complete explanations to the materials and methods section about plant growth conditions (environmental temperature during plant growth, the characteristics of the growth medium such as the content of nutrients, pH, cation exchange capacity, soil texture, plant nutrition conditions, irrigation, etc).

3. In figures: Add information about the bars on the columns to the captions of the figures (Bar type? SD or SE?).

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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: Salar Farhangi-Abriz

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Physiological response of anthocyanin synthesis to different light intensities in blueberry

PONE-D-22-30734R1

Dear Dr. Wang,

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,

Zhenhai Han, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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

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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 #1: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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 #1: 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: 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 #1: (No Response)

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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 #1: Yes: Salar Farhangi-Abriz

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