Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREDICTED DISTRIBUTION OF A RARE AND UNDERSTUDIED FOREST CARNIVORE: HUMBOLDT MARTEN (MARTES CAURINA HUMBOLDTENSIS)
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: I am glad to say that he ms has been greatly improved. There are some minor corrections that may further improve the paper (see the attached file)


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE EFFECTS OF GENETIC DRIFT AND GENOMIC SELECTION ON DIFFERENTIATION AND LOCAL ADAPTATION OF THE INTRODUCED POPULATIONS OF AEDES ALBOPICTUS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Quality is sufficient. Substance is always clear, correct, and unambiguous.

The authors did summarize the main research question and key findings. The authors identified the most important literature on the topic and explain how the study relates to this previously published research.

The arcticlestructure is mainly professional (details see below).

The figures and tables are clear and readable. The figure and table captions are complete and accurate. Are the axes are labeled correctly. The presentation is appropriate for the type of data being presented. The figures and tables support the findings.

The study was conform to ethical guidelines.
The experiments are innovative and the method used seems to be appropriate for addressing the research question.

The statistical analysis is adequate

Authors collected and interpreted data accurately. The authors followed best practices e.g. by using state of the art data logging technology.

The results support most of the conclusions. In one point the conclusions overreach. The authors did discuss some limitations of the study.
Experimental design: The paper is originally primary research within the Scop of the journal.

The research question is well definde and important. I Support the journal's Editors in publishing this article after revisions in order to fill a gap of knowledge.

The research was performed to a high standart in technic an ethics.

The methods discribed were sufficient detailed and all nessecary information is available.
Validity of the findings: All data have been provided and analyse are adhequate.

Some Parts in the Conclusion needs to be better linked to references and the hypothesis needs to be explained more robust.

the limitations of the experimental end analytical design needs to be discussed more openly.
Additional comments: Keywords:
The name of the species is already part of the title of the manuscript and therefore redundant for search engines.

Abstract and introduction:
The authors did summarize the main research question and key findings. The authors identified the most important literature on the topic and explain how the study relates to this previously published research.
Line 83: Recent analyses of cold threshold reveal that winter temperature may not be the limiting factor of expansion of Ae. aegypti in northern regions: see Kramer et al. Parasites Vectors (2020) 13:178 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-020-04054-w.
Line 88: Reference for this is needed. I Suggest: Thomas et al. Parasites & Vectors 2012,5:100 http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/5/1/10 or Tippelt et al (2019) PLoSONE 14(7):e0219553.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219553
Line 95 and 261: Authors Name is Kreß not Krebs.

Material and methods:
The study was conform to ethical guidelines.
The experiments are innovative and the method used seems to be appropriate for addressing the research question.

Statistical analysis:
The statistical analysis is adequate

Results:
Authors collected and interpreted data accurately. The authors followed best practices e.g. by using state of the art data logging technology.
Line 172ff: hypothesis of close relation due do a shared waterbody is not a result rather a part of the discussion section. Furthermore, this hypothesis seems a little shaky to me. Please add more references e.g. to similar findings in order to support the hypothesis that the waterbody is the main causation rather than correlation.

Discussion, conclusion:
The results support most of the conclusions. In one point the conclusions overreach. The authors did discuss some limitations of the study.
Line 202: Give reference for this statement (Shaikevich als well?)
Line 199-224: A lot of this is (important) literature, but belongs in the introduction part.
Line 224-227: Please be more specific in comparison of the investigated Russian population to the Italian e.g. by comparing specific numbers or dimensions. Please integrate your finings better in the references and data available: discuss them. These two statements came a bit out of the blue.
Line 229: Authors give thee explanations for their finding. However, you focus on the one that is the most unlikely in my eyes. In order to have a diversification, there had to be a dispersal around the city in the past and than a separation of the populations. However, I cant see any reason, why this dispersal should not take place constantly. The foothill where always there and didn’t appeare after the dispersal event. Therefore, I think it is more likely, that there is a constant introduction of Ae. albopictus eggs from the warmer marine sites in the mainland by a cargo. Those eggs perhaps even have a better hatching rate compared to frost damaged ones in the mainland. And by doing so, you have a constant gene flow into these city sites, eliminating other alleles that are dispersed by free flying individuals. Picture it like actively pumping genes in some city sites!
Therefore I think, it is of utmost importance Authors give their theory of diversification way more argumentative background, because it requires more assumptions than the first two explanations.
Line 233: Ae. albopictus are container breeding species. They do not prefer open water bodies as breeding sites. But perhaps there is a river cargo line the main cause?
Line 249: Discuss the limitation of your experimental and analytical design.
Line 281: Authors my explain, why they exlude the possibility of an epigenetic adaptation to winters and by doing so giving the manuscript an bigger impact on the competeing hypothesis of rapid adaptation on cold hardines.
Line 282: Conclusion is more sound to me than discussion.

Figures and tables:
The figures and tables are clear and readable. The figure and table captions are complete and accurate. Are the axes are labeled correctly. The presentation is appropriate for the type of data being presented. The figures and tables support the findings.

Writing quality & clarity
Quality is sufficient. Substance is always clear, correct, and unambiguous.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE EFFECTS OF GENETIC DRIFT AND GENOMIC SELECTION ON DIFFERENTIATION AND LOCAL ADAPTATION OF THE INTRODUCED POPULATIONS OF AEDES ALBOPICTUS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The ms 57483 compares the genetic structure of six pools samples of Aedes albopictus collected in two localities of the Black Sea Region. Genetic differentiation among samples is studied to identify genomic regions with selective sweeps, which are assumed to be a signature of cold adaptation.
The ms seems rushed, with overreaching conclusions that are not supported by the data. Figures are not numbered correctly in the text.

The introduction section needs more detail on the geography of the Black Sea region and its arboviral vectors. For instance, there are reports of Aedes aegypti in the Black Sea region (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29980229/). Do authors know if Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus are sympatric in any areas of the Black sea?

Thermo tolerance is quite a complex phenotype and while there are several examples of genetic traits related to thermal adaptation (see 10.1146/annurev-genet-110711-155511), this has not been studied in mosquitoes yet. Also, the invasion process of Ae. albopictus was quick and occurred through bottlenecks and multiple introductions, often from different places, intermingling, so saying that genetic changes observed among Ae. albopictus populations are related to cold adaptation is really a strong and not supported assumption.
Experimental design: The sampling strategy is not clear. There are no details on whether mosquitoes were sampled as larvae or adults, the season of the sampling which could explain some of the observed differences, the pooling of the mosquitoes. the number of mosquitoes that was pooled influences has impact on the depth of coverage. It is unclear if the declared 20X coverage is over all the pool or calculated on single mosquitoes within the pool (20X would be acceptable in this case).  Accession number of a repository where the raw sequencing data have been deposited is lacking.
Validity of the findings: The ms has several shortcomings in the method section (no description of the sampling strategy, of the pooling size, lack of details on read coverage and quality control of the sequencing data) that prevents to fully understand the impact of the results.
Additionally, assuming that all detected differentiation is related to cold adaptation is a big assumption. There may be many other explanations for the observed differences, especially because no overlapping genomic regions were observed, not even whin samples from Sochi vs Krasnodar Krai.
Additional comments: Thermo tolerance in mosquitoes is an important research subject, especially considering the invasive capacity of Ae. albopictus. However, I do not think this ms is about thermo tolerance in Ae. albopictus, rather it describes genetic differentiation of mosquitoes from two localities of the Black Sea. As such I do not find the title appropriate.

Detailed comments below:

1) there are reports of Aedes aegypti in the Black Sea region (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29980229/). Do authors know if Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus are sympatric in any areas of the Black sea?

2) Lines 72-75. Thermo tolerance is quite a complex phenotype and while there are several examples of genetic traits related to thermal adaptation (see 10.1146/annurev-genet-110711-155511), this has not been studied in mosquitoes yet. Also, the invasion process of Ae. albopictus was quick and occurred through bottlenecks and multiple introductions, often from different places, intermingling, so saying that genetic changes observed among Ae. albopictus populations are related to cold adaptation is really a strong and not supported assumption.

3) Line 88-89. I think the statement “European populations of Ae. albopictus also demonstrated adaptation to lower temperatures than in tropical zones” is unclear and deceitful. Ae. albopictus populations in Europe are invasive populations, which derive from mosquitoes from different parts of the world, including tropical regions. No controlled experiment has been done yet comparing their fitness in tropical vs temperate conditions to support ideas of adaptation.

4) Line 91-95. There is a bit of confusion here between the phenotype associated with overwintering (diapause) and the molecular mechanisms underlying this process, which have been studied, but not completely fully understood yet. Cited references include studies related to identifying the molecular underpinnings of diapause.

5) Lines 100-101. This work describes the genetic structure of Ae. albopictus populations in the Black Sea. Assuming that the described genetic structure is causative of the invasion ability and/or results of adaptation is a long shot, not supported by the data.

6) Line 104-109. Please specify the season in which the mosquitoes were collected and whether mosquitoes were collected as adults or larvae. Can the three sampling sites withing Sochi and/or Krasnodar Krai be considered replicate of the same population? Where the collected at the same time/year?

7) Line 110-117. Pool size? Sex of mosquitoes in the pool? Morphological identification of Ae. albopictus was performed? This is especially important in case of sympatry with Ae. aegypti. Sample coverage of 20X means 20X for each mosquito in the pool or average for the pool? It is quite important to understand the pool size to estimate if the depth of coverage is enough.

8) Lines 121. The genome assembly is called AalbF2.

9) Lines 145-177. To me the first paragraph of the results should describe the overall experiment design, summarise the sequencing data and provide quality control measurements for the whole-genome sequencing data.  Also details of the sampling locations are presented as possible explanations for the observed genetic differences, but I think a more unbiased way would be to first describe the sampling sites in detail, than present the genetic data and try to connect the two in the discussion section.

10) Line 155. Should be figure 2. Please mark the samples from this study.

11) Lines 185-190. To me this analysis shows differentiation between mosquitoes from Sochi and Krasnodar, not necessarily related to cold adaptation.

12) Line 186-187. Please specify what these regions with no genes are.

13) Line 188 is unclear, please re-phrase.

14) Line 225. How does high genetic diverge among samples connect with a quick spread? Authors analysed only mosquitoes from two locations, I would be caution in making generalised statements. Also, if spread was quick, isn’t it more probable to observe low genetic differentiation? High genetic differentiation would be expected in presence of strong bottle necks and limited gene flow among populations and/or introductions from multiple sources.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE EFFECTS OF GENETIC DRIFT AND GENOMIC SELECTION ON DIFFERENTIATION AND LOCAL ADAPTATION OF THE INTRODUCED POPULATIONS OF AEDES ALBOPICTUS IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Clear and unambiguous, professional English used throughout? No. English is non-standard or confusing in several areas of the manuscript.
L34: "dissemination" is used in non-standard way, consider revising to "spread".
L40: what is meant by "selection effect restriction"?
L38 and L54: "transmissions" is used in a non-standard way, consider revising to "migrations" or "dispersal events".
L169: by "special" do you mean "spatial"?
L242: what is meant by "selection interbreeding level"?
L276 and L290: "apparently" is not used correctly in either case. You need to make a statement and back it up with specific evidence.
L277-280: This sentence is confusing, I do not know what is meant.

Literature references, sufficient field background/context provided? No. The references and background is far from sufficient. The motivation for the study is left simply as "it hasn't been done yet" without adequate context to convince the reader this is a novel and important study.
L72: I am confident there are more recent references, please update.
L78: Consider including the barriers to completing full-genome study of adaptation.
L97-99: This statement is inaccurate. There are many studies outside of model species that have used whole-genome sequences to study cold adaptation. Please update the references, and change this part of the manuscript to provide sufficient background to motivate this study.

Professional article structure, figures, tables... and raw data shared? No. The structure does not conform to standard practice. I suggest you make subheadings that match in the methods and results so that the reader can easily find all matching methods and results. As it is there are significant omissions in both sections, and it is very unclear which results are being discussed in the discussion. The discussion should include specific evidence for all interpretation that points to the specific table/figure that displays the result.
L137: There is no section in the methods that describes the window size searched for genes close to the SNPs. There is also no section explaining the gene identification or GO term analysis.
L150: sample size is not the same as census size.
L157-158: Is this the only section reporting on the phylogenetic analysis of the mitochondrial genomes? I do not see adequate reporting of this part of the study.
L187: why 10 kb? Typically this decision is based on average recombination rates, or specific recombination rates for the genomic region of interest if available. There is no mention or justification of this 10 kb range in the methods. Please add this.
L197: I am expecting phylogenetic analysis here (to match the order of the methods), but do not see any results on this part of the study.
L210-223: This belongs in the introduction (if anywhere).
L225: "high divergence between samples" refers to which analysis/result/table/fig?
L228-229: "closely related" refers to which analysis/result/table/fig?
L236: "as the mitochondrial sequences suggest" refers to which analysis/result/table/fig? What is the specific evidence for this?
L252: "partly shared common functions" refers to which analysis/result/table/fig? This is very vague, please quantify what is "partly" and point us to the correct result to look at.
L285-287: "Monophyletic origin..." This was not stated in the results, and we have not seen clear treatment of it previously in the manuscript. Everything in the conclusions should be familiar to the reader.

Self-contained with relevant results to hypotheses. Yes. I do think that the results are relevant to the questions posed, the writing is what needs to change.
Experimental design: Original primary research within Aims and Scope of the journal. Yes.

Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful. It is stated how research fills an identified knowledge gap. Yes, but writing needs to be improved to make it clear.

Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard. Yes, but the context with credit given to previous research in this area is still needed.

Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate. No. See comments above in section 1.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: I think this paper is focused on an interesting topic, and the scope of the study and methods are appropriate. However, the writing is not clear, and the structure of the paper is confusing and insufficient. The introduction needs to be greatly expanded to provide context of the study, with clear and comprehensive references to previous studies in this area of research. There are many other studies in this area in insects (outside of model systems) and the authors need to read these studies and summarize them to put this study into context.

To improve organization and ensure you have presented methods and results comprehensively, I suggest you make subheadings that match in the methods and results so that the reader can easily find all matching methods and results. As is, there are significant omissions in both methods and results sections, and it is very unclear which results are being discussed in the discussion.

It is also my opinion that it is a requirement that the discussion include specific evidence for all interpretation that points to the specific table/figure that displays the result in discussion.

Finally, the conclusion should only deal with results that have been clearly presented and discussed, it should not introduce entirely new results or concepts.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LEVERAGING THE POTENTIAL OF NATURE TO MEET NET ZERO GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN WASHINGTON STATE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Clear, unambiguous, professional English language used throughout.

Yes, the writing is nice and clear.

Intro & background to show context.

Yes, the background is clearly and efficiently explained.

Literature well referenced & relevant.

Yes, in general the appropriate literature is cited, see a below a few specific suggestions for improvements in the Methods section.

Structure conforms to PeerJ standards, discipline norm, or improved for clarity.

The structure is clear and appropriate.

Figures are relevant, high quality, well labelled & described.

See comments immediately below and elsewhere for improvements that should be made to figures and tables.

Table 2. Present only one place to the right of the decimal point.
Table 2. Footnote B is redundant.
Table 2. Use superscripts for “yr-1” throughout.

Figures 1 and 2. Present only one place to the right of the decimal point.
Figures 1 and 2. Scale results to area rather than totals per county (because the counties have different areas).
Raw data supplied (see PeerJ policy).
I cannot evaluate the extent to which data are provided, but there is R code and some supplemental tables.
Experimental design: Original primary research within Scope of the journal.

I have limited knowledge of the scope of this journal, but the manuscript contains valuable analysis and results that are worthy of publication in an applied environmental science journal of good quality.

Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful. It is stated how the research fills an identified knowledge gap.

Yes.

Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard.

Yes, after making the changes recommended in this review.

Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate.

See comments below for suggested modest improvements.

Line 92. Provide the GWP values used to generate the total of 99.87 MMTCO2e and provide the breakdown among gases, at least CO2, N2O, CH4 and other.

Lines 147 to 163. Annual mitigation for future scenarios seems to be calculated as a fraction of existing activity. How are biophysical or other limits to total mitigation included? For example, no-till can only be performed on some fraction of tilled acres, or possibly the total of tilled acres, but no more than that. For example, lines 199 to 207 seem to discuss limits on total area for deferred forest harvest, but it is not really clear how the annual rates are limited not to exceed the total area.

Lines 208 to 220, More information must be provided to clarify how the analysis was done. What area of what type of cropland was assumed to be suitable for cover crops? How is this limit applied in relation to estimates of annual mitigation? Are cover crops used where irrigation s used? Are they only winter cover crops, and if so, what about winter crops? Similarly for no-till, what area is deemed to be suitable for which crops? How is this limit used in relation to annual mitigation rates?

Lines 2017 to 2020. Fertilizer sales data from AAPFCO and related sources are often quite variable at the state level from year to year, and probably even more variable at the county level. For national scale analysis, such variation is not a problem or only a small one, but it is a bigger issue at State and even bigger at county scales. Was this variation deemed to be real, meaning that it reflects actual fertilizer application to soils in that year? How does this relate to estimates of N rates for major crops from other sources such as USDA-ERS? IF they are not already using it (if so, it must be cited) I suggest the authors investigate the use of the following data source, which provides estimates at the county scale. But this source doesn’t really solve the issues I raise, because it relies on the same AAFPCO data. Also, explain whether fertilizer use was only on farms or total including nonfarm use. Note that the source below may provide a breakdown of farm and nonfarm.

Brakebill, J. W., and J. M. Gronberg. 2017. County-Level Estimates of Nitrogen and Phosphorus from Commercial Fertilizer for the Conterminous United States, 1987-2012. U.S. Geological Survey.

Lines 219 and 220. How was nutrient use efficiency calculated? Do you mean recommend N rates for specific crops? Please clarify and explain thoroughly.

Lines 253-259. Explain how sequestration rates were estimated for both replanting and natural regeneration. For example, if from Smith et al. 2006. repeat that citation here.

Line 270. Explain and cite what is meant by “existing literature”.

It would be helpful to have some summary of the Ambitious, Moderate and Limited scenarios, perhaps in the form of a figure showing the time course of mitigation for each over the 30 year period.
Validity of the findings: The findings are valid. See below for improvements that should be made, or are recommended to be made to improve the results, discussion, and conclusions.

Line 274. Here and throughout the manuscript, report MMTCO2e values to only a single place to the right of the decimal, or perhaps 2 places when needed to maintain 2 significant digits.

Presenting results by county is OK, but the figures should present results weighted by county area, and the results should present results weighted by county area as well, referring to the revised figures. The existing county-based figures (unweighted by area) could be moved to the supplemental materials.

In the results section, It would be very valuable to also add tables and to discuss results weighted by the area of the actual mitigation activity, which of course is always less than the county area, sometimes quite a lot less. This would help clarify which practices are most effective per area versus those that are effective because they cover a lot of area. This could really help guide implementation of the practices. Probably the spatial patterns you report are simply a result of the area for which a practice can be implemented, rather than variation in the benefit for an area that has the mitigation practice. If this is true, it would be very useful information for implementation, if it is not true, then disaggregating these two actors for each practice would be very helpful. This analysis would support improved and more valuable discussion in the Spatial Patterns section beginning on line 344.

Lines 318-320. See above suggestion about efficacy of mitigation per hectare vs number of hectares. Clarify this statement to distinguish whether the mitigation efficacy for a practice varies in different locations in the state or whether the variation is due to the number of hectares for the practice in different regions.

Lines 411-412. Discuss more thoroughly the implications of extending the forest harvest rotation. Specifically, discuss whether this possible leakage would likely negate much or all of the GHG benefit, this is very important because it is the largest total GHG mitigation opportunity found in your analysis. If it is likely to be negated largely or entirely by leakage, that is very important to know. Climate change is a global issue, so not at least discussing the likely implications greatly weakens the manuscript. Leakage should also be discussed for each mitigation pathway, even if just to say that it is unlikely to be an issue for some reasons you can provide. For example, the agricultural practices if properly implemented in appropriate climatic, soil, and cropping conditions, should not reduce crop yields, and therefore should not cause leakage.

Lines 386-387. I suggest mentioning other co-benefits in addition to climate benefits, such as for air quality, water quality, and biodiversity. These have been included in other publications about Natural Climate Solutions, and are important because these benefits can be valuable and can help motivate mitigation, because the mitigation provides these other valuable benefits. This topic is important to balance the existing discussion of challenges to implementation. I also suggest adding a paragraph of discussion of these other  important co-benefits to the section beginning on Line 438, The current discussion of Chinook salmon is very good, but other important co-benefits should be mentioned, especially in the context of providing evidence of social benefits that can exceed the cost of implementation.

Line 466. It would be very helpful to add a paragraph of discussion about costs versus benefits, even if it is only partly quantitative. Previous NCS publications have provided some cost estimates for different practices. Any information about the value of the benefits, including but not limited to the social cost of carbon, would help raise the important issue of whether it is beneficial for society to implement these practices, given the likely costs and benefits. This new paragraph would provide support for the statement on lines 43-474, or even support a stronger statement that there is evidence in many cases that the benefits could exceed the costs for at least some mitigation opportunities.

All underlying data have been provided; they are robust, statistically sound, & controlled.

I can’t fully evaluate this question, although the authors do provide substantive information in supplemental tables and provide R code. The authors should assure that all variables in supplemental tables are defined. For example, in supplemental Table 3 and others, what does the unlabeled Column A mean?

Also, please be sure to cite supplemental tables S3 to S7 in the manuscript, and where are their contents explained?

Speculation is welcome, but should be identified as such.

The results and discussion are appropriate.

Conclusions are well stated, linked to original research question & limited to supporting results

The conclusions are suitable, see minor suggested improvement above.
Additional comments: This manuscript is a valuable contribution to the literature after making the changes recommend above. The content and length are appropriate and it is well written.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LEVERAGING THE POTENTIAL OF NATURE TO MEET NET ZERO GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN WASHINGTON STATE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: No concerns. A few very minor suggestions to clarify the text:

Abstract: I don’t believe IPCC set 2050 as an explicit target for net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The actual signed UN Paris Agreement gives a vaguer “mid-century” timeline.

Ln 40: not “if global temperatures rise above 1.5C” but rather “if average global warming exceeds 1.5C”

Ln 42: not “reduce emissions” but “reduce net emissions”

Ln 76: “the State’s net emission reduction portfolio” – especially since this sentence is about removals

Ln 102-105: The sentence starting with “Regionalized climate solutions, including NCS, could be deployed within industry clusters…” is vague. Can the authors provide more detail or perhaps a detail of what this looks like beyond just citing the maritime industry?

Line 114: Griscom et al. (global) and Fargione et al. (US) include ~ 20 different NCS. The authors state that they used 11 of the 12 pathways in Graves et al. 2020 and justify the exclusion of sage brush. Can the authors further clarify why they did not include the other 8-10 NCS for those not familiar with the Washington landscape. Although this paper is clearly intended for a WA audience, there are methods and results in here that could be extended to other geographies.

Line 127: What does “their” refer to in “tourism direct their rural economies”?
Experimental design: There are many methodological details that need clarification. I flag several below, but I encourage the authors to go through the methods again and provide more references, justification, and details to allow readers to understand the methods.

•	It’s possible with enough time I could follow the details in the R script and sort out the actual methods so I appreciate the clear time and effort that went into documenting input data, providing scripts, etc in the supplementary material. However, if the authors include scripts etc, then some clean-up is merited. For example, the provided script references files that I could not locate (e.g., model_carbon_reforestation_low.csv). There is an “activity” value in Table S1 that could potentially be used to subset and create csv inputs, but that is error prone. I applaud the authors efforts to be fully transparent, but they have not reached that point.

•	Line 132-133: The authors state that “actual deployment will require some years of program development.” Can they clarify how implementation is temporally modeled? Given that we are now in 2021, a start year later than 2020 seems warranted. Methods are not currently clear how ramp up is incorporated (line 159 and beyond).

•	Line 155: The “Limited” scenario should probably be called a BAU scenario. “Limited” implies some additional implementation has occurred (and NCS must be “additional” per Griscom et al. 2017 etc) but the limited scenario simply incorporates variation into a baseline trajectory.

•	Line 167: 1000 iterations for an MCS is quite low. Are the authors confident that outputs stabilize after only 1000 iterations?

•	Line 178: Could use a reference to show that biological optimum rotation cycle is 75 years.

•	Line 184-186: The fate of the wood product strongly influences overall mitigation potential. It is not clear the relative allocations of biomass to unused mill residue, commercial fuel, and short-lived wood products or how those various pools are accounted for in the model. Can the authors provide more detail about what model inputs were (they don’t appear to be in Table S1) and justify why they chose those values?

•	Line 199: The ambitious scenario extended rotations scenario is implemented on 40% of private timber lands and 32% of state-owned forest lands. Why 40 and 32%? What is the justification for this percentage?

•	Line 204: what does a constant 10-fold multiplier mean? A 10% increase on the prior year’s rate? 10% of the ambitious scenario per year so that 40%/32% of forest land is on an extended rotation by year 2030?

•	Line 208: The agricultural practices section is particularly sparse on details. There appears to be no limited, moderate or ambitious scenario (??). Further, the authors only provide data on baseline conditions for cover crops, nutrient use etc? What is the change in practice/the additional action modeled here?

•	Line 221: The avoided conversion pathways have the same problem as the agricultural section. The authors only describe the baseline scenario and the baseline scenario (e.g., current cover crop adoption) is not a climate solution. A climate solution must represent additional action beyond the baseline. What change is being modeled here?

•	Line 241: Restoration pathways have the same problem as above, though the tidal wetland restoration provides some detail (e.g., line 266, “We assigned each of those counties a restoration rate equal to its lost tidal wetlands hectares times a constant 0.00215”). Though again why 0.00215? Similarly line 270, “we obtained and inserted restoration areas described in existing literature” needs references.
Validity of the findings: I cannot evaluate the validity of the findings without understanding the methods. In particular I am concerned that the authors do not model additional action for many pathways but rather baseline scenarios.

Also an uncertainty analysis of the results would be helpful and seems possible given the MCS approach. There are additional tables in the supplementary material that appear to provide median and confidence intervals, but these are not referenced in the manuscript but only in a note to Peer J (Table S3-S7). Can the authors provide meta-data for these tables and refer to the uncertainty in the results within the manuscript itself?
Additional comments: Robertson et al. examine the mitigation potential of 11 different natural climate solutions in Washington State under two scenarios of adoption (medium and ambitious scenario). They then further break down potential opportunity by county to map where opportunities are highest for individual pathways, which is a particularly useful contribution. This is a timely study that represents an important bridge between science and policy. The county-level resolution is good for avoiding false certainty around opportunity at any specific location, but fine enough to inform decision making. The authors clearly put thought into developing their scenarios (e.g., excluding extended rotations in locations where wildfire risk is high, line 180). I believe that this paper has a strong potential to be an important contribution to the field, but currently there is not enough methodological detail to evaluate the results or the conclusions.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: LEVERAGING THE POTENTIAL OF NATURE TO MEET NET ZERO GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN WASHINGTON STATE
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: Since extended rotations show up as having the largest mitigation potential, I was glad to see that the authors included a lengthy discussion of leakage.
Additional comments: This is the second time that I have reviewed Leveraging the potential of nature to meet net zero greenhouse gas emissions in Washington State by Robertson et al. I remain convinced that this is a useful and informative study. The county-level disaggregation of results is particularly helpful for demonstrating how NCS opportunities vary across the state.

My prior concerns related mostly to insufficient methods documentation, which precluded evaluating the results and discussions sections. The methods (and introduction) are now much clearer in the revised draft so my final comments relate mostly to the results and discussions, which I did not review previously. Note that I read the track-change version of the manuscript so line numbers referenced below refer to that document rather than the cleaned-up PDF version. I would describe the below as “minor” edits.

Line 153: The 2020 to 2050 range is 31 years, if 2020 and 2050 are inclusive. 2021 to 2050 would be 30 years, in line with the reported results, and a 2021 start would also alleviate the issue of starting implementation in the past. Though I recognize that the data may be tied to a 2020 start, so a bit of clarification here would help. Is the modeling window 2020 to 2049?

Line 282: What is the motivation for clustering the agricultural activities (no-till, cover crops, and nutrient management)? This clustering biases the agricultural pathway towards showing up as a prominent opportunity in the results, simply because there are more activities baked into the calculations. Also, it assumes (I think?) that an individual farmer would be implementing all three. Is that assumption correct and are there any interactions between pathways that would impact the final estimates? For example, nitrogen fixing cover crops can reduce fertilizer needs. If cover crops reduce fertilizer needs, failing to account for this would lead to double counting with the nutrient management sub-pathway and inflate the estimate of mitigation potential. Similarly, aren’t cover crops typically plowed into the soil before planting and would that impact the no-till sub-pathway? This interaction could diminish the extent of opportunity for no-till. It would be helpful to include a sentence or two to justify this modeling assumption and clarify whether simultaneous adoption would inflate or alter the estimates.

Line 393 (typo): “8.9% of the reductions of annual emissions reductions needed in Washington” should be “8.9% of the annual emissions reductions needed in Washington”

Line 459: If rates of forest conversion to development have been declining continuously since 1991, is the modeled baseline a downward trend or a time averaged value? Table S2 suggests the latter, but its seems like the former would be more appropriate to avoid over-estimating additional mitigation potential. In other words, did the authors estimate the mitigation potential of avoiding actions that are unlikely to happen? A bit more justification in the methods would be useful.

Line 467: State should be capitalized? Inconsistent usage.

Line 472: This is not a “for example” given previous sentence. This sentence could start with “The greatest potential for emissions reduction occurs where restorable wetland…”

Line 685: “significant” is usually reserved for statistical significance, suggest “substantial” as an alternative

Line 690: As mentioned above by the authors, economic analyses are also needed to determine the cost-benefit ratio of any action

Table S1 dictionary (typo): conversion to urban AND rural development. Also, in other geographies the other dominant forest conversion vector is conversion to cropland. Does this not happen in Washington State?

Finally, there is one additional point that could be useful to include. Specifically, there is often a prevailing preference for restoration actions (e.g., UN Decade on Restoration, 1t.org, corporate pledges to only focus on negative emissions rather than avoided emissions). This paper is a useful demonstration of the relatively larger magnitude of opportunity from management rather than restoration actions. I see at least two places to make this point. First, Figure 3 is useful for demonstrating the counties with the largest opportunity for a given pathway, but misses an opportunity to demonstrate differences across pathways. Is it possible to adopt a single color scale across all panels to show these differences across all pathways (e.g., the darkest purple would refer to -0.65) or does that lose the very small range of opportunity for pathways like avoided conversion of grasslands? If yes, is there another way to use symbology to show both across county and across pathway variation? The other location to make this point is line 565-567 when the authors mention that forest restoration and afforestation alone are insufficient to nullify emissions.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE PREDATORY BUG ORIUS STRIGICOLLIS SHOWS A PREFERENCE FOR EGG-LAYING SITES BASED ON PLANT TOPOGRAPHY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is, in general, well written, but I am not a native speaker. I think English needs to be checked before publishing as there are some phrases that are a bit confusing (at least for me).

The literature references are appropriate and sufficient, and the field background developed frames the proposed study.

The work is structured as a professional article, as well as the figures. In relation to these, there are some things to clarify / modify, which were indicated in the attached pdf version.
The raw data was shared as supplementary material.

In addition, there are some minor edit errors and related to the references that I detail in the pdf.
Experimental design: The study responds to the questions proposed, although the hypotheses are somewhat forced taking into account the theoretical framework described, so I suggest re-thinking the hypotheses or including some antecedent in the introduction (I detail this in the pdf version).

The methodology is described in sufficient detail, it may be convenient to add a figure to clarify the different parts of the bean that were taken into account in this study.

I have some dubts and comments about statistical analysis that I mention in the next item.
Validity of the findings: The raw data is provided, but I have some doubts about what data were used to carry out the analyzes, because the data provided and shown in the figures are in percentages, so the proposed statistic would not be the most appropriate, in that case perhaps it would be convenient to make a binomial logistic model.

On the other hand, I think the discussion could be improved. There are some redundant paragraphs that should be eliminated, and others in which some works are discussed that, in my opinion, are not very related to this work. I made more detailed observations in the pdf version.

The conclusions are connected to the original question investigated.
Additional comments: The work presented for publication is an interesting, well-structured work that explores the oviposition behavior of the hemipteran Orius strigicollis, and the results presented here will be very useful for the elaboration of mass rearing protocols.
I believe that these types of studies provide the necessary knowledge to be able to advance in the massive production of natural enemies for their release within the framework of the augmentative biological control strategy.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE PREDATORY BUG ORIUS STRIGICOLLIS SHOWS A PREFERENCE FOR EGG-LAYING SITES BASED ON PLANT TOPOGRAPHY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript analyzes how Predatory bugs show a preference for egg-laying sites based on plant topography. In my opinion the study is interesting, well written and presents interesting findings. However, I think that the introduction needs to be better contextualized. Authors needs to cite the results of other studies. It would strengthen the manuscpt. This is missing from the study.
Experimental design: The experimental design is ok.
Methods for collecting data are described with sufficient detail.
Validity of the findings: It is original primary research and results are interesting and should be published. Research questions are relevant and well defined but need little improvement.
Additional comments: Introduction needs improvement. Authors should cite the results of other studies related to this bug. And should highlight more clearly why this study is important and how it would help others for further research.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE PREDATORY BUG ORIUS STRIGICOLLIS SHOWS A PREFERENCE FOR EGG-LAYING SITES BASED ON PLANT TOPOGRAPHY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript by Yu et al. investigates the oviposition preference of the predatory bug Orius strigicollis on kidney bean pods. The authors conducted a series of simple, straightforward studies through choice and nonchoice experiments and video recordings. They found that O. strigicollis females prefer to lay eggs on seams of pods particularly the seams at the tips of the pods. They conclude that females prefer these areas because they achieve more leverage during ovipositor insertion.

Overall, the manuscript provides some interesting information on the oviposition preference of a predatory insect. However, I find that the information is very narrow in scope for a journal like PeerJ. I will leave it to the handing editor to decide if this manuscript fits with the scope of the journal. I would suggest the Journal of Insect Behavior instead.
Experimental design: I have several comments on the methods that should help improve the manuscript. Specifically, I find that the methods are not very clear and need some revisions as indicated in my comments to the authors. I also do not think the use of ANOVA is appropriate.
Validity of the findings: Although interesting, I do not think this manuscript is particularly novel. But, more critically, I do not think it is broad enough. The authors studied the oviposition preference of a single predatory bug. Thus, it has limited broad implications.

The hypothesis is based on the findings and not based on previous literature.

The statistical analysis needs to be revised since the data are not independent. Thus, I question whether the use of ANOVAs are appropriate.
Additional comments: The manuscript by Yu et al. investigates the oviposition preference of the predatory bug Orius strigicollis on kidney bean pods. The authors conducted a series of simple, straightforward studies through choice and nonchoice experiments and video recordings. They found that O. strigicollis females prefer to lay eggs on seams of pods particularly the seams at the tips of the pods. They conclude that females prefer these areas because they achieve more leverage during ovipositor insertion.

Overall, the manuscript provides some interesting information on the oviposition preference of a predatory insect. However, I find that the information is very narrow in scope for a journal like PeerJ. I will leave it to the handing editor to decide if this manuscript fits with the scope of the journal. I would suggest the Journal of Insect Behavior instead.

Besides, I have several comments that should help improve the manuscript. Specifically, I find that the methods are not very clear and need some revisions as suggested below. I also do not think the use of ANOVA is appropriate.

Specific comments:
The title is misleading since the authors only studies the oviposition preference on one predatory bug. I suggest “The predatory bug Orius strigicollis shows a preference for egg-laying sites based on plant topography”. Again, the authors cannot generalize to other predatory bug species and thus I feel this manuscript is narrow in scope for a journal like PeerJ.
Throughout the manuscript the authors use the words “behaviour” and “behavior”. Please be consistent based on journal guidelines.
Also throughout the manuscript, I prefer the use of “single-choice” and two-choice”. Instead of nonchoice and choice, respectively.
Line 75: It is unclear what the statement “These underlying cues” is referring to.
Line 89: delete “,” after “Anthocoridae),”
Lines 94-95: the sentence “the mechanism whereby the oviposition behavior of O. strigicollis are influenced by plant characteristics” is hard to read and should be revised.
Line 96: provide author name after scientific name
Line 100: change to “a natural enemy”
Line 107: the authors write that their hypothesis is that “females lay more eggs on the on the seams part of the KBPs, especially the bean tips”. It looks like this hypothesis was based on the results and not based on previous studies. It is unclear why they would expect this behavior. Are there specific plant characteristics and insect behaviors that would lead them to this hypothesis?
Line 122: provide author name after scientific name.
Line 125: how many thrips nymphs were provided?
Line 128: I suggest deleting “recoded. Finally, the egg numbers on different parts of the pods were”
Line 130: I am not clear what the authors call a “treatment”. This needs to be clearly defined.
Lines 131-136: This section needs to be revised. I am not clear what were the choices.
Line 134: what are the “treatments”?
Lines 134-135: So, a pair of pods wrapped in paraffin and a pair of pods without paraffin was provided inside a jar? What is the prediction?
Line 140: how did each site defined? Was each section marked?
Line 143: how did the authors determine egg hatching?
Line 146: which “control experiments”?
Line 152:  I do not think the use of ANOVA is appropriate since the behaviors were not independent.
Lines 151-155: The authors had 2 pods of each “treatment” in the jars. These pods were not independent. Was the numbers polled or averaged?
Line 159: delete extra “(” after “face”
Line 165: “nonchoice”
Throughout the results, I would prefer to see percent increase numbers instead of words like “dramatically” or “significantly”
Line 166: change to “was xx% lower than”
Line 169: change to “was also xx% lower than”
Lines 175-176: this is a very confusing sentence. Maybe change to “The section of the right tip (Tip-R) was the most preferred by O. strigicollis for oviposition”
Line 181: change to “each female spent laying one”
Line 181: change to “was xx% shorter than”
Lines 183-184: change to “C/D), which indicates that”
Lines 184-185: change to “more conducive to O. strigicollis oviposition.”
Line 188: indicate author name after scientific name
Line 192: change to “For example, the lepidopteran”
Line 205: why was this “unexpectedly”
Line 211: the authors indicate “These examples” but it is unclear to me which examples the authors are referring to.
Line 244: The conclusions need to be a stand-alone section. However, the authors start the section stating: “The physical features of each site”. This is unclear. Which sites are they referring to?
Figure captions
I would delete the questions in the captions. They are confusing.
Figure 1. Delete “(How to choose “delivery room”?)” What is a delivery room? Not needed.
Figure 2. Delete “(Why do O. strigicollis choose this way?)” Again, not needed.
I do not think Figure 2A is needed since there was no difference among the sites. Just state in the text the average hatch rate +/- SE.
Figure 2B. Change the text in the y-axis to “Time spent for egg-laying”


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE PREDATORY BUG ORIUS STRIGICOLLIS SHOWS A PREFERENCE FOR EGG-LAYING SITES BASED ON PLANT TOPOGRAPHY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: No comment


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE PREDATORY BUG ORIUS STRIGICOLLIS SHOWS A PREFERENCE FOR EGG-LAYING SITES BASED ON PLANT TOPOGRAPHY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: The revised version manuscript is better and can be accepted by the journal.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE PREDATORY BUG ORIUS STRIGICOLLIS SHOWS A PREFERENCE FOR EGG-LAYING SITES BASED ON PLANT TOPOGRAPHY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: I had the opportunity to review an earlier version of this manuscript and I am satisfied with the way the authors have addressed my comments.

I only have a few additional minor edits:
Line 50: change to "for mass rearing of predatory bugs." I think it is worth being more specific.
Line 89: change to "and young larvae". See comment below.
Line 120: change to "on a filter"
Line 206: change to "of the KBP."
Line 221: I don't understand this sentence. Why the question? I think this is a mistake. Please correct.
Line 236: "newly emerged nymphs". To me, eggs hatch, nymphs emerge.
Lines 260-264. This is a long sentence. Please break into two sentences.
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: I had the opportunity to review an earlier version of this manuscript and I am satisfied with the way the authors have addressed my comments.

I only have a few additional minor edits:
Line 50: change to "for mass rearing of predatory bugs." I think it is worth being more specific.
Line 89: change to "and young larvae". See comment below.
Line 120: change to "on a filter"
Line 206: change to "of the KBP."
Line 221: I don't understand this sentence. Why the question? I think this is a mistake. Please correct.
Line 236: "newly emerged nymphs". To me, eggs hatch, nymphs emerge.
Lines 260-264. This is a long sentence. Please break into two sentences.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A SIMPLE MECHANISTIC MODEL OF THE INVASIVE SPECIES HERACLEUM SOSNOWSKYI PROPAGULE DISPERSAL BY WIND
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. Basic Reporting
•	Clear and unambiguous, professional English used throughout.
o	OK. Very few linguistic aberrations.
•	The article must be written in English and must use clear, unambiguous, technically correct text. The article must conform to professional standards of courtesy and expression.
o	Generally OK.
o	One significant detail: technically the Apiacae do not disperse ”seeds”. Rather, the dispersed unit is in fact part of a cypsela (A fruit similar to an *achene except that it develops from an inferior ovary and thus also includes noncarpellary tissue; http://www.botanydictionary.org/cypsela.html). Apiacaean propagules are  normally developed in pairs (each umbel carryijng on pair) that split up before dispersal, each part disseminating individually. To avoid confusion it might be wise to throughout use e.g. ”propagule” instead of ”seed”. To add a bit to the framework of the potential consequences of Heracleum propagule dispersal it may be worth conidering whether the invasivity is affected since as in Heracleum spp, each dispersed propagule does not contain a mature seed immediately ready to germinate, but a fertilized ovule that will need to mature lying in the ground before being able to germinate (if not consumed meanwhile, e.g.).
o	The title refers to conclusions regarding the genus Heracleum but the investigation covers dispersal of H. sosnowskyi propagules (and artifical disseminules representing H. sosnowskyi.  I suggest adding ”sosnowskyi” wherever appropriate will clarify this.
•	Literature references, sufficient field background/context provided.
o	OK.
•	The article should include sufficient introduction and background to demonstrate how the work fits into the broader field of knowledge. Relevant prior literature should be appropriately referenced.
o	OK.
o	Comment: The reason for the investigation is to add to the background in regard to the invasiveness of H. sosnowskyi (or, as commented above the genus Heracleum, which is not fully correct). Admittedly H. sosnowskyi is regarded as invasive i central and eastern Europe, just like certain other Heracleum species  (e.g. H. mantegazzianum) whereas others are not (H. sphondylium).
•	Professional article structure, figures, tables. Raw data shared.
o	OK
•	The structure of the article should conform to an acceptable format of ‘standard sections’ (see our Instructions for Authors for our suggested format). Significant departures in structure should be made only if they significantly improve clarity or conform to a discipline-specific custom.
o	OK
•	Figures should be relevant to the content of the article, of sufficient resolution, and appropriately described and labeled.
o	OK
Comment: Contents of lines 178-184 is repeated in Table 1. The latter is not absolutely necessary (but OK).
o	Comment: Likewise Fig. 4, unless interesting to demonstrate the actual propagule mass, wing loading and height of release, illustrating non-significant differences (except in the case of sed mass differences) is slightly superfluous (again OK, space permitting publication).
o	Comment: Fig. 5 ”Seed fly distance” should rather read ” Propagule wind dispersal distance”.
o	Comment: Caption of Figs. 6 and 7 should include ”artificial H. sosnowskyi propagules”.
•	All appropriate raw data have been made available in accordance with our Data Sharing policy.
o	OK – I believe…could not open, lacking appropriate app. (and time to download one). Sorry!
•	Self-contained with relevant results to hypotheses.
o	OK
•	The submission should be ‘self-contained,’ should represent an appropriate ‘unit of publication’, and should include all results relevant to the hypothesis.
o	OK
•	Coherent bodies of work should not be inappropriately subdivided merely to increase publication count.
o	OK
Experimental design: 2. Experimental design
•	Original primary research within Aims and Scope of the journal.
o	OK
•	Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful. It is stated how research fills an identified knowledge gap.
o	OK.
o	Comment: interesting topic and result; needs further investigation adding other factors affecting the success of H. sosnowskyi invading ”new” regions (moving frontline (e.g. meters/year, germinability - %) and the reason for this. But OK, this a topic for discussion. Prpopagule dispersal alone is not enough for successful invasion.
•	The submission should clearly define the research question, which must be relevant and meaningful. The knowledge gap being investigated should be identified, and statements should be made as to how the study contributes to filling that gap.
o	OK. See above.
•	Rigorous investigation performed to a high technical & ethical standard.
o	OK
•	The investigation must have been conducted rigorously and to a high technical standard. The research must have been conducted in conformity with the prevailing ethical standards in the field.
o	OK
•	Methods described with sufficient detail & information to replicate.
o	OK
•	Methods should be described with sufficient information to be reproducible by another investigator.
o	OK
Validity of the findings: 3. Validity of the findings
•	Impact and novelty not assessed. Negative/inconclusive results accepted. Meaningful replication encouraged where rationale & benefit to literature is clearly stated.
o	OK
•	All underlying data have been provided; they are robust, statistically sound, & controlled.
o	OK. (But I have not performed repeated staistical analysis.)
•	The data on which the conclusions are based must be provided or made available in an acceptable discipline-specific repository. The data should be robust, statistically sound, and controlled.
o	OK. As above: and as described above I could not retrieve raw data.
•	Conclusions are well stated, linked to original research question & limited to supporting results.
o	OK
•	The conclusions should be appropriately stated, should be connected to the original question investigated, and should be limited to those supported by the results. In particular, claims of a causative relationship should be supported by a well-controlled experimental intervention. Correlation is not causation.
o	OK. Comments above relevant here.
•	Speculation is welcome, but should be identified as such.
o	OK
Additional comments: 4. General comments
•	Being interestad in this topic I find this paper welcome and filling a knowledge gap.
•	Well performed and described empirical investigation and experiment – still more components affecting dispersal need attention.
•	It would be interesting to know whether solitary plants are as efficient as larger monospecific stands of these plants dispersing into new lands (´guerilla´vs phalanx´ strategy?).
•	The aerodynamics of disk-shaped propagules with centrally positioned point of gravity is likely to be strongly affectd by the angle of incidence as the wind cathches it, and likewise knowing what force is needed to disassemble the cypsela from the umbel would add to the understanding of the dispersal distance (differs with maturity of propagule).
•	Conclusions imply that further investigation is under way and will reveal more information about the westward spread of H. sosnowskyi (and likely other Heracleum species and other wind dispersed plants as well).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: A SIMPLE MECHANISTIC MODEL OF THE INVASIVE SPECIES HERACLEUM SOSNOWSKYI PROPAGULE DISPERSAL BY WIND
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The reviewed manuscript is written clearly. There are only a few parts that need some clarification. I made my comments directly to the attached file. The structure of the paper is relatively good. I see a problem in the discussion, where authors discuss only their results. I need some more text devoted to putting the work in the context of previous works etc.
Experimental design: The experimental design is clearly described. I miss a wider description/discussion of whether the used paper seeds can give different results than natural seeds.
Validity of the findings: The results are clear and are linked to the original research question. The only comment goes to the fact, that only observations in one region were taken. It should be clearly explained.
Additional comments: I made my comments directly to the review file. The major objection goes to the weird discussion which does not include references. Some parts of the introduction need to put your work to the wider context.
The design is described clearly with sound results.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE MAIN STAGE OF RECOVERY AFTER THE END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION: TAXONOMIC REDIVERSIFICATION AND ECOLOGIC REORGANIZATION OF MARINE LEVEL-BOTTOM COMMUNITIES DURING THE MIDDLE TRIASSIC
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This article meets the basic reporting requirements, but I do feel that the background/context could be improved (see review)
Experimental design: This article meets the experimental design requirements, but I do think some data is missing but the impact of the missing data may be insignificant.
Validity of the findings: This article meets the validity of the findings requirements, but I do think some ideas from the other side of the debate have been overlooked.
Additional comments: The Middle Triassic is most likely exceptionally more diverse then we realise! I think the work of Friesenbichler et al. in uncovering this data is great and I really support more of it. This is a nice study that looks at a tightly vetted dataset of benthic marine life and provides new insights into the patterns of changes in both taxonomic and ecological diversity following the end-Permian mass extinction. There is a lot to like about this manuscript, and it clearly represents an important contribution to the literature. The figures are great, and the overall quality of the English is high! I do also think there are requirements for revisions to how the manuscript is currently structured/focussed. My comments are below:

Dataset
The dataset looks good I mostly like the justification for excluding a lot of the literature (another way you could had worded it, is that you are only using fossil occurrences that are supported by material that has been accessioned). But I do have two concerns/comments:

1. I don’t believe your dataset is complete, for example the benthic fauna described from the Great Bank of Guizhou [Foster et al. 2019, Papers in Palaeontology 5, 613-656] which included a full systematic paleontology. Other examples include data from the Aggtelek reef (e.g., by Hand Hagdorn), and data from Svalbard published by Hans Frebold in the early 1900s.

2. You are excluding identifications based on thin sections and polished slabs. Okay I can understand why you would do this for groups like bivalves and gastropods, but for other groups like foraminifera, sponges, bryozoans that rely on thin sections for accurate taxonomy then how can you justify their exclusion? This may be why a lot of the Aggtelek reef data is missing (as an example).
Overall “Competition in slow motion” argument
I found the introduction/discussion quite narrow-minded and misleading. The debate on the delayed recovery has four aspects: (1) competition in slow motion (2) persistent environmental stress (3) subsequent biotic crises (4) poor fossil record means we underestimate the real biological patterns. I agree that this paper very briefly mentions points 2-4 but it really pushes its own agenda of point 1.

I have a number of issues with this:

1.	The abundant data that serves as independent proxies (inorganic geochemistry) for environmental conditions that are detrimental to metazoans were pervasive throughout the Early Triassic, and that these conditions meant that there were a lot of lithological units that represent habitats that cannot support diverse ecosystems. If you take this into account, then you would expect a recovery that looks like this quick sketch below – and that is very similar to your results. None of this is really considered/falsified in this article.

2.	This article collected data on the ecological information that the benthos gives us, but then doesn’t consider this in the debate. What are the ecological changes telling you? There are a number of ecological changes that point to environmental stress, rather than species-species interactions. For example, the dominance of infaunal deposit feeders, the increased relative size of a lingulid brachiopod lophophore (see Posenato et al., 2014 or Foster et al., 2018 for an alternative interpretation), the recovery of sessile suspension feeders, the high abundance of Lazarus taxa, the presence of “paper pectens”, small body sizes (ok the control on this is more controversial, but you still overlooked it), the replacement of microbial-dominated reefs by metazoan-dominated reefs, the high abundance of opportunistic taxa, and so on. I would expect that if functional redundancy correlates with total species diversity then this would support the role of species-species interactions in driving diversification rates rather than an environmental control – but again you overlook the functional diversity data in your discussion – how do your functional diversity results differ to the Foster and Twitchett 2014 study for example (but also the study by Dineen et al., 2014 and many other scientists) and what implications does that have?

Likewise, the ecological changes are consistent with the Mesozoic oceanic anoxic events, which would point to an environmental control rather than a pure biological control as this manuscript argues.
In addition, Foster et al. (2017) dedicated some thought to the idea that the “Unionites” are actually something else with a very different feeding ecology and this has a big impact on our interpretations of recovery. But there is no mention of these issues in this manuscript, not just for “Unionites” but also gastropod ecological interpretations, they appear to be overlooked.

3.	Citations, it is noticeable that there is a preference/exclusive referencing of scientists associated with your research group only! Firstly, this is not very scientific to just ignore the literature that is already out there, and secondly why would these other research groups read/cite this article if their decades of research are overlooked? It is disheartening to say the least.

4.	If you’re interested, in my view the delayed recovery is a combination of all four parts of the debate, which is why it is so hard to separate them and why you should discuss all of them!

Other comments:
I think a lot would be gained by looking at the functional redundancy methods of Catalina Pimiento (UZH & Swansea University) and seeing how you can implement those given that you have all this data.

Line 79: change “Americas” to “USA”, you have no data from Canada, Mexico, Latin America or South America.

Lines 221-238: It seems odd that you do not cite Hofmann (2019) PNAS 2019 116 (1) 79-83, given the large overlap.

Line 261: “scarce data” actually this may be a misinterpretation. For example there are thousands upon thousands of Anisian brachiopods in the European Muschelkalk, but they represent very few species. So the data is not scarce, but instead some groups suffered such severe bottlenecks that diversification rates were still really low in the Middle Triassic. What’s more, ecologically, the articulate brachiopods loose a large number of ecological guilds and only hard substrate ecologies occur after the extinction (see VÖRÖS ,et al. Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia vol. 125(3): 711-724).

Line 272-274: Foster et al. (2017) [Svalbard data] did not report everything. The Svalbard sections are much more diverse than your dataset suggests/ what we’ve published so far. I.e., a sampling bias is overprinting the diversity of Svalbard.

Line 291-295: “Most general statements on the biotic recovery that followed the end-Permian mass extinction ignored this key point.” This is just not true, everyone talks about this but not everyone always mentions it in publications.

“Such a decoupling is not compatible with the exclusive role of abiotic stressors of global scale (sea-surface temperature, sea level changes, oxygenation of the water column, pH, salinity, etc.)” again not true, or I do not understand your logic. This decoupling is consistent with every OAE. E.g., an anoxic seafloor but oxygenated surface waters would explain this signal. It would be great if you could expand your reasoning here.

Lines 324-341: see Martindale, et al. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 513 (2019): 100-115. The thing is, just as the Proterozoic microbial buildups represent reef ecosystems, so do the Early Triassic microbial buildups. On top of that, Friesenblichler et al. (2017) + Heindel et al (2018) demonstrated that these reefs are microbial-sponge reefs and are much larger and more expansive than the younger Brayard et al. transient reefs (see also the recent paper I wrote in the Depositional Record). On top of that again, Zatoń et al. also reported microconchid buildups from the Griesbachian. None of these, including the USA biostromes, are comparable to the Middle Triassic platform margin reefs, which I think is the point. Also note, Gliwa et al. (2020) Fossil Record 23, no. 1: 33-69. report a 2km wide deposit of keratose sponge spicules immediately at the end-Permian event. This would be the oldest post-extinction sponge biostrome.

Line 328: Why do you cite Popa et al. only? They suggested this following the work already published by Flügel (2002) and Payne et al. (2006) and many others. Likewise, why focus on the Romanian reef? I assume it is because you know it best, but the reef that really represents the first research and oldest platform margin reef is the GBG reefs studied by Payne et al. (2006) amongst others (for example Dan Lehrmann has spent >30 years studying those limestones).

Line 353-375: One interesting biological change associated with molecular fossils is the switch from assemblages dominated by hopanoids in the Early Triassic to one dominated by sterols in the Middle Triassic. This suggests a switch in the main primary producers in the oceans from bacteria-dominated in the Early Triassic to eukaryote(algal)-dominated in the Middle Triassic, which also coincides with your gastropod recovery signal. This would have caused differences in the evolution of gastropod ecologies, i.e., bacteria-grazing in the Early Triassic and algal-grazing in the Middle Triassic – but again this relationship between environment and evolution [to me] seems largely overlooked.

Line 397: “stabilization of the carbon isotope curve” so this is based on Payne et al. (2004) Science but actually if you look at the Middle Triassic carbon isotope curves from the European sections they show large fluctuations.

Fig. 8. A linear regression between 6 data points is meaningless.

I hope you find these comments constructive and I’m available to the authors if they have any questions,


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE MAIN STAGE OF RECOVERY AFTER THE END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION: TAXONOMIC REDIVERSIFICATION AND ECOLOGIC REORGANIZATION OF MARINE LEVEL-BOTTOM COMMUNITIES DURING THE MIDDLE TRIASSIC
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: In their ms, Evelyn Friesenbichler and co-authors analyze the Triassic re-diversification of benthic fauna after the P/T extinction and explore the respective, putative roles played by abiotic and biotic ecological factors to explain the delay in the rediversification of the benthos compared to the nekton. Using species richness data from benthic communities from 35 Early and Middle Triassic lithological units they show that most taxa follow a hyperbolic-damped curve diversity model with a rapid and simultaneous diversification in the early middle Anisian. The authors discussed the relevance of different hypotheses and scenarios stressing the importance of either abiotic and biotic factors to explain the 4 My delay in the re-diversification of the benthos after the P/T crisis. They hypothesize the hyperbolic-damped curve model supports the relevance of biotic interactions as driving factors of the diversification (competition-driven diversification model). They also hypothesize that the decoupling in the post P/T recovery between the nekton and the benthos is due to different competition intensities and habitat homogeneities. Finally, they emphasize the importance of carbonate platforms and reef expansion to promoting benthic rediversification and community richness.

The ms reads well and references are relevant to the topic. In the form, the ms structure, figures, and tables are appropriate, informative and detailed, raw data are provided as supplementaries.
Experimental design: Even if not novel, understanding the diversification of marine life after the P/T crisis remains a highly topical and mostly unresolved issue in macroecology and macroevolution. The authors address it using both ecological inferences and conceptual diversification models to disentangle the respective roles of environmental drivers. The analysis relies on an important dataset.

Such a macroecological approach to unreveal major diversification patterns inevitably implies a simplification of ecological processes and species life traits, guessing that biodiversity patterns are well-marked enough to be highlighted. However, in the present work, the interpretation of ecological traits is oversimplified as entire taxonomic classes are assigned to one single trophic class, which is sometimes very unlikely and partly erroneous (bivalves excepted as unexpectedly, the ecology of this class is well detailed). This oversimplification of the ecological part also applies to the interpretation of the correlation between gastropods (which are all considered herbivore) and macroalgae, which suffer from a very poor fossil record. This oversimplification constitutes one major issue of the analysis and of the intepretation of results. Besides, while paleoecology is a main focus of the study, there is no mention of the analyzed ecological guilds in the conclusion. This is unexpected. Methodology, sampling strategies and their justifications constitute a second major issue of the study. In particular, the M&M section suffers from several shortcomings and circular reasonings (see below). Mainly, many samples were omitted and the adopted methodology is justified by very questionable arguments. Finally, there is no statistical test to justify the regression models.

Detailed comments on Material &Methods

lines 71-72: " Benthic communities containing less than five species were considered as undersampled and not representative and were therefore not considered."
Even if this strategy may partially limit the bias of synonymies and taxonomic redundances, it may also lead to underestimate diversity of the fossil record, which is far from being well known. In addition, this may also limit the sampling of lithological units, thereby of certain habitats, environnments and associated faunas, especially when few, specialized species are strictly associated to peculiar environments (ex : dysoxic marine environments)

lines 78-80: "Our approach led to a certain overemphasis of European lithological units (26) in comparison to 79 those from Asia (four) and the Americas (five), but the prevailing cosmopolitism of marine 80 faunas of this time ...". Cosmpolitanism of the fauna is a result and remains to be demonstrated. This cannot be used as a methodological argument beforehand to defien the methodology. This can be further discussed in the discussion section, but not in the M&M.

lines 81-83: "Because environmental conditions did not have significant effects on the diversification of the benthos (see Discussion) we did not consider the palaeogeographic position of the investigated lithological units". This sentence is very confusing because palaeogeography and environments are distinct issues, which are not necessarily related. In addition, as paleoecology is the main focus of the study, you cannot argue that environment does not matter ! Please can you clarify the sentence. In addition, results cannot be used as an argument to justify the method as this may read as circular reasoning ! I think this sentence needs to be rephrased and clarified, or even omitted. Here again, the palaeogeographic bias is, unfortunately common to most large-scale paleoecological studies and can be discussed as a possible, but inescapable limitation in the discussion section. Paleontologists can understand and admit it.

107-109 : "ophiuroids were collectively assigned to ... epifaunal detrivore-suspension-feeders, because evidence for more specialized feeding is lacking."
Simplification of fossils' life traits cannot be avoided in large-scale paleobiological studies, the guess being that evolutionary patterns are clear enough to be evidenced. However, I have serious doubts here as to the classification of opihuroids as just "epifaunal detrivore-suspension-feeders". I am afraid this is by far oversimplified. Most opiuroids are not suspension  feeders, many are carnivorous for instance. This also applies to the classification of all gastropods and regular echinoids as "epifaunal herbivore and/or detritus-feeders". Gastropod and echinoid diversification in the context of the Mesozoic Marine Revolution also relies on the diversification of feeding habits including carnivorous strategies, especially in "cidaroids". I think this is oversimplification and partly incorrect.

Line 118-120 : "Unfortunately, compiling reliable global species level curves is virtually impossible because ....of the sheer amount of working time required for this". I would recommand to omit such an argument; the necessary amount of work can not be used as an argument to justify a methodological bias.

124-125 : "... for each substage and ecological guild, the lithological unit that contains the
highest number of species was used as a reference point." Using such an approach to avoid synonymy and preservation biases makes sense but it may also lead to a strong bias and to underestimating diversity and the complexity of habitats.

127-129 : "Also differences in preservation play no major role in this approach, because it can be assumed that lithological units with exceptionally high diversity were little affected by significant preservation problems." If this was really the case, this must rely on serious taphonomic evidences. Even preservation lagerstätten are affected by preservation bias ! Are all the lithologicla units you worked on are recognized lagerstätten. I think this is very questionable.

132-134 : "Synonyms and open nomenclature are not a problem here either, because there is no reason to assume that there is a systematic bias between taxa in the amount of taxonomic uncertainty." This reads as a gratuitous and unnecessary comment. Do you have any element to support it ?
Validity of the findings: Detailed comments on Discussion

240-242 : "Our data provide no support for the exponential model because most investigated taxa and guilds show evidence for dampening by the end of the Middle Triassic" Did you test it statistically ? As this may be due to the heterogeneity of data and sampling bias.

247-248 : "The majority of the semilogarithmic plots presented in this study (Figs. 5 and 7) conform to the hyperbolic-damped model". Is there any mathematical evidence for this ? This impossible to say from figs 5 and 7 only ! A regression model is needed here.

275-276 : " the history of research and the size of exposure influence our knowledge on species richness." Of course ! This is a serious limitation to diversity studies

301-305 : "Accordingly, the much precocious and explosive recovery of ammonoids in comparison to bivalves essentially reflects the higher intensity of interspecific competition among secondary consumers in comparison to primary consumers (Hautmann et al.,
304 2015). The present study focuses on marine level-bottom communities that are in general characterized by very low levels of interspecific competition (Stanley, 2008)." Despite the fact that saying that competition is more harsh in between upper consumers is a simplication of real life, I can admit this difference in competition pressure between trophic levels. However, there is also many carnivores at the sea botoom and there is no reason to assume that competition is lower at the sea bottom than in the water column ! For instance, are there less competition in coral reefs than in the open ocean ? I am not sure at all ! This time lag between the nekton and the benthos in diversification rates in the Triassic reminds of diversification patterns already noticed for other time periods (the Global Ordovician Biodiversification for instance). Usually, this is explained by the diversification of phytoplankton first, then Nekton diversified as it directly feeds upon it, and the benthos comes afterwards as a result of new food source availability near or upon the sea bottom and the evolution of new ecological niches. Such a scenario makes more sense here than the "competition " scenario. At least, the evolution of the nekton depends on phytoplankton, which should be discussed here.

In contrast, I totally agree with the importance of reef buildups as a factor promoting speciation (and evolution of new ecological niches also because complexity of biotic interactions increased, not only the complexity of microhabitats, even in the benthos !).

Finally, I am not convinced at all by the direct correlation between gastropod and macroalgal diversity. First because I am not sure gastropods used to feed directly upon macroalgae and second, the fossil record of macroalgae is extremely poor if there is one, as the authors recognize (line 365). There must be a third factor (habitat, depth, ... as the authors suggest) explaining this correlation (common habitats do not mean that all their inhabitants necessarily used to feed upon each other). I agree that the hypothesis can be formulated, but I would suggest to be more cautious as to the trophic interpretation that may rely on particular platform units, and I would suggest to remove the correlation that does not make much sense to me considering the nature of data.

Detailed comments on Conclusion

The conclusion reads unappropriate and in particular, the end of the conclusion is not really in line with the discussion and presents gratuitous and unnecessary statements, which are not related to the objectives (see my detailed comments below).

424-425 : "The dominance of epifaunal herbivores and/or detritus-feeders in middle Triassic shallow marine environments and carbonate platforms might be related to the proliferation of macroalgae". I totally disagree here. As the authors mention in the discussion, the quality of the fossil record does not allow for such a statement, without mentioning the very hypothetical herbivory of gastropods. Surprinsingly, here the conclusion is not in line with the very critical position of authors in the discussion section.

432-434 :"We propose a reverse scenario in which biologically-driven rediversification of the benthos contributed to the stabilization of the carbon budget through binding of carbon in large carbonate platforms via benthic calcifying organisms." This hypothesis is totally gratuitous and is not supported by the data and analyses presented in the study !
Additional comments: To conclude, I think there are many issues to address before this work can be published. This is very unfortunate because the subject is very topical, the analysis challenging and very novel results could have been expected for this intriguing time period! I really encourage the authors to amend their ms accordingly. Most issues are more in the form, the writing and the interpretation of data than in the analysis itself. I hope a revised version can be submitted in a near future.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE MAIN STAGE OF RECOVERY AFTER THE END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION: TAXONOMIC REDIVERSIFICATION AND ECOLOGIC REORGANIZATION OF MARINE LEVEL-BOTTOM COMMUNITIES DURING THE MIDDLE TRIASSIC
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: This is a very interesting paper that does not need much change - there are some issues listed below. In the light of the importance of gastropods in this paper you could alo consider Roden et al. 2020, Palaeontology for the role taphonomy  may play in the abundance of gastropods.
Experimental design: Methods and questions  clearly stated,  simple but meaningful statistics; it is good that data were acquired directly from primary literature and own previous work
Validity of the findings: The graphs show very clear signals that are discussed in a reasonable manner. It is a little too obvious that the authors want recovery to be purely biologically driven, alternative abiotic drivers are mentioned but not taken really serious - at least in my impression.
Additional comments: 44. cite also Nützel 2005 who showed this also in terms of standing diversity in gastropods

47/48. cite Senowbari et al.: Anisian (Middle Triassic) buildups of the Northern Dolomites (Italy): the recovery of reef communities after the Permian/Triassic crisis, 1993Facies 28(1):181-256
and see also discussion in Nützel 2005, p. 511/512; there is also more lit for instance Kiesslings reefs papers, the Flügel reef book

62-69, PBDB was not used, explain why

69, “ Taxa reported from thin sections or polished slabs were not considered because taxonomic assignments of these taxa were in most cases difficult to verify. “ this is a crude statesmen because on the other hand many benthic organisms (sponges, corals, algae, microbes etc) are best studied in thin section are

71: “Benthic communities containing less than five species were considered as undersampled and not representative … ” this sounds a little arbitrary, why 5 and not 4, 6, 7, …? I know eTr. assemblages with many reasonably preserved specimens but only two species (Werfenella Natiria from Werfen) and in my  opinion this preserves a biological signal.

109: Insert, “However we are aware that this might be an over-generalization. “ or smth similar (many recent gastropod are parasites, carnivorous grazers or microcarnipovorous

174 onward, please provide one or two examples for each guild for instance “pedunculate suspension-feeders (e.g. articulate brachiopods)

for instance few people know an example for  “Cemented microcarnivores”

293 this, by the way,  applies also to the so-called lilliput effect that is absent in ammonoids, which may be pretty large even in the earliestr Triassic

303 a statement what ammonoids fed on is needed

326 much work was done before Brayard: Senowbari, Flüget etc

341 in this context it is noteworthy that the richest Muschelkalk gatropod fauna comes ftom the Diploporen Dolomit of Silesia, which it a calcareous rock with abundant dasycladcean alge

356 at least the Fürsich & Wendt study is speculative in this respect since algae were not substantiated in the association in question.

375 the algae-gastropod positive correlation is an association of phenomena, it might represent causality but could also reflect an underlying reason responsible for both, for instance change of abiotic factors  that helped both, algae and gastropods; I would at least discuss this possibility


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE MAIN STAGE OF RECOVERY AFTER THE END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION: TAXONOMIC REDIVERSIFICATION AND ECOLOGIC REORGANIZATION OF MARINE LEVEL-BOTTOM COMMUNITIES DURING THE MIDDLE TRIASSIC
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: NA
Experimental design: NA
Validity of the findings: NA
Additional comments: The resubmission by Friesenbichler et al. does well to address the many comments from the initial review and continues to represent a novel and interesting investigation on the diversification of benthic marine ecosystems in the Middle Triassic. There are still aspects I disagree with, but the arguments and data are both of high-quality and I commend the authors for such an interesting manuscript – especially the part about the role of carbonate platforms. I think some of the rebuttal comments were intentionally provocative (e.g., I did not say Unionites is a nuculid, instead I suggested it represents a dustbin taxon that doesn’t only represents suspension feeders) but I do not feel the need to respond to them here. Also note, that Hans Frebold’s fossils are mapped so well that you can find the horizons in the field still today almost 100 years later but I don’t think these omissions affect the quality of the manuscript and findings, and the methods are clear to explain the absence of such occurrences.

Two very minor comments:
line 89-91, change (nine species) to (9 species) and so on for the rest of the list.

line 91-93. See the provocative comment by Richard Twitchett on the Discussion on Lazarus taxa and fossil abundance at time of biotic crisis. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 157, 511-512. My point here, is that Asia has fewer rock unit names because there are fewer geopolitics that leads to multiple names for the same rock formation.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE MAIN STAGE OF RECOVERY AFTER THE END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION: TAXONOMIC REDIVERSIFICATION AND ECOLOGIC REORGANIZATION OF MARINE LEVEL-BOTTOM COMMUNITIES DURING THE MIDDLE TRIASSIC
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: In the new version of their ms, Evelyn Friesenbichler and co-authors carefully adressed, with details all my concerns on a first version of this ms. They justified their position and methodological choice, and/or took into account my remarks and modified the text accordingly. Overall, I find the new version clearly gained in clarity, is now better documented, statements are more clearly supported and explained including the analytical and methodological strategy.
In particular, the quality of the discussion and conclusion have been significantly improved. The conclusion is more clearly linked to the original research question and analytical results.
The over-generalization in the interpretation of taxon ecology is better explained and justified including the relation between gastropod and algae diversity, which is better detailed and supported by references.
Experimental design: Overall, I find the new version clearly gained in clarity, is now better documented, statements are more clearly supported and explained including the analytical and methodological strategy.
Validity of the findings: no comment.
Additional comments: In the new version of their ms, Evelyn Friesenbichler and co-authors carefully adressed, with details all my concerns on a first version of this ms. They justified their position and methodological choice, and/or took into account my remarks and modified the text accordingly. Overall, I find the new version clearly gained in clarity, is now better documented, statements are more clearly supported and explained including the analytical and methodological strategy.
In particular, the quality of the discussion and conclusion have been significantly improved. The conclusion is more clearly linked to the original research question and analytical results.
The over-generalization in the interpretation of taxon ecology is better explained and justified including the relation between gastropod and algae diversity, which is better detailed and supported by references.

I have no more comments at this stage. I think this is a very topical and valuable work that is now ready in its present form to be published as it is.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE MAIN STAGE OF RECOVERY AFTER THE END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION: TAXONOMIC REDIVERSIFICATION AND ECOLOGIC REORGANIZATION OF MARINE LEVEL-BOTTOM COMMUNITIES DURING THE MIDDLE TRIASSIC
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors put quite some work in this manuscript and have addressed the points of the previous reviews suffiecintly; English is good, structure, figures are, context etc. are all good.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: Line 273/274; when you mention possible abiotic factors, please mention at least the most important ones that were discussed in the literature, such as high temperatures, unstable carbon cycle as evidenced by Carbon isotope fluctuations, anoxia ....