Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) Priority in Italy: Distribution, Ecology, In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation and Expected Actions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

just some minor but important corrections to improve your text:

Observation 5: please, consider the new sentences proposed from line 73 to line 84.

Observations 16-19: please, don't cut, but change the world as indicated by me in the before review.

Observation 20: please, replace as indicated by me in the new pdf.

Line 497. I. imperati (Vahl) Griseb. (= I. stolonifera

Line 965: Ipomoea in italics.

Best wishes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

just some minor but important corrections to improve your text:

Response

All done

 

Observation 5:

please, consider the new sentences proposed from line 73 to line 84.

Response

done

 

Observations 16-19:

please, don't cut, but change the world as indicated by me in the before review.

Response

done

 

Observation 20:

please, replace as indicated by me in the new pdf.

Response

done

 

Line 497.

I. imperati (Vahl) Griseb. (= I. stolonifera)

Response

done

 

Line 965:

Ipomoea in italics.

Response

done

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I have went through your responses/arguments to my comments. Similarly as you blaim me I can blaim you on missuderstanding.

I definitely read carefully through your manuscript. I its as I stated very usefull and needed study and I am fully supportive of this.

With respect to what I have called "declarations", although you target Sustainability journal and argue on economic aspects of CWRs, I stronly insist of providing more biologically relevant background which is essentiall to the topic stated in title - ecology and habitat, which goes again to adaptive values of CWRs.

I agree largely with your arguments and comments.

Yes the study is rich in data and provides novel information, however what I am definitely lacking in Material and Methods is clear description of how many data entries/records you were able to retrive and analyze (at present it looks like checklist of mentioned published papers and list - but how these were evaluated?- even when you point out to the database, clear link and information on source material has to be provided.

Without this it is unfortunately rather descriptive manuscript, despite there is quite thorough discussion on some environmental aspects and usefullness in relation to respective crops.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

 

Observation

I definitely read carefully through your manuscript. I its as I stated very usefull and needed study and I am fully supportive of this.

Response

The authors agree with the reviewer

 

Observation

With respect to what I have called "declarations", although you target Sustainability journal and argue on economic aspects of CWRs, I stronly insist of providing more biologically relevant background which is essentiall to the topic stated in title - ecology and habitat, which goes again to adaptive values of CWRs.I agree largely with your arguments and comments.

Response

The authors in agreement with reviewer have added, in the introduction, 5 references to support the biological aspects (ecology, habitat, in situ and ex situ conservation). Accordingly we renumbered the all references

 

Observation

I stronly insist of providing more biologically relevant background which is essentiall to the topic stated in title - ecology and habitat, which goes again to adaptive values of CWRs. I agree largely with your arguments and comments.

Response

The authors in the present work trace the way to the collection on the missing biological data, giving the recommendations point by point for each species reported in the manuscript on future projects, starting from existing biological literature and unpublished data. The reviewer seems shares our comments.

 

Observation

Yes the study is rich in data and provides novel information, however what I am definitely lacking in Material and Methods is clear description of how many data entries/records you were able to retrive and analyze (at present it looks like checklist of mentioned published papers and list - but how these were evaluated?- even when you point out to the database, clear link and information on source material has to be provided. Without this it is unfortunately rather descriptive manuscript, despite there is quite thorough discussion on some environmental aspects and usefullness in relation to respective crops.

Response

The authors thanks the reviewer on the statement “the study is rich in data and provides novel information”

The material and methods has been revised to make it easier to read. The authors reviewed and added important information reported on previous works (Landucci et al., Magrini et al.). The recent red lists (Orsenigo et al. 2018, 2020 and others) have brought Aegilops biuncialis, Aegilops ventricosa and Beta Macrocarpa at a higher level of attention from (C) to (A) (see material and methods and tables). Also Lathyrus amphicarpos have a secondary gene pool GP2 and not GP3 as reported in the previous work (see table 3 and comments in the paragraph of this species).

The authors referenced the database in each tables (Landucci et al., Magrini et al ...). To compare them it is enough to check the article mentioned. We didn't have enough space to consider together the database and the tables.

These updates from conservation point of view, in addition on habitats, vegetation and ecology informations, has allowed us to give guidelines that are only apparently descriptive but we think are well contextualized.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

I carefully read your manuscript entitled "Crop wild relatives (CWR) priority in Italy: distribution, ecology, in situ and ex situ conservation and expected actions". I think that it could represent a good novelty in your research field and can improve the knowledge on CWR.

However, before its publication, the manuscript must be improved in several parts. Please, consider all the suggestions and corrections indicated below and in the attached PDF.

Best wishes.

 

KEYWORDS

Please, avoid to repeat the same words of the title.

INTRODUCTION

Lines 20-22. Please, provide at least one reference for this sentence.

Line 34. Change with "Following the definition of Maxted et al. [7], the CWR"

Please, report the aims of your study at the end of the Introduction section.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Lines 66-80. Sorry, but I find this section a bit complex for the reader. Try to simplify it or schematize it for a better understanding.

Please, add a section in Material and Methods about the source of the taxonomic nomenclature followed.

RESULTS
Lines 125-127. You could avoid reporting the authorship of the species, as you have already done so in the "Materials and Methods" section. After the first mention of species authorship in the text, you can avoid repeating it later.

DISUSSION

You should indicate where did you find the description of the reported species.

Lines 199-200. In literature it is possible to find also Trachynetalia distachyae Rivas-Martinez 1978 and Brachypodietalia distachyae Rivas-Martínez 1978. Which is the correct and update syntaxon and which are its synonyms? Please, report it properly.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The present manuscript is about the crop wild relatives that are endangered in Italy. The authors provide an update of 14 species about their current situation and which are the actions that should be done. The manuscript can be accepted in the present form. Nice work, congrats!

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

the topic os provided manuscript is promissing very interesting and important study of CWRs in Italy, however further reading leads unfortunately to dissapointment. It is surely usefull inventory but needs to be quite thoroughly re-analyzed and re-written to provide usefull information. There is currently quite a lot of "declarations" but based on very little presented data. It is more like some project reporting.

Namely - in title you state ecology, habitat and distribution - this is very important and usefull but essentially very little is provided except of text in discussion part.

Introduction - you indicate quite precise economic values for CWRs, but rather little biologic background is provided. Why CWR are usefull - providing greater diversity and adaptability, potential for crop improvement etc. nothing on that is shown and references to this are abundant.

Material and methods: it is unclear why you have started with 43 and ended with 14 selected species, subtracting all endemic, the most valuable.

Precise indication of search steps including directions of respective germplasm/genebanks should be listed. There should be table (as supplementary material likely) providing all accessions, including locations, habitats etc., than the study will be usefull).

There would be greatly usefull to have a map showing distribution of listed species, accessions.

Protocol used for searches described in lines 117-132 should be detailed.

Discussion part done per species, and including "actions" should be greatly condensed, there is currently lot of speculations.

The most usefull would be to properly discuss if there is further collection potential, and greatly lacking is parts related to ecology - as stated in the title.