Dear Dr. Rummel and co-authors,

in view of the reviews and your responses, your manuscript will be re-considered for publications after you have performed some revisions.

When revising your manuscript I think you should at least discuss how information on microbial biomass would add to an interpretation of your findings. It is not enough to simply state that they were not in the scope of the research objective.

In addition to the comments by the reviewers I would like to strongly encourage you to use SI-Units throughout your manuscript (including the Figures), eg. a flux should be expressed per g s instead of per kg h.

Best regards,

Michael Bahn

Dear Dr. Rummel and co-authors,

based on an additional review and my own assessment I am accepting your manuscript for publication in Biogeosciences.

I kindly ask you to upload a final revised manuscript, for which you have carefully checked the consistency of all units used (e.g. the units for N2O fluxes are currently not consistent between Table 5, Fig. 3 and Fig. 5). I furthermore suggest you to add, both to the conclusions section and the abstract, a concluding sentence highlighting the broader implications of your study.

Best regards,

Michael Bahn