Dear Thomas and co-authors

Thank you for providing a response to the reviews of your Ideas & Perspectives manuscript. As you have noticed, both reviewers agreed largely with the content of the manuscript, but found too little novelty in the message conveyed, and have suggested a few possible ways forward.
Based on your replies, I would encourage you to go proceed with preparing an substantially revised version taking those comments into account, in particular :
-better articulating the key elements / take-home messages.
-I would aim to go beyond what the author replies refer to as 'a reminder of where biogeochemistry needs to keep moving', there are a few aspects on evolving trends that merit some further highlighting / discussion
-Regarding the section on rapid evolution, this indeed requires some reworking to convince the reader (and make the possible implications more clear)- and is also an aspect which a larger fraction of the audience might be less familiar with.

With best regards
Steven Bouillon

Dear Thomas and co-authors

Both reviewers raised questions on the novelty of the take-home message from this Ideas & Perspectives manuscript, and indicated there was a need for more added value. Neither had specific problems with the content, with the exception of the need to strengthen the arguments supporting the section suggesting the importance of rapid evolution (Rev #1).
I feel you have addressed their concerns by eliminating those elements of your manuscript which have been adequately dealt with in other studies (need for data crossing spatial and temporal scales), and by expanding and adding further justification for the aspects which have received less attention. As such, I feel this manuscript now has sufficient merit to be published as an Ideas & Perspectives paper in Biogeosciences and hope it will stimulate discussion and help in guiding some studies in the directions described.

There are, however, a number of mainly textual issues that need to be addressed, which I have listed below.

Abstract, line 25-27: point (2) is no longer relevant, I feel – since this is no longer discussed in detail in the revised manuscript. While this point remains valid, I don’t feel it should remain in the abstract.
L87-88: remphrase to: […] for (1) better integration of […], and (2) continued integration of […]

L105: here you mention that this takes place over ‘just a few generations’, on L 139 this is referred to as ‘just a few tens of generations’. This should be clarified/harmonized.

P4-5. IN section 2, I feel paragraph 2 (starting at L 105: Recently, evidence has shown …) connects directly to paragraph 4 (starting at L135: There is now ample evidence for rapid evolution …), while the 3rd paragraph is a bit lost in between and should be moved to towards the end of this section (below the current L150 for example). There is perhaps some duplication in par 2 and 4 that can be merged.

L 151-152: This is a bit of an awkward sentence, and grammatically incorrect (the fact that the evolution […] have occurred rarely […] ?)

Figure 2: the description of the connection between individuals and the atmospheric domain is somewhat cryptic. “chemical emissions” – can this be reformulated ?

L178: “In developed countries” can be removed I think. The example cited here is from France and this is mentioned explicitly. Perhaps add a year to these events – I can assume that for newer generations this will not be familiar in the future.

L186-187: “the primary barrier […] are often political and social limitations”  should be: “the primary barriers” ?

L196-197: rephrase this section, not clear (there is a verb missing I assume): “ […] where evidence exists for how organismal range expansion and/or contraction of say, marine benthic communities in response to climate change.”

L199: impacts: should this be ‘pressures’ ?

L203: “will be key in understanding and laying the foundation for good policy development.” Key in understanding what ?

L204: “have long been essential in the development in part, in NASA exploration […]”: there seems to be something missing there.

L205: “biogeochemistry in uniquely poised”: is uniquely poised.

L 222: what do you mean here with “biogeochemical systems pathways” and how are extreme climate events and ocean acidifications examples thereof ?

L237-240: A few issues with this sentence. First, “A keys to success” should be “A key to success”, and the section starting with “in predicting future changes …” is awkward, not clear what that links to. Or perhaps it’s just missing a comma before “in predicting”.

L249-254: here too, a few awkward sections. “in an already complex mixture of interdisciplinary world in the sciences” ? Further on, “a way forward in planning for humans can better plan for their, and other organisms range expansion, in response to climate change, on the planet.”. There’s some editing to do there to make this sentence work, perhaps this sentence should be split to make it easier. “on the planet” can likely be removed (given that I do not see where else ?)

Reference list: I did not check throughout, but I notice some references cited in the text are missing (e.g. Han et al. 2015, Allen et al. 2017, Delgado-Baquerizo et al., 2020) and that other references are incomplete (e.g. Carney & Krausse 2020). Please go through the text and ensure that all references cited are provided in the reference list, and then cross-check if all references in the list are also cited in the text in case some did not make it into the final version. Tanhua et al. (2019) in reference list contains the first author twice. There are two Saito et al. (2020) references in the list, make these 2020a and 2020b and specify in the text which is which. I only looked at a selection, so there might be more issues than those listed here.

Best regards
Steven Bouillon

Dear Thomas and co-authors,

Thank you for the revisions.
A few technical corrections from the earlier list remain:

One point was not addressed: L237-240 (now L264-267 in the revised version): A few issues with this sentence. First, “A keys to success” should be “A key to success”, and the section starting with “in predicting future changes …” is awkward, not clear what that links to. Or perhaps it’s just missing a comma before “in predicting”.

References: still a number issues to fix there, I went through it in both directions but please double-check before uploading your final manuscript files.

Saito et al. (2020a/2020b): this has been fixed in the references, but not in the text. Please specify on L76 and L165 which is 2020a and which is 2020b.

Collins & Bell (2006) in text, but Bell & Collins (2006) in reference list.
L99 and L102: Butois et al. (2020) : should be Buatois et al. (2020)
L101: Boyle et al. (2014): not in reference list.
L108 : Bell et al. (2008) : not in reference list.
L323: Crain et al. (2014) : not cited in text.
L340 : Derouin (2020) : not cited in text.

Best regards
Steven Bouillon