Dear authors

Thanks a lot for replying that carefully to the reviewers. Both reviewers agreed that this is an interesting and methodological solid study that merits to be published. They also made numerous comments which seem addressable.
My additional comment would be that ‘elevation’ should be more clearly presented and discussed.
There are number of earlier works on altitudinal patterns of d13C in plant foliage (e.g. Hultine & Marshall, 2000), showing that in humid mountain ranges, bulk plant foliage shows a general 13C enrichment with altitude that is attributed to decreases in stomatal conductance and/or to other physiological adaption to climatic changes with elevation. Most interestingly, your data show the opposite pattern for 13C in alkanes. Doesn’t this strengthen your statement that 13C in alkanes serve as a drought proxy as it superimposes the general elevational gradient? What pattern does the 13C of bulk plant material show? This might be of interest for some of the readers as well.
Please also provide information on the elevation of the sites to the methods (they are difficult to identify on the maps). You may also show Figure 1 provided in the response to reviewer #2, presenting the elevational gradient of your study. I find this Figure highly informative.
Best regards
Frank Hagedorn

Hultine KR, Marshall JD (2000) Altitude trends in conifer leaf morphology
and stable carbon isotope composition. Oecologia
123:32–40