Chloroplast Spacer DNA Analysis Revealed Insights into Phylogeographical Structure of Phoebe chekiangensis
, Xiangzhen Chen 1 and Xiangui Yi 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsManuscript ID: forests-3011375-v1
Title: Phylogeographical Structure of Phoebe chekiangensis Revealed by Chloroplast Phylogeography
Authors: Wu et al.
Overview:
The manuscript deals with the phylogeographic analysis Phoebe chekiangensis populations form different geographical locations in China, using three spacer regions of the chloroplastic DNA. The manuscript overall is organized properly, however some relevant queries are there, which needs to be addressed/ clarified, including the rationale behind use of cpDNA spacers and not nuclear ribosomal DNA spacer regions, bias related to the maternal inheritance of the cpDNA, use of cpDNA at most places instead of cpDNA spacer regions etc. Some of the key concerns are listed below and also indicate in the PDF file of the manuscript.
Section specific comments
Title: The manuscript title contains repetitive terms (phylogeographical and Phylogeography), which may be avoided. Suggestion: ‘Chloroplast spacer DNA analysis revealed insights into phylogeographical structure of Phoebe chekiangensis’.
Abstract: Abstract contains some concerns, which needs to be clarified/rectified, as indicated below or in the PDF file:
Lines 14-15: ‘Non-coding sequences or intergenic spacers? Non-coding generally implies to non-coding RNAs.
Line 15: The names of the spacer regions used may be indicated in the parenthesis.
Line 18: ‘cpDNA diversity’ or ‘diversity of IGS/spacer regions of cpDNA’
Lines 17-25: Several statements contain too much quantitative data about results.
Lines 11-17: Minor changes suggested for improvement.
Introduction: The length of the introduction section is fine and more or less written appropriately. It should include any citations to any previous phylogenetic studies in the species. Some minor changes have been suggested in the PDF file and few mentioned below:
Lines 37-44: Minor changes suggested for improvement.
Lines 44-45: This may be clarified a little bit, particularly about the sustainable development and utilization of this exclusive species.
Line 46: Use of cpDNA may be carefully explained. Is it ‘cpDNA’ or certain regions like 'spacer' regions that are used for analysis?
Lines 46-56: Minor changes suggested for improvement.
Lines 48-49: How small sized cpDNA contains large amount of genetic information? This statement lacks clarity. Compared to which region of genome, the information is large?
Lines 53-55: Add few more References for different utilities of cpDNA.
Lines 56-57: Similar to previous statement, may be removed.
Line 57: or 'spacer regions of cpDNA'.
Line 62: or 'cpDNA spacer sequences'.
Lines 63-69: See carefully, if these statements refer to the work done in the present study. If yes, why previous studies are cited in support? Not clear.
Material and methods: This section needs to be improved at certain places. Mino change suggested at certain places, see the PDF file for comments and some points below:
Line 73: What is an artificial population?
Lines 75-76: What was the basis of this distance criteria?
Line 78: How concentration and purity of DNA was assessed on agarose gel?
Line 94: How it was decided that the alignment is ambiguous? What parameters were used for this assessment? Can these sequence regions impact the phylogeographic analysis outcome?
Line 95: This lacks clarity. Some reference should be cited for such analysis.
Line 115: The other species used (later described in the results section) and methods used have not been indicated here. The details in the Results section should be part of M&M
Results: Results section will need improvement at several places. In particular, unnecessary lengthy details about content also evident in the figure/tables, and repetition of M&M section related details may be avoided. See comments/suggestions in the PDF file and also below:
Lines 140-141: Seems repetitive like M&M, may be removed.
Lines 142-144: It may be noted that w.r.t. to description in M&M, the three sequences were concatenated after removal of the ambiguous indels etc. If this it true what is the length of 3 sequences here, after the removal or the complete sequences. These details should include the complete range of length of sequences across samples.
Line 144: Is the no of polymorphic sites, 9/1548, sufficient for phylogenetic analysis? How many were singleton, and what was the site diversity?
Lines 148-153: May be removed, as it looks repetitive like the data in Table 4. The content combined with the pervious paragraph, See the suggested changes.
Lines 154-164: Content may be reduced with referring to the Table 3 and 4. Only important points may be highlighted.
Lines 166-172: This may be reduced and data files may be referred.
Line 174: M&M mentions only 3 sequences, kindly check and rectify if needed
Line 180: If some other software were also used, may be mentioned.
Lines 181-183: This may be explained in the Figure caption.
Lines 184-188: This seems repetitive as above, such content may be minimized/removed.
Lines 189-196: Some description here again seems repetitive.
Lines 203-208: Kindly crosscheck if the quantitative information is very similar to Tables 3 and 4, and description in the previous sections.
Lines 213-214: This statement appears like the M&M, see and modify, if needed.
Linea 215-217: This may be explained in Figure caption.
Line 218: Add some references for the ‘coalescent theory’.
Lines 218-222: This description may look appropriate for M&M section, here only results of the analysis should have been added.
Lines 226-227: Are these branches or groups? See if changes are needed in the description.
Line 228:
Line 230: Change section heading to indicate spacer regions and not whole cpDNA.
Line 231: The expanded and the abbreviated forms may be correctly written.
Lines 231-237: This explanation may be more appropriate for the M&M section, only results may be highlighted here.
Lines 240-241: What type of sequence information used here, only polymorphic sites and haplotype data or polymorphic sites w.r.t. to the total length of the data.
Line 243: Table 5 not mentioned/cited anywhere in the text, it may be rectified.
Lines 249-252: May be part of the M&M section.
Lines 255-256: The bootstrap support values are not evident for this statement, and for other clusters/ sub-clusters in the tree.
Lines 273-280: These details and datasets are not mentioned in the results section. It may be more appropriate for the M&M section.
Lines 280-281: Appears repetitive? may be removed. However, it must be indicated, which sequences have been used here.
Lines 282-285: This analysis should be also briefly mentioned in the abstract.
Line 288: Why only this fragment was used for analysis here?
Lines 301-306: This description of the approach/methodology may be moved to the M&M section.
Lines 318-320: May be moved to the M&M section.
Lines 320-325: Very long statement, may be split for more clarity.
Lines 328-330: May be rewritten in a concise manner.
Discussion: Discussion section needs to be shortened by keeping previous literature and description relevant to the focus of the present work. Minor corrections suggested at certain places (see below and the PDF file of the manuscript).
Lines 336-343: Minor corrections suggested.
Lines 344-347: Is the data is discussed in results, it may be minimized in this section.
Lines 349-354: See it the content is repetitive as detailed in the results section, if yes, repetition may be removed here.
Lines 358-363: Some references may be added in support of the statement.
Lines 364-367: The within species diversity of other populations of other species have not been investigated for making this statement. Kindly check and include if required, or the statement may be re-written based on the analysis done.
Lines 370-374: More or less similar to results, may be minimized or removed.
Lines 377-381: Kindly include some reference in the support.
Lines 389-391: Repetitive description of regions may be minimized.
Lines 396-400: Add some reference in support.
Lines 411-413: Add some reference here.
Lines 433-434: Add some reference here.
Figures: Make the figure captions more informative.
Figure 1: Figure caption may include cpDNA spacer instead of cpDNA.
Figure 2: Make the figure caption more informative.
Figure 3 and Figure 4: The writing style of the caption and informativeness may be improved.
Figure 4: Why only this fragment was used for analysis here? The sequence used should be mentioned in the text also. The caption may be made more informative, by highlighting the key elements of the figure.
Figure 6: The informativeness of the caption may be improved.
Tables:.
Table 2 cane be part of supplementary data.
Table 5 not mentioned/cited anywhere in the text, it may be rectified.
Table 6: The table is not cited in the manuscript text, it may be moved to the Supplementary data.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Quality of English is more or less fine, minor correction is needed at few places.
Author Response
I am very grateful to the review for revising this manuscript, I have learned a lot, and the comments from the review are very thoughtful. I am very grateful when I received them. Many of them directly modified the original text and uploaded the revised version and clean version.My sincere thanks again.
Section specific comments
Title: The manuscript title contains repetitive terms (phylogeographical and Phylogeography), which may be avoided. Suggestion: ‘Chloroplast spacer DNA analysis revealed insights into phylogeographical structure of Phoebe chekiangensis’.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Abstract: Abstract contains some concerns, which needs to be clarified/rectified, as indicated below or in the PDF file:
Lines 14-15: ‘Non-coding sequences or intergenic spacers? Non-coding generally implies to non-coding RNAs.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 15: The names of the spacer regions used may be indicated in the parenthesis.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 18: ‘cpDNA diversity’ or ‘diversity of IGS/spacer regions of cpDNA’
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 17-25: Several statements contain too much quantitative data about results.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 11-17: Minor changes suggested for improvement.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Introduction: The length of the introduction section is fine and more or less written appropriately. It should include any citations to any previous phylogenetic studies in the species. Some minor changes have been suggested in the PDF file and few mentioned below:
Lines 37-44: Minor changes suggested for improvement.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 44-45: This may be clarified a little bit, particularly about the sustainable development and utilization of this exclusive species.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 46: Use of cpDNA may be carefully explained. Is it ‘cpDNA’ or certain regions like 'spacer' regions that are used for analysis?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 46-56: Minor changes suggested for improvement.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 48-49: How small sized cpDNA contains large amount of genetic information? This statement lacks clarity. Compared to which region of genome, the information is large?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 53-55: Add few more References for different utilities of cpDNA.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 56-57: Similar to previous statement, may be removed.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 57: or 'spacer regions of cpDNA'.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 62: or 'cpDNA spacer sequences'.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 63-69: See carefully, if these statements refer to the work done in the present study. If yes, why previous studies are cited in support? Not clear.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Material and methods: This section needs to be improved at certain places. Mino change suggested at certain places, see the PDF file for comments and some points below:
Line 73: What is an artificial population?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 75-76: What was the basis of this distance criteria?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 78: How concentration and purity of DNA was assessed on agarose gel?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 94: How it was decided that the alignment is ambiguous? What parameters were used for this assessment? Can these sequence regions impact the phylogeographic analysis outcome?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 95: This lacks clarity. Some reference should be cited for such analysis.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 115: The other species used (later described in the results section) and methods used have not been indicated here. The details in the Results section should be part of M&M
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Results: Results section will need improvement at several places. In particular, unnecessary lengthy details about content also evident in the figure/tables, and repetition of M&M section related details may be avoided. See comments/suggestions in the PDF file and also below:
Lines 140-141: Seems repetitive like M&M, may be removed.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 142-144: It may be noted that w.r.t. to description in M&M, the three sequences were concatenated after removal of the ambiguous indels etc. If this it true what is the length of 3 sequences here, after the removal or the complete sequences. These details should include the complete range of length of sequences across samples.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 144: Is the no of polymorphic sites, 9/1548, sufficient for phylogenetic analysis? How many were singleton, and what was the site diversity?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 148-153: May be removed, as it looks repetitive like the data in Table 4. The content combined with the pervious paragraph, See the suggested changes.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 154-164: Content may be reduced with referring to the Table 3 and 4. Only important points may be highlighted.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 166-172: This may be reduced and data files may be referred.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 174: M&M mentions only 3 sequences, kindly check and rectify if needed
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 180: If some other software were also used, may be mentioned.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 181-183: This may be explained in the Figure caption.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 184-188: This seems repetitive as above, such content may be minimized/removed.
Lines 189-196: Some description here again seems repetitive.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 203-208: Kindly crosscheck if the quantitative information is very similar to Tables 3 and 4, and description in the previous sections.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 213-214: This statement appears like the M&M, see and modify, if needed.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Linea 215-217: This may be explained in Figure caption.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 218: Add some references for the ‘coalescent theory’.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 218-222: This description may look appropriate for M&M section, here only results of the analysis should have been added.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 226-227: Are these branches or groups? See if changes are needed in the description.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 228:
Line 230: Change section heading to indicate spacer regions and not whole cpDNA.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 231: The expanded and the abbreviated forms may be correctly written. - Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 231-237: This explanation may be more appropriate for the M&M section, only results may be highlighted here.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 240-241: What type of sequence information used here, only polymorphic sites and haplotype data or polymorphic sites w.r.t. to the total length of the data.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 243: Table 5 not mentioned/cited anywhere in the text, it may be rectified.
Lines 249-252: May be part of the M&M section.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 255-256: The bootstrap support values are not evident for this statement, and for other clusters/ sub-clusters in the tree.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 273-280: These details and datasets are not mentioned in the results section. It may be more appropriate for the M&M section.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 280-281: Appears repetitive? may be removed. However, it must be indicated, which sequences have been used here.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 282-285: This analysis should be also briefly mentioned in the abstract.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Line 288: Why only this fragment was used for analysis here?
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 301-306: This description of the approach/methodology may be moved to the M&M section.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 318-320: May be moved to the M&M section.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 320-325: Very long statement, may be split for more clarity.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 328-330: May be rewritten in a concise manner.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Discussion: Discussion section needs to be shortened by keeping previous literature and description relevant to the focus of the present work. Minor corrections suggested at certain places (see below and the PDF file of the manuscript).
Lines 336-343: Minor corrections suggested.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 344-347: Is the data is discussed in results, it may be minimized in this section.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 349-354: See it the content is repetitive as detailed in the results section, if yes, repetition may be removed here.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 358-363: Some references may be added in support of the statement.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 364-367: The within species diversity of other populations of other species have not been investigated for making this statement. Kindly check and include if required, or the statement may be re-written based on the analysis done.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 370-374: More or less similar to results, may be minimized or removed.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 377-381: Kindly include some reference in the support.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 389-391: Repetitive description of regions may be minimized.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 396-400: Add some reference in support.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 411-413: Add some reference here.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Lines 433-434: Add some reference here.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Figures: Make the figure captions more informative.
Figure 1: Figure caption may include cpDNA spacer instead of cpDNA.
Figure 2: Make the figure caption more informative.
Figure 3 and Figure 4: The writing style of the caption and informativeness may be improved.
Figure 4: Why only this fragment was used for analysis here? The sequence used should be mentioned in the text also. The caption may be made more informative, by highlighting the key elements of the figure.
Figure 6: The informativeness of the caption may be improved.
Tables:.
Table 2 cane be part of supplementary data.
Table 5 not mentioned/cited anywhere in the text, it may be rectified.
Table 6: The table is not cited in the manuscript text, it may be moved to the Supplementary data.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe present manuscript “Phylogeographical Structure of Phoebe chekiangensis Revealed by Chloroplast Phylogeography” by Wu et al. is well-done research of the distribution pattern of Phoebe chekiangensis in the East China region, which was conducted using phylogeographic analysis of non-coding sequences of chloroplast DNA.
I have only several minor remarks:
L.1-2: In the title of manuscript the information concerning the phylogeography seems excessive;
L. 17-19: The sentence “Research results show that the cpDNA genetic diversity of the Phoebe chekiangensis, Hd=0.423, and nucleotide diversity, Pi×10-3=0.400.” seems incomplete. Possibly, that is because the verbs are missed.
L. 24: The expression “11 Phoebe chekiangensis haplotypes to be 7.85 mya..” seems awkward.
L. 29-31: The sentence “These results suggest that Phoebe chekiangensis exhibits greater adaptation to the Northern Subtropics than to the Central Subtropics, offering valuable insights for the conservation and utilization of germplasm resources.” seems awkward. Besides, Northern Subtropics than to the Central Subtropics of what? I may guess, that there were the Subtropics of the East China region.
L. 43-45: The sentence “Analyzing the current distribution patterns of Phoebe chekiangensis through phylogeography facilitates targeted conservation and the sustainable development and utilization of this valuable species [6].” seems awkward and unclear.
L. 49 The expression “making the analysis simple..” seems awkward.
L. 62. Please, add at least a short comment, why these particular sequences were chosen.
L. 101: “assessed through four cpDNA fragments”. There were three of them.
Figure 1. Please, translate from Chinese the legend in the Figure
L. 21. “Geographical distribution of haplotypes of Phoebe chekiangensis based on 3 cpDNA samples”. I can guess that the Authors mean ““Geographical distribution of haplotypes of Phoebe chekiangensis in the Northern and Central Subtropics of the East China region based on 3 cpDNA samples”. Still, do not forget that the Figure shows a map, first of all.
In the legends of the Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 all abbreviations, which are in the Figures must be deciphered (such as TM, LXC, LAS, etc.).
Figure 2 is of poor quality, the legend in the figure is unreadable at all.
L.336: The sentence “Genetic variation among populations of woody plants is usually smaller than within populations [40].” is unclear and also possesses some problems in English.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe text contains some awkward English expressions. Examples of them are indicated in the main part of the review, the text should also be double-checked from the point of view of English
Author Response
I am very grateful to the review for revising this manuscript, I have learned a lot, and the comments from the review are very thoughtful. I am very grateful when I received them. Many of them directly modified the original text and uploaded the revised version and clean version.My sincere thanks again.
The present manuscript “Phylogeographical Structure of Phoebe chekiangensis Revealed by Chloroplast Phylogeography” by Wu et al. is well-done research of the distribution pattern of Phoebe chekiangensis in the East China region, which was conducted using phylogeographic analysis of non-coding sequences of chloroplast DNA.
I have only several minor remarks:
L.1-2: In the title of manuscript the information concerning the phylogeography seems excessive;
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required. Change the title to：Chloroplast spacer DNA analysis revealed insights into phylogeographical structure of Phoebe chekiangensis.
- 17-19: The sentence “Research results show that the cpDNA genetic diversity of the Phoebe chekiangensis, Hd=0.423, and nucleotide diversity, Pi×10-3=0.400.” seems incomplete. Possibly, that is because the verbs are missed.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required. “The research findings show that the spacer regions of cpDNA genetic diversity of Phoebe chekiangensis is Hd=0.423, and the nucleotide diversity is Pi×10-3=0.400. ”
- 24: The expression “11 Phoebe chekiangensis haplotypes to be 7.85 mya..” seems awkward.
- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required. “The divergence time of Phoebe chekiangensis is 7.89 mya, H7, H8, and H10 haplotypes of Phoebe chekiangensis (northern region) differentiated relatively late, with a divergence time of 1.90 mya.”
- 29-31: The sentence “These results suggest that Phoebe chekiangensis exhibits greater adaptation to the Northern Subtropics than to the Central Subtropics, offering valuable insights for the conservation and utilization of germplasm resources.” seems awkward. Besides, Northern Subtropics than to the Central Subtropics of what? I may guess, that there were the Subtropics of the East China region.
-- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required. “These results have important implications for the conservation of germplasm resources of Phoebe chekiangensis. ”
- 43-45: The sentence “Analyzing the current distribution patterns of Phoebe chekiangensis through phylogeography facilitates targeted conservation and the sustainable development and utilization of this valuable species [6].” seems awkward and unclear.
-- Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
- 49 The expression “making the analysis simple..” seems awkward.
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required. “Due to the spacer regions of cpDNA , it contains genetic information. ”
- 62. Please, add at least a short comment, why these particular sequences were chosen.
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
- 101: “assessed through four cpDNA fragments”. There were three of them.
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Figure 1. Please, translate from Chinese the legend in the Figure
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
- 21. “Geographical distribution of haplotypes of Phoebe chekiangensis based on 3 cpDNA samples”. I can guess that the Authors mean ““Geographical distribution of haplotypes of Phoebe chekiangensis in the Northern and Central Subtropics of the East China region based on 3 cpDNA samples”. Still, do not forget that the Figure shows a map, first of all.
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
In the legends of the Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 all abbreviations, which are in the Figures must be deciphered (such as TM, LXC, LAS, etc.).
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Figure 2 is of poor quality, the legend in the figure is unreadable at all.
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
L.336: The sentence “Genetic variation among populations of woody plants is usually smaller than within populations [40].” is unclear and also possesses some problems in English.
--Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsResearch on the phylogenetic structure of Phoebe chekiangensis is very interesting and provides very useful knowledge for its management and conservation. However, there are opportunities for improvement for the presentation of the manuscript. In particular, do not repeat aspects of methodology in results, and results in the discussion section. It would be convenient to improve the approach to the objective and establish the research hypotheses. Please review and restructure the conclusions based on the objective, hypotheses and results of the research.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
I am very grateful to the review for revising this manuscript, I have learned a lot, and the comments from the review are very thoughtful. I am very grateful when I received them. Many of them directly modified the original text and uploaded the revised version and clean version.My sincere thanks again.
Thank you for your correction of the manuscript, which has been revised as required.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsManuscript ID: forests-3011375-Revision
Title: Chloroplast spacer DNA analysis revealed insights into phylogeographical structure of Phoebe chekiangensis.
Authors: Wu et al.
Overview:
The revised manuscript on phylogeographic analysis Phoebe chekiangensis populations form different geographical locations in China, using three spacer regions of the chloroplastic DNA has been improved.
Some minor concerns are listed below.
1) The revised manuscript title looks appropriate.
2) The concerns raised have been addressed, however language and style of writing may still be evaluated again for correctness.
3) The figure/table titles and captions may also be check carefully.
Minor errors in English language and style may need to be addressed at certain places
Author Response
Dear review, thank you for your guidance, in accordance with your requirements to modify, very sincere to meet your serious guidance, thank you。
