Dear Dr Conan

Thank you for your responses to reviewer comments. Based on these I would like to invite you to submit a revised manuscript in which you have made all the alterations that you have specified.

Best regards,

Clare Woulds

Dear Dr Conan

Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript and for the changes that you have made in response to reviewer comments. I feel the manuscript is almost ready, but there are several points where further clarification or alteration are still required. I would therefore like to invite you to submit a further version in which you have attended to my comments listed below.

I suggest a re-phrasing of the opening sentence of the abstract, the meaning is still not clear.

Lines 683-685. This new statement needs proof reading for use of English, as it currently may not mean much to readers who have not read the reviews and your responses to them.

Section 2.9. The wording here still suggests that flow cytometry was conducted after 2 weeks of incubation with the PAH mixture. If this is not in fact the case (as suggested in your response) please alter the wording here to make it very clear when the flow cytometry was conducted.

Line 884. Why are DOC and DON concentrations given as percentages here? Please check and correct units if necessary, or add explanation for the use of percentages.

Line 925. I think this should say ‘and to a greater extent’, as the correlations with phosphatatse are stronger than the ones with aminopeotidase.

Line 1006. Please change the word ‘certainly’ for ‘possibly’ or ‘probably’.

I am not sure what point is made by the N sink section ending line 1035. It doesn’t seem to directly concern data presented in this manuscript, and does not seem to reach a tangible conclusion. Please clarify the importance of this section or consider removing it.

Line 1085. It is not clear which zone you are referring to here. Is the ‘zone’ referred to here the area around the Palizada, or that around the Puerto Real inlet? How do you explain / what is the difference between these zones in terms of P sources? If your text already answers this query then please clarify it.

It is still not clear to me how you can assert that Terminos Lagoon was a C sink and a N-assimilator, as you have not measured the sink fluxes for either C or N. These terms have been removed from other parts of the manuscript but remain in the conclusions section. Please explain how these conclusions have been reached.

If possible, please have the manuscript checked for use of English. As some copy editing is required.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Yours sincerely,

Clare Woulds

Dear Dr Conan

Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript. I am now happy to recommend publication to the editors in chief.

Best regards,

Clare Woulds