Dear Kerstin and co-authors,

I have read all reviews and your replies. Since the combination of all comments and proposed changes to your manuscript may be rather substantial, I invite you to upload your new version that I will send to (some of) the reviewers for another assessment.

Sincerely,

Lennart de Nooijer

Dear Kerstin an d co-workers,

please upload a revised version of your manuscript. With the reviewer's comments and your responses, I am looking forward to see an updated version of your work.

All the best,

Lennart

Dear Dr Kretschmer and co-workers,

I had a thorough look at the replies to the reviewers, as well as the new version of your manuscirpt, which I now think is fit for publication in Biogeosciences. I came upon a few (which is surprising given the length of your manuscript) typos, which I copied below.

Sincerely,

Lennart

Abstract
line 2: ‘seasonality’ is a bit weird here. What is ‘the seasonality’ of a species? Could you rephrase this?
lines 3-5: this sentence is a bit difficult to follow: why does one need independent fossil evidence? I think I understand the this, but could you still be a bit more specific?
line 23: ‘indicates’ should be ‘indicating’

Introduction
page 2, line 23: insert ‘that’ before ‘it’

Results
page 9, line 7: ‘provide’
page 11, line 28: remove ‘in the model’
page 11, line 31: try to avoid ‘deeper depths’