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MDPI旗下的个别刊物质量堪忧,这些活跃在生物学杂志投稿值得警惕

已有 13193 次阅读 2020-7-17 21:26 |系统分类:论文交流

MDPI目前出版了很多学术性刊物,有些刊物的确不错,比如Symmetry和Forests,但是有些最新被SCI收录的刊物非常差,表现在编辑处理稿件随意,审稿人队伍质量堪忧,进而影响这些刊物论文的学术性价值。我举一个我同事投稿的例子。审稿人2基本上是在满嘴互喷,Comments基本都是bullshit(虽然给出的参考文献看似很专业,但是与我们的主题基本不相关)。审稿人1还是比较客观的,审稿人3没有认真看文章,是个菜鸟。


大家前文要警惕最近2年刚刚被SCI扩展收录的MDPI刊物。平心而论,Symmetry办的还不错。Forests也不错,不过要次一点。有些新的SCI刊物,纯粹就是扯淡的垃圾刊物,发表了反而会丢人现眼。幸亏被拒稿了。



Dear Editor of XXX,

One of our manuscripts has been rejected by your journal after being reviewed by three reivewers. However, we had no time to debate on those commnents at that time. Now, we find time to give you a response. Please see below. Frankly speaking, for your journal, which is not known by us, the abilities of reviewers are fairly weak, and many are rookies from their comments. I regret that my colleague had submitted a good ms to your journal with an unfair decision. Hope that your journal not go bandrupt quickly. It is important to invite highly qualified reviewers. However, your journal seems to be not. 你们就是典型的垃圾刊物。

Sincerely,

Peijian


Responses to the Comments from Three Reviewers of XXX

 

    The earlier version was first submitted to XXX. It experienced a review process. However, three reviewers had distinct comments on the earlier version. The first reviewer suggested a minor revision, but the remaining two reviewers did not agree on the results and conclusions based on the consideration that absolute leaf water content (i.e., leaf water mass, which is equal to the difference between leaf fresh mass and leaf dry mass) varies with time. However, they neglected that the present study did not deny such a variation in absolute leaf water content. The present study mainly aimed to study the scaling between leaf fresh mass and area. The logic is very simple for the robustness of our conclusions: for a variable absolute leaf water content we can get a stronger scaling relationship of leaf fresh mass (leaf dry mass + leaf water mass) vs. area than that of leaf dry mass vs. area. There are 101 bamboo taxa. The processes of leaf development are not the same among different taxa. However, for each bamboo species, the scaling relation between leaf fresh mass and area is stronger than that between leaf dry mass and area, which sufficiently supported our conclusions. Thus, the worry about the possible influence of leaf water loss and change on the scaling relationship is unnecessary. Our detailed responses can been found below.


 

1. For Reviewer #1

 

This paper is well written and the topic is up-to-date. However, some minor methodological issues should be resolved.

 

Re: Thank you very much for positively evaluating the earlier version.

 

 

L91 to L95: The analyses performed to obtain these results should be clearly described in the methods section

 

Re: Done. In the revised version, this problem has been resolved.

 

 

L252: The software R need to be correctly cited and included in the References section

 

Re: Done.

 

 

2. For Reviewer #2

 

Huang et al. present a study about the relation between leaf mass and leaf area in 101 bamboo species from 17 genera. They measured fresh mass, dry mass and area of the leaf and revealed for most species the proportional relationship between fresh and dry mass and disproportional allometric relationships of dry mass vs. leaf area and fresh mass vs. leaf area. The authors concluded that in bamboo species the leaf fresh mass has stronger scaling relationship with leaf surface area than leaf dry mass. Despite that this is a methodically competent work which describes interesting group of plants such as subfamily Bambusoideae from Poaceae the authors should consider the following comments to this paper:  

 

Re: Thank you very much for correctly commenting on the partial results of this work. In fact, the present study mainly aimed to examine whether leaf dry mass is proportional to leaf fresh mass during the 101 species, cultivars, forms and varieties of bamboo. Using this subfamily, we can evaluate whether for most bamboo species the intraspecific increase in leaf fresh mass keeps pace with that in leaf dry mass. Since absolute leaf water content = leaf fresh mass – leaf dry mass, this study is actually related to the scaling between leaf water content and leaf dry material.

 

 

Authors appeal to leaf water content throughout the manuscript as in introduction, during discussion of their results and conclusions (L15, L18, L23, L31, L48, L61, L64, L158, L211 and others). I agree with the statements from L15, L48 and L64 which note an important role of leaf water content in leaf functioning as already have been shown by many researchers. However, I disagree that authors deal with leaf water content in this study. Leaf water content is the water mass in the leaf (difference between fresh and dry mass of the leaf) divided by its fresh mass (Pérez-Harguindeguy et al., 2013), i.e. share of water in the leaf mass. Therefore, fresh mass of the leaf measured in this study does not really reflect leaf water content as authors suppose in their work. Moreover, I disagree with the statement from L23-L24 that “foliar water content is proportional to leaf dry mass during leaf growth”.  If the scaling exponent for fresh mass vs. dry mass equals unity, as shown by authors for bamboo species, the leaf water content is constant and size-independent. This makes doubtful the main conclusion of authors about more significance of use the fresh mass rather than dry mass of the leaf in allometric relationships in bamboos.

 

Re: These comments are incorrect. It is apparent that Reviewer #2 confused two different concepts: absolute leaf water content (g) and relative leaf water content (%). Absolute leaf water content = leaf fresh mass – leaf dry mass (which has been clearly defined by many references, e.g., Hughes, A.P.; Cockshull, K.E.; Heath, O.V.S. Leaf area and absolute leaf water content. Ann. Bot. 1970, 34, 259–266), while relative leaf water content = (leaf fresh mass – leaf dry mass) / leaf fresh mass. In our manuscript, we have clearly used “leaf absolute water content” when it first appeared. Thus, there is no problem for the use of the terms.

See:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31115731_Leaf_Area_and_Absolute_Leaf_Water_Content

 

 

Nowadays many researchers use dry mass of the leaf as more appropriate leaf trait. Leaf fresh biomass as well as leaf water content is rather labile parameter. It may change during the day and season, dependent on ontogenetic stage, plant health and ecological conditions. Leaf fresh mass can say nothing about leaf tissues structure because if you are analyzing the fresh mass it is always unclear what share of leaf mass is occupied by leaf tissues and what is just water.  In opposite, the leaf dry matter content closely correlates to leaf tissues bulk density (Niinemets 1999; Poorter et al., 2009), mesophyll cell number per leaf area (Pyankov et al. 1999; Villar et al. 2013; John et al. 2017), chloroplast number per leaf area and carbon content (Ivanova et al. 2018) and other traits which directly influence leaf functioning. Moreover, leaf dry matter content is shown to be a good predictor of aboveground net primary production (Smart et al., 2017). Authors do not give this fact enough importance throughout the manuscript.

 

Re: These comments are surely correct to point out that leaf dry mass is better than leaf fresh mass as a leaf trait. However, in our study, we did not deny this point. We are mainly concerned of the comparison between the scaling relationship of leaf fresh mass vs. area and that of leaf dry mass vs. area. If leaf fresh mass (FM) is proportional to leaf dry mass (DM), the scaling exponent of leaf fresh mass vs. area (A) is equal to that of leaf dry mass vs. area without being affected by leaf water mass. The reason is simple. When FM = k DM, where k is a constant. For two scaling relationships: DM = a1 Ab1, and FM = a2 Ab2. Because FM = k DM, we have FM = (k a1) Ab1. Thus, b1 = b2.

    According to our results, for 68 out of the 101 taxa (67.3%) FM was demonstrated to be proportional to DM. Because leaves were randomly sampled from different individuals among the 101 taxa, a stronger scaling relationship between leaf fresh mass and area than that between leaf dry mass and area was found for each of the 101 taxa. It is apparent that the conclusion would have been more robust if we sampled leaves from the synchronized species in homogeneous environments. However, it is really unnecessary to do so since the current samples from asynchronously growing species in heterogeneous environments (i.e., bamboo plants from three provinces and three types of architectures of bamboo species) have showed the above conclusion.

 

 

This is evident that leaves decrease in size and mass when they desiccate. Shrinkage of the leaf after full drying may reach about 20% of fresh leaf area in average (Pérez-Harguindeguy et al., 2013). I believe that fresh mass will be closer related to area of fresh leaf like a leaf dry mass probably will be closer related to the area of dried leaf. However, closer relationship fresh mass vs. fresh leaf area does not mean itself that fresh leaf mass better reflects important physiological functions of leaf. There is no evidence so far that total leaf area or total leaf mass relates to photosynthetic activity or transpiration rate of a leaf. At least authors do not give such references. Despite the statement from L50-L51, whole leaf area and leaf dry mass do not present the balance between growth and storage. This concerns only the ratio between these parameters known as specific leaf area (SLA). Authors do not explain this fact according to current knowledge in the field.

 

Re: This is really a very amateurish comment. From the recommend references, we had thought that Reviewer #2 was an expert in leaf investigation, but we felt disappointed by these amateurish comments. To our knowledge, leaf area generally denotes that of a fresh leaf. Leaf area is an important plant trait, which is related to the photosynthetic capacity of plants. The leaf area of a dried leaf cannot reflect its functional trait. This reviewer also mentioned SLA. It is well-known that SLA = leaf area of a fresh leaf / leaf dry mass, NOT the quotient of leaf area of a dried leaf and leaf dry mass. Thus, we are afraid that we cannot agree with these comments from Reviewer #2.

 

 

It remains unclear what species properties correspond to different slope of relation. These leaf parameters are influenced by age and stand structure. Authors do not give any information about such characteristics of studied species. Probably, scaling coefficients could be dependent on ecological properties of species or climate? Authors do not discuss these questions.  

 

Re: Age, stand structures and climate change might affect the scaling exponent of leaf dry/fresh mass vs. area. However, our conclusions were based on the same individuals that experienced the same climate conditions and kept similar age and stand structures for each species. Thus, these factors seem to be suitable for studying different geographical populations. Obviously, it is impossible for an investigator to study all influences of other factors on leaf scaling in a paper.

 

 

The ms presents too many figures which are very similar to each other. It is worth to present several relationships on one graph or to present the relationships of fresh and dry mass on one graph. May be, it is worth to place all the exponents and coefficients into one table. Legend is not shown on the figures 1 and 5. It is unclear what are points and whiskers on the graphs.

 

Re: We are afraid that we cannot agree with Reviewer #2 on these comments. There are only six figures. Although for several figures, there are a number of panels, they are necessary to exhibit the fitted results for the scaling relationships. In addition, for an OA journal, there is no limitation about the number of figures. We do not think that it is a good idea to show the intercepts and slopes with their standard errors in a table in the main text, because that there are 101 bamboo taxa and the table will occupy several pages in a formal publication. For Figs 1 and 5 (that has been changed to Fig. 6 in the revised manuscript), they are not boxplots. Thus, there should be no medians and whiskers. Reviewer #2 did not distinguish a bar plot from a box plot.

    About the recommended references, those references are good materials in leaf studies, but they are unrelated to the present study. Thus, we are afraid that we cannot cite those references.

Overall, we do not think that Reviewer #2’s comments are valuable for us to improve the quality of our manuscript.

 

 

3. For Reviewer #3

 

The study addresses an interesting topic, although the rationale for the study is not clearly explained in the Introduction. However, the procedure for data collection and analysis is fatally flawed, in my opinion. Leaf water content is very variable on a daily and seasonal basis, and the only way to obtain meaningful information from this parameter is to standardize measurements to a reference maximum leaf water content, i.e. at full turgor. This is generally done by collecting leaves in the field, re-hydrating them for variable time intervals and checking that leaf water potential has reached a near-zero value with a pressure chamber. Failure to do so will result in possibly large inter- and even intra-specific differences in water content that depend on collection date, site, and time of the day, and not only on species-specific leaf structural properties. The Authors refer the reader to another for details on the sampling procedure, but even in that paper the procedure is flawed, or at least not fully explained, for the same reasons as above. Differences between groups of species in the water content to dry mass relationship might have been affected by this sampling problem, making conclusions not fully grounded on sound data.

 

Re: We do not agree with Reviewer #3 for our sampling methods. He/she was concerned of the water loss for measuring leaf fresh mass. We have responded to this question proposed by Reviewer #2. We need to emphasize that we did not use leaf fresh mass as the representative of leaf weight, and we only studied the scaling relationship between leaf fresh mass and area. In addition, many samples were sampled from the sites near to our lab (in Nanjing within one to three hours), and in the process of sending samples, we used wet newspapers a and self-sealing bags to wrap these leaves which are effective approaches to reduce water loss. In fact, we have published five studies about these methods in several journal including American Journal of Botany, Annals of Forest Science, Trees – Structure and Function, Forests, etc., which are all peer-reviewed journals like Plants. There were no reviewers who denied the reasonability of these approaches for reducing water loss. After all, the transportation distance is short between the sampling sites and the lab. For the leaves from other provinces, the fresh mass was measured at once. We do not think that there are any problems for these approaches.

 




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