dear authors,

your manuscript has now been seen by two reviewers, both of which find your work of potential interest. Both reviewers have made some excellent suggestions to further improve your manuscript. Your detailed answers in the online discussion suggest that your manuscript can be become acceptable for publication after major revisions. Also, your suggested additions to the manuscript help to put the results in a broader context. When revising the manuscript please make sure to address all of the reviewer suggestions (including all minor suggestions. For instance, I agree with reviewer 1 that L20-23 on page 1 needs some work; it's not clear right now why you provide this level of detail at this point in the text).

In addition to the reviewer comments I have two minor editorial suggestions. First, it might be worth stating explicitly in the abstract that % of INP that are INP_Mlike seems to increase in colder climates. Second, the final sentences of your suggested additional section 4.1 ("Thus, soils are unlikely.... decaying leaves.") seem somewhat at odds with the first sentence of your introduction. Perhaps you could add a qualifying statement to this opening sentence (e.g. give examples of cases where soils have been found to be important, or simply say "soils can be relevant..." )?

thanks and best regards,
Kees Jan van Groenigen

dear authors,

Thank you for addressing all the comments that were raised by the reviewers. The added text helps to put your results in context, and the manuscript is almost ready to be published. I have a few minor suggestions that may help to improve readability and clarity. While none of these suggestions are essential, I ask that you at least consider them.

thanks and best regards,
Kees Jan van Groenigen

- P1, l23-26 "These findings... analysis". To my mind, this paragraph flows better without these sentences. Is the fact that these analyses were done in soils from Wyoming essential detail?

- P2, L2-3 "...we looked for INP that match a challenge tests for M. alpina in four different soils from three different continents. " Perhaps a reference after "a challenge test for M. alpina" would be appropriate here?

- P2, l4-5 The last sentence of this paragraph (minus "in the next section") might be more suitable as a final sentence of the Methods section. "Thus, there are currently no INP.."
- p2 l20 "One portion was.... the other two portions were.."
- P3 l1 "We found what we presume are… in all of our soil samples." or something along those lines.