Thank you for your submission to Biogeosciences. Your MS has received three reviews from highly qualified reviewers in this field, all of whom thought that this is a valuable dataset worth publishing, but offered numerous substantive comments to improve the paper. Thus, I will be happy to consider a revised submission that substantively addresses these reviewer comments. Based on the responses to the reviewers, it looks like there is a sound plan for addressing the reviewers’ critical comments.

Please clearly describe how the text was revised according to the reviewer comments when submitting your revised manuscript. Thank you for your efforts, and for your support of Biogeosciences.

Sincerely,
Mike Weintraub
Associate Editor
Biogeosciences

Thank you for your revised submission to Biogeosciences. Your revised MS has received another review from a previous reviewer, and two new reviews from highly qualified reviewers in this field. It is clear from these reviews that this revised version is much improved. However, both of the new reviewers offered additional helpful comments to improve the manuscript. These reviewers were consistent in their opinion that the paper would benefit from additional edits, especially to the discussion, prior to publication. Based on these comments and my own assessment, I have concluded that this MS would benefit from another round of edits. I am happy to consider a further revised resubmission that substantively addresses these reviewer comments. Please clearly describe how the text was revised according to the reviewer comments when submitting your revised manuscript. Thank you for your efforts, and for your support of Biogeosciences.

Sincerely,
Mike Weintraub
Associate Editor
Biogeosciences

You will be pleased to hear that your manuscript has been accepted for publication in Biogeosciences, pending the two minor corrections noted below. Based on your responses to the reviews and my own review of your revised manuscript, I have concluded that this manuscript is nearly ready for publication. Thank you for your hard work and patience. Your efforts to improve this paper through multiple rounds of review have paid off, and the current version manuscript is much improved from the original submission. Thank you for your efforts, and for your support of Biogeosciences.

Line 346: please correct "Another study in a secondary in South China"

Line 357: please correct "that denitrifier" to "that the denitrifier"

Sincerely,
Mike Weintraub
Associate Editor
Biogeosciences