Articles | Volume 21, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-2397-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.A novel multispecies approach for the detection of regime shifts in a plankton community – a case study in the North Sea
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- Final revised paper (published on 10 Oct 2025)
- Supplement to the final revised paper
- Preprint (discussion started on 10 Feb 2025)
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
| : Report abuse
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-470', Tomas Marina, 20 Mar 2025
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Paul Dees, 09 Apr 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-470', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Apr 2025
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Paul Dees, 06 Jul 2025
Peer review completion
AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload
AR by Paul Dees on behalf of the Authors (07 Jul 2025)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (15 Jul 2025) by Mario Hoppema

AR by Paul Dees on behalf of the Authors (23 Jul 2025)
Author's response
Manuscript
General comments
The overall quality of the manuscript is very good. The novelty of this piece of research relies on the robustness of the model to detect regime shifts and its validation through the study case in the North Sea. The manuscript is well written and the sections are well structured. The conclusion is supported by the results and analyses that were performed.
My major concern is the issue about the scale up of the results to the ecosystem level. As it is now, the analyses performed does not enable the scale up since only the plankton community (phytoplankton and zooplankton) was assessed. I have highlighted this issue in several places throughout the manuscript.
Specific comments
Besides the specific comments embedded in the attached pdf I want to highlight the following:
Regarding the Introduction:
In my opinion, the manner of beginning this section is not helpful. See comment in the attached pdf.
The term “planktonic ecosystem” needs a better explanation. See comment in the attached pdf.
Regarding the Methods:
Abundance data is missing the units. This is crucial for any cross-comparison. See comment in the attached pdf.
Regarding the Validation of the model:
In the majority of the figures, axis labels are incorrect or missing. See comments in the attached pdf.
Regarding the Discussion:
I suggest to avoid the use of references to figures and tables. See comments in the attached pdf.
Please see comment in line 437-439 about the mismatch between the model results and changes in single plankton species.
Please see comment in line 473-474 about the detection of changes in phytoplankton and zooplankton species.
The rest of my specific comments are embedded in the attached pdf.
Technical corrections
I suggested a few number of technical corrections. These are embedded in the attached pdf.