Diversity of Pod Shape in Pisum
, Eleni Vikeli, Michael J. Ambrose, Paola Higuera-Poveda, Luzie U. Wingen and Noam Chayut *Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a well-presented MS dealing with morphological variation of Pisum pods and how this variation is related to population structure and to known classical pod morphology mutants.
Although the described study is preliminary the MS is worthy for publication in its present form.
Thank you
Author Response
We thank this reviewer for these constructive comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript should be published after minor revisions.
The word “The” should be deleted from the title.
The pronouns “us” and “we” are used frequently throughout the manuscript. In a scientific paper of this caliber, pronouns should not be used. The sentences with the pronouns “us” and “we” can all easily be rewritten without “us” and “we”.
The legend of Table 1 does not express what is in the table. It should be, “Genes relating to pod character variation in pea”.
There are two odd constructs on lines 270 and 272. On 270, there is “replication in of each individual accession”; the word “in” should be deleted. On 272, there is “consistent to with long term historical records”; the word “to” should be deleted.
The sentence spanning lines 305 and 306 should have the pronoun “We” deleted and transformed into a question, which is then answered in the following paragraphs.
The sentence spanning lines 330 and 331 has a subject, “long/narrow pod class”, but no verb.
Author Response
We thank this reviewer for these constructive comments.
Re: Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The word “The” should be deleted from the title.
Agreed, there is of course much more diversity of pod shape than we discuss.
The pronouns “us” and “we” are used frequently throughout the manuscript. In a scientific paper of this caliber, pronouns should not be used. The sentences with the pronouns “us” and “we” can all easily be rewritten without “us” and “we”.
“Here we analyzed variation in pod size, described as pod length : pod width ratio, in pea germplasm represented by 597 accessions. We relate pod size variation to population structure and to known classical pod morphology mutants. We find that pod length : width ratio can be explained by allelic variation at two genetic loci that correspond to organ-specific negative regulators of growth.”
has been rewritten as:
“Here variation in pod size, described as pod length : pod width ratio, has been analyzed in pea germplasm represented by 597 accessions. . This pod size variation is discussed with respect to population structure and to known classical pod morphology mutants. Variability of the pod length : width ratio can be explained by allelic variation at two genetic loci that correspond to organ-specific negative regulators of growth.”
“For these reasons, the intraspecific variation in legume pod characters is of interest and further study may lead us to understand the genetic basis of such variation.”
has been rewritten as:
“For these reasons, the intraspecific variation in legume pod characters is of interest and further study may lead to the understanding of the genetic basis of such variation.”
“Here we describe variation associated with pod length and width, most likely reflecting natural variation in the genes te and lt”
has been rewritten as:
“Here, variation associated with pod length and width is described and this most likely reflects natural variation in the genes te and lt.”
“There is likely to be some overlap between the distributions of typical and unusual values, but taking the assignments in figure 2 we derived the three relationships”
has been replaced with:
“There is likely to be some overlap between the distributions of typical and unusual values, but taking the assignments in figure 2 three relationships have been derived”
“We counted ovule number (Supplementary Table S1) for 594 accessions in the 2020 data set”
has been replaced with:
“Ovule number (Supplementary Table S1) was counted for 594 accessions in the 2020 data set”
NE apologises for his failure to recognise this problem with the text as submitted. One use of the word ‘we’ remains, but it is in a quotation.
The legend of Table 1 does not express what is in the table. It should be, “Genes relating to pod character variation in pea”.
The title “Pod character variation in pea” has been changed to “Relevant genes relating to Pod character variation in pea.” The word ‘relevant’ is included to avoid giving the impression that this is a full list of genes involved in the regulation of pod characters in pea,
There are two odd constructs on lines 270 and 272. On 270, there is “replication in of each individual accession”; the word “in” should be deleted. On 272, there is “consistent to with long term historical records”; the word “to” should be deleted.
These corrections have been made and we thank the reviewer for noticing these errors.
The sentence spanning lines 305 and 306 should have the pronoun “We” deleted and transformed into a question, which is then answered in the following paragraphs.
The sentence:
“We can also ask whether this relationship holds for the unusually long, narrow pods and the unusually short wide pods”
has been replaced with
“As this relationship is derived from the data set as a whole, it is of interest to know whether it also holds for the unusually long narrow pods and the unusually short wide pods.”
The sentence spanning lines 330 and 331 has a subject, “long/narrow pod class”, but no verb.
This sentence now reads:
“Thus the long/narrow pod class has an intrinsic ovule number, which may account for the distinct shape of these pods”
