This ms stands to make a valuable contribution. Please move forward with response to reviews, also insuring to support statements with statistical tests where possible.

Dear Hashim Said Mohamed and co-authors,
The associate editor handling your manuscript, Lisa Levin, recommends major revision of your work. see her decision.
I invite you then to submit a revised version of your manuscript including a marked copy that highlights all the modifications made to the initial version and a detailed answer to all the comments of the reviewers.
Many thanks for your efforts,
Kind regards,
Marilaure Grégoire

I have reviewed the ms and found a number of grammatical and other textual errors that must be corrected prior to acceptance of your manuscript.
Please make these fairly straightforward corrections and resubmit the ms.
The line numbers below refer to the track changes ms submitted (bg-2023-151-ATC1(1)

Do not capitalize Macrobenthic on line 20 or Diversity on line 25 (both are mid sentence).

Line 96 – macrobenthis that are 2 to 0.5 mm are not large enough to be seen with the naked eye! That definition is for megafauna.

Line 99 – The citation Gibson & Atkinson, 2003 should be Levin, Lisa A. 2003. (Gibson and Atkinson are the OMBAR editors for all the volumes in all the years!).

Line 113 – CHANGE Spinoid, Dorvilleid, and Lumbrinerid to the family names Spionidae, Dorvilleidae and Lumbrineridae.

Line 123 change reducing latitude to lower latitude

Line 154 Please indicate in this sentence if these are distances from shore – or if not, distances from what?
The sampling stations were located at 02 nm, 20 nm, 40 nm, or 70 nm at each transect, with the 26º S transect hosting only one station at 90 nm (Figure 1).

Line 174 add ‘for macrofauna’ after (300-500 microns).
Line 193. Add ‘They are before further subdivided…
Line 197 – do not capitalize Selective
Line 206 remove the second ‘then’
Line 276 Superscript the -1 in ml l-1
Line 278, 282 Do not use zeros for degree sign
Line 291 Replace contrastingly with in contrast
Line 291 and 293 and 331, 335 etc. – superscript the -2 on m-2.
Line 330 and 544 replace taxa with taxon

Give the log scale for H’ e.g., H’log10 or H’loge
Explain what metric dominance is … rank 1 dominance? (or J’?)
Line 467 do not capitalize Diversity
Line 500 Change groupings to grouping

Line 509 to 512. This is redundant to the previous sentence. Rephrase to say
It is essential to note that numerically Polychaeta was the most abundant in this oxygen zone, RELATIVE TO OTHER ZONES, but the presence of MANY INDIVIDUALS OF other taxa in the MICROXIC stations reduced their PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. .
OMIT _ the text - Here, relative abundance refers to the proportion of 509 polychaetes to the total number of organisms in the same area. Therefore, even though polychaetes 510 were numerically abundant, the diversity of other taxa present reduced their share of the total 511 population, hence the low relative abundance.

Line 513 – indicate if the OMZ core is comparable to the microxic zone in your study.
Line 520 – change quantities to concentrations
Line 534 and 539– remove parentheses from around station number
Line 540 use the same nomenclature for individuals per square metre, (ind. m-2) throughout the paper
Line 581 Change alluded to suggested
Line 629 – Hyphenate species specific
Line 688 insert a semicolon after taxa and before most genera
Line 718-9 Italicize the three genera of bacteria.
Line 732 insert space after (2B)
Line 776 is there a missing word? What does ‘co’ represent? Counterparts?
Line 813 Table 1. change heading below Station from Replicate to No. Replicates

Figure 2 caption. Explain what the error bars are – +1 SD? +1 SE?

Figure 3 and 6 caption. Do not capitalize relative.

Figure 5 and Figure 8 caption. Give the log base of H’. Explain which dominance metric is used here – is this J’? Rank 1 Dominance? Explain what the error bars are. + 1 SD? + 1SE?

Fig. 6 legend. Are you able to italicize the genera?

Figure 7 Add (1953) after Wieser

Acknowledgements. Line 2 remove extra (,
Consider thanking the (anonymous) reviewers for input?

Gibson, R. N., & Atkinson, R. J. A. (2003). Oxygen minimum zone benthos: adaptation and community response to hypoxia. Oceanogr. Marine Biol. Annu. Rev, 41, 1–45.
Should be cited as:
Levin, Lisa A. (2003). Oxygen minimum zone benthos: adaptation and community response to hypoxia. Oceanogr. Marine Biol. Annu. Rev, 41, 1–45.

Dear Hashim Said Mohamed and co-authors,
The associate editor handling your work, Lisa Levin, recommends minor revision of your work and requests that you take into account some grammatical and textual modifications. Please modify your manuscript along Lisa's recommendations.
Kind regards,
Marilaure Grégoire

This manuscript represents a valuable contribution to understanding of benthos of the Namibia continental margin, and to the effects of low oxygen on benthos.

Dear Hashim Said Mohamed, and co-authors,

The associate editor handling your work, Lisa Levin, is satisfied with the last revised version of your manuscript and recommends publication of your work. I am then happy to accept your manuscript for publication in Biogeosciences.
I thank you for all your efforts during the reviewing process,

Kind regards,

Marilaure Gregoire