Environmentally Conscious Technologies Using Fungi in a Climate-Changing World

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Author,

The work is very interesting, but I want to suggest something for the value addition of the manuscript.

1. Keywords should be in alphabetic order. What is the meaning to write twice SDGs in the last line? Might be a typo error.
2. In the introduction part, you have written in general about fungi, but if you can mention any particular fungi (as an example) with respect to economic importance that will be better.
3. Page no. 2, line no. 48, CO2, 2 (two) will be subscript form.
4. Page no. 4, line no. 143, typo error (Gungi). You can use the following references too:

Zaidi, A., E. Ahmad, M.S. Khan, S. Saif and A. Rizvi: Role of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria in sustainable production of vegetables: current perspective. Sci. Hortic., 193, 231-2319 (2015).

Ignatova, L.V., Y.V. Brazhnikova, R.Z. Berzhanova and T.D. Mukasheva: Plant growth-promoting and antifungal activity of yeasts from dark chestnut soil. Microbiol. Res., 175, 78-83 (2015).

Vejan, P., R. Abdullah, T. Khadiran, S. Ismail and A.N. Boyce: Role of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria in agricultural sustainability- a Review. Molecules, 21, 573 (2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules21050573.

Mandal, S.K., and Das N.: Phyto-mycoremediation of benzo[a]pyrene in soil by combining the role of yeast consortium and sunflower plant. J. Environ. Biol., 39(2), 261–268 (2018).

      

5. If possible, can you add at least one figure and one table.
6. Format the references as per journal guidelines by referring latest papers. The scientific name should be in italics with proper format.

 

 

In the revised manuscript, the corrected part should be marked with some color or highlighted with a different color so that corrections/changes can be identified.

Author Response

Dear,

Thank you for the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript " Environmentally conscious technologies using fungi in a climate-changing world". The authors greatly appreciate the time and effort you and the reviewers have put into providing valuable feedback on the manuscript. The reviewers' comments and suggestions were very helpful in improving the submitted version. We were able to incorporate changes that reflected all of the reviewers' suggestions.

We believe that the revised manuscript fits the journal, but we are also willing to consider further revision if requested.

We thank you and the reviewers for your interest in our research.

Sincerely,

Davor Kržišnik and José Gonçalves

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall, the authors give a great presentation on fungi and their importance to the environment and how they can be important in helping to meet the challenges of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

However, it would also be interesting to mention the ability of some fungi to biodegrade compounds such as plastic and others.

 

Also, in the abstract you have "SDGs (SDGs)", I believe you intended to define the abbreviation.

 

Author Response

Dear,

Thank you for the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript " Environmentally conscious technologies using fungi in a climate-changing world". The authors greatly appreciate the time and effort you and the reviewers have put into providing valuable feedback on the manuscript. The reviewers' comments and suggestions were very helpful in improving the submitted version. We were able to incorporate changes that reflected all of the reviewers' suggestions.

We believe that the revised manuscript fits the journal, but we are also willing to consider further revision if requested.

We thank you and the reviewers for your interest in our research.

Sincerely,

Davor Kržišnik and José Gonçalves

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

First of all, I would to congratulate the authors for submitting their manuscripts to this journal.

Authors in this brief communication entitled “Environmentally conscious technologies using fungi in a climate-changing world” have shown the importance of fungi in the climate-changing world.

After going through the manuscript, I found several issues in the manuscript. For example

1.     Author has used SDGs in the introduction section directly without introducing them for the first time.

2.     Rewrite the abstract with a relevant outline of the manuscript

3.     References are not according to the journal. It must in numbered. Please change

 

4.     Conclusion is too large. 

Author Response

Dear,

Thank you for the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript " Environmentally conscious technologies using fungi in a climate-changing world". The authors greatly appreciate the time and effort you and the reviewers have put into providing valuable feedback on the manuscript. The reviewers' comments and suggestions were very helpful in improving the submitted version. We were able to incorporate changes that reflected all of the reviewers' suggestions.

We believe that the revised manuscript fits the journal, but we are also willing to consider further revision if requested.

We thank you and the reviewers for your interest in our research.

Sincerely,

Davor Kržišnik and José Gonçalves

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper touching the very important topic represents a review paper, and this type of manuscripts is assumed to be a compilation of the previously published studies built in a clear and logical way. The major problem of this compilation manuscript is the presence of logical gaps inside and between the paragraphs and the repetition of facts and statements, which complicates the manuscript reading and understanding.

At the beginning, the authors give an information on the role of fungi in native ecosystems, their potential in the economic usage, intermixed with the definition of climate change. In the second paragraph they – suddenly, describe the global problems associated with human activities. Why not to start with this general information and after that to move toward the fungal topic? In the third paragraph the authors return to fungi and mention once again the bio-based economy. They for some reason mention the paper of 2017, which described over 70 new species from 38 genera of bracket and crust fungi, while in the next paragraph they write about around 2,000 new fungal species discovered each year, without giving a relevant reference. Additionally, the sentence on lines 118-120 looks out of place in the middle of this paragraph, and it is unclear why the authors mentioned only Aspergillus fumigatus as a producer of cellulose for biofuels, and not more famous fungal species in the context of biofuel production - Mortierella isabellina, Myceliophthora  thermophila, and Thielavia terrestris.

On my mind, Introduction and Conclusions (in the present form) are not the proper sections of a review paper. It is much better to divide the paper into chapters containing the general information on global problems associated with human activities, on the role of fungi in natural ecosystems (diversity, functions) and on different aspects of the employment of fungi in modern biotechnology (food, biofuel, fabric, biocontrol, etc.) and not to "white biotechnology" and "circular bioeconomy", because such separation is rather artificial and confusing; some general conclusive remarks may accomplish the review.

In general, I would like to see the review less pathetic while containing more specific information on the role of fungi in modern technology, and especially in a climate-changing world, as it is declared in the title.

Some other comments and suggestions are inserted into the PDF version of the manuscript, which is attached.   

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear,

Thank you for the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript " Environmentally conscious technologies using fungi in a climate-changing world". The authors greatly appreciate the time and effort you and the reviewers have put into providing valuable feedback on the manuscript. The reviewers' comments and suggestions were very helpful in improving the submitted version. We were able to incorporate changes that reflected all of the reviewers' suggestions.

We believe that the revised manuscript fits the journal, but we are also willing to consider further revision if requested.

We thank you and the reviewers for your interest in our research.

Sincerely,

Davor Kržišnik and José Gonçalves

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have incorporated all the comments suggested by me. The manuscript is acceptable in its current form. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the time and the important comments given in the first round of review; and for revising the latest version.

Best,

Davor Kržišnik and José Gonçalves

Reviewer 4 Report

Thus far, on my mind, the paper does not fully meet the requirements of a scientific review. It is still built in a rather non-logical way, contains self-repetitions (like about fungi being the very diverse group), extremely general statements and declarations (like on lines 98-101), as well as awkward and unclear sentences. On the other hand, the paper does not provide sufficient concrete facts on different aspects of the employment of fungi in modern biotechnology. In my strong opinion, the section 2. should be divided into several subsections devoted to these aspects (food, biofuel, fabric, biocontrol, etc.). Moreover, I did not see any reason to place Table 1 (with two unclear columns) and Figure into the text, because they have very distant relation to the specific paper topic (by the way, how does shipbuilding benefit from the capabilities of fungi?). Still, the paper does not shed much light on the using of fungi namely in the climate-changed world, as it is declared in the title; to define "climate change" and to state that fungi can play the role in its mitigating is certainly not enough.

Some other comments and suggestions are inserted into the attached PDF version of the manuscript.  

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your suggestions and concerns. We appreciate them and agree with them in part. The corrected passages are highlighted in orange throughout the manuscript.
Regarding concerns about self-repetition and "awkward and unclear sentences", we have deleted some repetitions and reworded some sentences. However, we will not completely rewrite the manuscript as we believe it is clear and well-structured.
The idea for the table and figure was given by another reviewer in round 1 and we believe it is an important addition to the perspective as it quickly shows the main objective of the paper.

The proposal to divide section 2 into several subsections seems interesting for a review paper that is much larger than a perspective and involves an extensive literature review to provide concise information. However, we feel that such an approach is inappropriate for a perspective article and does not fit the topic within the current format.

We appreciate your time and comments.

Best,

Davor Kržišnik and José Gonçalves

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf