Dear authors,

many thanks for your revisions. I have only a couple of minor comments, which should be easy to address to make this manuscript acceptable for Biogeosciences.

Best wishes,
Sönke Zaehle

Minor Comments:

Page 1 Line 21 (and similar instances): This makes it sound as if your study area was indeed all of Europe, whereas your data are based only on French forests. Please revise.

Page 2 Line 26: mention the explanatory variables here?

Page 4 Line: 101: I personally don't think that vascular network optimality provides a constraint on allocation, rather the mechanical constraints associated with plant hydraulic architecture and the construction of water-transport system, in particular because the Enquist theory does not square with the available evidence (see Zaehle, Functional Ecology 2005), and therefore I am unsure whether its necessary to invoke this here.

Page 5 Line 132: is "release" the right word here? You did a good job in circumventing the problem by using artifical model-based data, but the principle problem that there are no consistent observations still remains.

Page 8 Line 220: Please add these diagnostics here

Page 13 Line 355: Remind the reader what AWBI stands for

Page 17 Line 479: It may be worthwhile considering as to how much these allocation changes are consistent with the sort of observations and theory presented by the Magnani et al. 2000 sort of school/papers, as these merge the ideas of allocation and hydraulic effects.

Page 20 Line 560: This is not correct. The age-related decline in these paper results from an increased allocation away from foliage to roots and sapwood to maintain water supply at comparable rate, which leads to declining LAI and GPP. The increased respiration costs are only a minor contribution to the ARD.

Page 20 Line 553: These text is hard to follow here because you mix description of the framework with some explanatory text. Please first describe the framework, then go back to discuss it. I would mention in the discussion (and elsewhere) that your framework is not a generic solution, which can be applied to TBMs globally, but a calibration strategy which requires stand related data. While this stresses the need for developing models including a sink limitation / cambrial processes, your road-map to this is "The resulting annual allocation coefficient is finally modulated by the direct water and temperature constraints on growth." However, I cannot see that you provide a strategy as to how to derive the factors for water and temperature controls on growth in generic terms for use in TBMs. If I've missed this, then please assume that others would as well as explain this strategy here.