Competitive Interactions of Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus L.) Cytotypes in Submersed and Emergent Experimental Aquatic Plant Communities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors provide a complete description of a study to determine the effect of cytotype and competitive interaction on the effect of Buomus umbellatus competitive ability as determined by biomass, growth, root:shoot ratio and relative interaction intensities. The authors complete a thorough description of their research and describe all of the major components, including Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.  There are several relatively minor errors that need to be repaired.  However, overall, the paper is of good quality and is meritorious of publication, once the errors are repaired.

Overall, sentences, particularly in the introduction are long.  Consider revising, especially early in the publication.  Furthermore, every paper is referenced only a couple of times.  Is it really necessary to reference each paper so few times?

Abstract:

Lines 24-26: Is it not already known that triploid plants are better-adapted competitors?  Can this be rephrased to emphasize novel aspects?

Introduction:

Lines 31-34: This seems to be a invasive vertebrate-focused listing of impacts.

Line 34: what is meant by “beneficial species”

Line 40: Here and throughout the document, this format is observed, 20,21-23.  Why is the comma included when the articles are sequential?

               Also seen:  Line 45: why not 24-30?

                                Line 64

Line 44: change to “to successful” invasion

Line 75: It is typical to include plant family.  Why has this not been done throughout paper? Make sure to follow IPNI guidelaines.

Materials and Methods

Line 85: missing a comma

Line 94: why are predator fish unwanted?—More detail needed here.

Line 102-117: Intro sentence starting on line 117 seems out of sync with Intro sentence seen on line 102. (switch these).

Line 115: The latitude and longitude don’t seem to include enough significant digits.  What is journal requirement?

Line 123: should be a space before numbers and units.  Please watch this throughout text.  It comes up later in paper, too.

Line 126-127: sentence is in error, please fix.

Results

Line 207: Hollow points? Or “white dots” or something similar.

Line 232- Figure legend-Line: What is happening here to inclusion of proper descrition of Figure 3?  It looks like figure 2 got switched out and should be figure 2B? or something happened in the text.  This is pretty easy to follow if it weren’t for the complete error included around the discussion of this figure.  Get this figure and its discussion in order, with proper citations and this should be fine.

Discussion

Line 242: B. umbellatus?  Why is this the first sentence where Butomus is started with B…. instead of Butomus.

Line 297: This sidebar is interesting, but needs an additional line to text to tease apart the differences in the G3 genotype.  Would it be helpful to have the cytotype paper to refer to here?  Can you add another sentence?  As is, this doesn’t work.  Sentence starting on Line 301 is missing a clause.

References:

Several references need fixing, either capitalization or italics:

            References numbers: 3, 31, 36, 38, 48, 49, 57, 60?-what is this? 67 (no ital. for S.S.), 74, 77, and 83

Author Response

Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript assessed flowering rush biomass production and interactions with recipient communities in emergent and submersed habitats. This approach may ultimately have important implications for early detection and rapid response and future work on the management of this invasive species. It was an interesting read and requires only minor revisions to improve clarity in several paragraphs. I question whether the Appendix on field observations of the water depth of Butomus umbellatus should be included with the manuscript; it is not referred to in the text and seems peripheral to the rest of the work.

Line 31: harm singular

Line 40: 20-23

Lines 50-52: Awkward sentence

Line 70: Additionally, there are no examples

Line 84: Provide family for Butomus umbellatus

Lines 98-100: Delete, repetitive from last paragraph of introduction and do not fit here.

Line 103: Define ERDC at first mention here, not line 118.

Line 104: Clarify – recipient community species? Experimental community species? This was inconsistent throughout the manuscript.

Table 1: What does the asterisk refer to?

Line 126: Delete “Planting occurred in”

Line 173: experimental communities – inconsistent with line 119

Results – add a subheading for Submerged interaction experiment

Figure 2. Caption – clarify explanation of what constitutes a significant result overall vs. between the cytotypes, i.e. are the differences between cytotypes still considered significant if one or more confidence intervals overlap zero (2A)?

Line 217: Should Figure 1 be Figure 3?

Line 242: Spell out Butomus

Line 277: Replace – with :

Line 326: take this variability into account

Lines 329-330: Awkward, rephrase

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx