Dear authors
your manuscript has been found worthwhile publishing in Biogeosciences by three reviewers. Please include the suggestions and respond to the questions of the reviewers in the revised version of the manuscript.
All the best
Carolin Löscher

Dear authors
Thank you for the thorough revision of your manuscript. I have several questions and comments, which may be beneficial to further improve the readability and impact of the paper. Generally, I was wondering in how far it is appropriate to refer to bacteria instead of microbes in general. As far as I see, no clear characterization excluding archaea, or small eukaryotes including fungi, is available. The Live-Dead staining may be more useful for bacteria but – and correct me if I am wrong- does not exclude other organisms. It would be interesting to learn if other organisms could be transported through air, and a discussion if only in some sentences would be very interesting especially given the presented hypothesis of pathogeny but also regarding cross-fertilization of different geographic regions.
Another question which I have is that the paper describes how fractions are detached from the filters using vortexing and ultrasonic vibration. In how far can we be sure to not lose a significant fraction of organisms due to lysis induced by the latter method? Could this happen and therefore lead to an even more conservative result?
I am curious about dust transport in the context of global warming- what would be expected? How would this impact on bacteria transported by dust particles?

I also have several specific suggestions in order to improve the manuscript presentation, which can be found in the attached pdf. Please consider those suggestions and I am looking forward to your resubmission.
All the best
Carolin Löscher

Dear authors
apologies for the delay. I carefully read through your revised manuscript and it is now well readable and I am happy to accept it for publication.
All the best
Carolin Löscher