Reply on RC1

29-33. Before starting the hypotheses, it would be good to give a brief overview of what the study is about

107 -110: in this context, the authors should refer to the potential mismatch of phyto-and zooplankton succession that has been observed under warming scenarios, e.g. earlier hatching of copepod nauplii, while phytoplankton spring bloom starts later (differential impact of warming on phototrophs and heterotrophs) We agree with the highlighted phenomena and dependencies. Here we briefly present the effects of the biological effect of increased water temperature on zooplankton, confirmed by previous research. However, we do not intend to develop the problem of seasonal changes, because it is not the focus of this paper.
We assumed that positive interactions between two taxa are correlated with an increase in their biomass as the effect of consumer guilds, where independent species share resources. It refers to the mutualistic interactions in the broader, ecosystemic and evolutionary sense (Krebs, 2009).
139: corrected -"indicative of indirect negative effects by competing for a common food source" instead of "indicative of grazing on phytoplankton"

L.140. please specify by what mechanism.
"The temperature gradient differentiates the rate of circulation of organic matter and mineral elements released during decomposition processes. Thus, it affects their availability for the development of primary producers, indirectly determining the resources and type of food for zooplankton"

148-149: why do the authors expect a weakened role of crustaceans under warming?
Before they state that warming increases the proportion of copepod larvae and crustacean growth? -corrected, clarified (according l 97-104)

150-151: It would be useful to state the temperature range already in the introduction and set these into the context of predictions on global warming
We do not compare the range and level of temperature, especially in winter, in the studied reservoirs with global warming forecasts. However, we propose to use the obtained results for a broad interpretation of the influence of the thermal factor on the network of interactions between species of zooplankton.

154: please add "seasonal" to the water temperature gradient
We analyze the water temperature gradient between the reservoirs, which, as mentioned above, also applies to differences in the average annual temperature. It is therefore not a seasonal gradient. Of course, the thermal classes of the compared reservoirs were determined on the basis of the temperature gradient in winter, but the consequences of the influence/differences in the zooplankton network are assessed on the basis of a database of year-round results. Hence, we believe that it is not necessary to specify the "seasonal gradient" stable conditions that cannot be compared to a temporal disturbance as the authors stated above?
The term "stable conditions" means their repeatability for many years of reservoir using. Thus, from the perspective of the heated reservoir, "warm winters" affected the ecosystem for long time and the changes found in it are not "an accident" of one disturbance. Since thermal changes on the globe occur slowly, gradually, but over the long term, our results can be helpful in interpreting global changes.

172-173: Only temperature? What about inorganic nutrients and other abiotic parameters?
The description concerns the temperature as a variable which is the main problem of the analysis, differentiating the compared reservoirs. Other abiotic factors are given in Table 1

198-199: this is a field study, not an experiment
Changed to "field study"

199: how do 3 samples à 5L add up to 20L? Apparently, the 3 different samples were pooled?
A separate sample of 20 liters was collected at each site. Samples were not combined. Each sample was analyzed separately.
209-217: a lot of parameters were determined in the reservoir itself (that are not described in the Results section, see below); were these parameters also determined in the geothermal water sources? That would have been great in order to estimate the amount of nutrient input fueling phytoplankton production. Statistical tests were performed on a set of "raw" data, i.e. the results from each separately analyzed sample. The variability of abundance and biomass, variability of zooplankton taxonomic diversity indices, and variability of water physical and chemical parameters were tested, and the differences between thermal classes are shown in Table 1.

225: Please specify what parameters you refer you -zooplankton ID based abundances? sizes? functional groups?
The biomass values of each of the analyzed zooplankton taxa were compared between thermal classes (Tab. S1).

233: please specify "the parameters of the entire network"
Attributes of the entire network refers to its tendency to clustering, centralization, density, heterogeneity and paths lengths.

Results
1st paragraph: does mean annual temp. and mean winter temp. refer to the pooled data across all time points? Which time points were part of the "winter" samples? The authors state that "significant variations were also observed in DO, chlorophyll a, TOC, TN, and the parameters describing suspended solids (turbidity, color, SDT, Tot susp) (Table 1)." HOW did the reservoirs differ?? The authors should describe these differences and relate them to their zooplankton data, as phyto-and zooplankton is strongly influenced by a range of different abiotic parameters and not only by temperature (see also general comments).

Winter samples were for months of December-February.
The results of the physical and chemical parameters of water were elaborated in detail and presented in Table 1. Differences in average values were statistically compared. The authors repeatedly relate zooplankton data and the structure of zooplankton networks to abiotic conditions.

269-274: Correlations have not been mentioned in the methods section -the authors
should describe all of the analyses conducted. How was the effect of temperature on zooplankton species richness tested? This is also not specified.
Added: Spearman's rank correlation analysis (p < 0.05) was used to test for correlations between temperature and zooplankton species richness, and between temperature and the others physical and chemical variables of water.

-284: Were these analyses conducted across all seasons with all sampling time
points pooled? In general, pooling all data over time might level out important seasonal dynamics, which are of utmost importance if the aim is to compare the food web dynamics in reservoirs differing in temporal (seasonal) thermal gradients (see above) We understand that seasonal dynamics periodically change the structure of the food web. However, our goal was not to compare temporal variability across seasons. This concerns a different research topic. The data entered into the model concerned the entire analyzed season, which is consistent with the purpose and methodology of the study. Such an approach synthesizing intraseasonal variability is needed to answer the question posed in the introduction, which concerned the comparison of entire seasons, not the dynamics within them. This is the approach found in the literature (Kruk et al., 2020, 2021; Goździejewska and Kruk 2022).