Dear Kevan Minick and co-authors,

two reviewers provided useful comments/concerns regarding your MS. Both reviewers agree that the outcomes of your study are of general interest for the readership of BG but both reviewers also raise important concerns. Unfortunately it was a bit hard to go through your point by point reply to the reviewers concerns as you missed to graphically separate their concern from your answers. That is in particular true for your replies to reviewer 1. However, I would like to invite you to submit a revised version of the MS taking all reviewer comments into account. In particular, I would like to see that statistical issues are addressed better (see comments by reviewer1) and that you discuss redox and microbial community changes in your soil samples as a function of storage time and/or sample treatment.

Best wishes, Helge Niemann

Dear Kevan Minick,

your revised version has been checked by the reviewers and although both agree that your MS has improved, there are still some issues open, and I agree here fully with the reviewers.

I am happy to receive a second revision with considerations of the remaining reviewers concerns. Please provide a clear statement with arguments if you chose not to consider a certain concern.

Best wishes, Helge Niemann

Reviewer 1:

Comments on the revised manuscript.
I acknowledge that the authors considered my comments. From my perspective the manuscript did improve very much – methods are better understandable and the discussion is well structured.
Nevertheless, I would appreciate, if the authors would state that the in situ measurements of redox potential are unpublished data (add unpublished data in brackets; L467) to avoid confusion between data presented in this study and data that are not shown in the results. Additionally, please, check the manuscript for spelling mistakes and comma placement.
Only a few things that caught my eye:
L2011 (approximately2 g fresh weight) -> (approximately 2 g fresh weight)
L558, 563, 820, 841 salt water -> saltwater
I am not a native speaker, so I only guess that in a term like “Changes in fresh- and salt-water” (e.g. L182, 186) ‘salt-water’ should be written as ‘saltwater’ as it was done throughout the manuscript, but I can be wrong. To me, it would make more sense to be consistent. Same with fresh-water in L183.
I state that version 4 of the manuscript with the title “Saltwater reduces potential CO2 and CH4 production in peat soils from a coastal freshwater forested wetland”

Reviewer 2:
Thanks to the authors for answering questions and addressing some of the concerns raised by the reviewers. It is regrettable that several concerns were dismissed in their response. My biggest concern at this point is that bother reviewers noted that we were not familiar with the methods for isotopic analysis or microbial enzymatic processes, so this – in essence – has not been reviewed at this time. These comments may be shared with the authors.

Comments on response to Reviewer 1
Reviewer 1, point 13. Apparently, at least one reader wasn’t aware of the formula initially, so “not necessary” is arguable

Comments responding to request for physicochemical discussion fall off mid-sentence

Salinity levels addressed in comments but not the manuscript

Comments on Figure 2. This reviewer was not suggesting different levels of CWD would or should have been tested. It was an observation that, as the authors note, might be interesting & worthy of further study.


LATEST VERSION
Substantive
L163: I still contend that a mean over such a long period is not very useful without some indicator of variability. I had suggested presenting the range, but std dev or other metrics would be useful.

L241: (no soil) incubations: does that mean it was just water (and maybe CWD) in the jars? This isn’t immediately obvious to me (so then likely other readers)

Why were the masses of samples and dates of measurements changed between versions? This makes me question methodology and data integrity… (L286, L316, L327)

Minor
Authors use Oxford comma in some instances and not others. It should be used or not used consistently throughout the manuscript.

The paragraph beginning L89: I find the switch between “sulfate” and SO43- inconsistent and think most readers would prefer the use of one or the other rather than bouncing back and forth

Sentence beginning L102: needs a grammatical revision for clarity. If “there” is referring to the forests, it should be “their” – and the entire sentence is difficult to follow

L111: run-on sentence

L131: needs a comma after “dynamics” (run-on sentence)

L912 surrounding states water bodies – should that be “states’ “?

L190: SLR rather than “sea level rise”

L215: What is “fresh” soil?

L258: grammar- use “were” not “was”

L307: assuming the numerator intends to be the difference between delC X cond of fumigated and non-fumigated? If so, additional parentheses are needed, else the order of operations will change the results

L319+: I greatly appreciate the authors adding rationale for the chosen enzymes. Will all your readers know what the “EC a.b.c.d” references are for? A brief indication of Enzyme Commission numbers might be helpful?

L479-480: keep one “is” that was stricken

L526: subject-verb agreement needs correction (e.g. appear, not appears)

L566: comma splice – remove the comma after “incubations”

L605: please provide data supporting this statement comparing productivity, as salt marshes generally considered one of the most productive systems on the planet

Check sulfate vs SO42-

Fig 1 needs a brush-up, the overview map contains very small print, and the dash-dot lines are not clear. I would perhaps use a map of the entire East Coast of Canada/US rather than N-Carolina for the overview.
Dear Kevan, thanks again for submitting your MS. I think it is mostly fine and I have only a few comments left regarding the figures. Pending these modifications, I would hereby like to accept your MS for publication in BG.

Best wishes, Helge Niemann


Fig 2. Use the same font style for all items in the figure (some with, some without serif). The small letters are not really conclusive (statistically different to what?). Perhaps there is another way to indicate that?

Fig 4. See comment to fig 2 for small letters