My apologies for the delay in response. I found the response letters to be comprehensive and reflective of a cautious approach that is fully cognizant of methodological limitations, and the actions that were proposed to be taken (i.e. noting that proposed undisturbed pixels may have in fact seen a measurable amount of larval damage) to likewise reflect a sound scientific basis for interpreting the results as the authors chose to do. (I'm not, however, sure how an intercept of -0.11 represents no bias.) (I'm also not of the opinion that eddy covariance observations are accurate to three significant digits.) If the revised manuscript likewise takes this conservative approach the manuscript will make an important contribution to our understanding of the spatial impacts of insect outbreaks on ecosystem carbon uptake, always a difficult interaction to estimate.

Sincerely,
Paul C. Stoy

Thank you for making the recommended additional changes; I feel that the revised manuscript takes important steps to our emerging understanding of how insect outbreaks that impact carbon cycling can be monitored and quantified.

Sincerely,
Paul C. Stoy