PONE-D-24-07226Comparison of bacterial communities in the Yamuna River (India) and the Mississippi River (United States of America) reveals greatest diversity at the Yamuna headwaters below the Yamunotri GlacierPLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Kindly find the two reviewers comments and revise accordingly

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The manuscript, “Comparison of bacterial communities in the Yamuna River (India) and the Mississippi River (United States of America) reveals greatest diversity at the Yamuna headwaters below the Yamunotri Glacier," Manuscript Number: PONE-D-24-07226, is well written and presented.

However, the script needs some more input and corrections. Please refer to the comments below to rectify the manuscript.

1. There is no Short Title to the Manuscript. Assign a short title Before the Abstract part.

2. There are no keywords in the manuscript after the abstract. Assign keywords after the abstract part.

3. The Introduction needs significant corrections and should be written again, citing more recent works of literature. It should also contain more information on the glaciers and deltas of India and the USA.

4. Information on the Mississippi River (United States of America) is insufficient in the whole context. The river's water content quality and the natural and anthropogenic activity involved are also not cited.

5. The materials and methods part is well written but lacks the time in hours of sampling.

6. In the results section, Lines 168-169 with the table, you mentioned sampling sites as 12, but you have only given names for 11 sites. Check the Table 1.

7. In the discussion part of the manuscript, the central functioning of the prominent microbial phyla is missing. Along with the information on abundance, discussion on the functioning of the particular microbe will be more appreciated.

Reviewer #2: The title of the manuscript is not interesting and too long

Kindly modify the abstract section of the manuscript

The introduction section needs to be improved and cite some latest references

PMID: 37239442, 35596862, 32683080, 33178147, 33021988

Line no 54: Reference is missing

Line no 65: Reference is missing

Line no 129-130: Provide the individual SRA accession number

The figure quality is very poor

Need PCA/CCA analysis

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Sushree Swati Rout

Reviewer #2: Yes: Ajaya Kumar Rout

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Comparison of Yamuna (India) and Mississippi River (United States of America) bacterial communities reveals greater diversity below the Yamunotri Glacier

PONE-D-24-07226R1

Dear Dr. Martinez,

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.

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Kind regards,

Bijay Kumar Behera, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

According to the reviewers recommendations the manuscript is accepted.

Reviewers' comments: