Dear Author,

thanks for your replies! I am looking forward to receive your improved version.

With best regards,
Tim Brücher

Dear Author,

thanks for your updated version. As one reviewer asked to put figures on the same color scheme for better comparison I would like to ask you to (i) change the color if possible, or (ii) put a color bar next each figure, so it is easy to see, which color has which meaning - otherwise it is to difficult to compare the images.

A color bar should be attached to all of these figures - although the meaning is explained in the text.

Second: The Figure 7 was asked to be on a vertical structure:
This would enable to have East Africa on the right hand side, West Africa on the left hand side and time running from top to bottom. So it is much more appropriate to put a tick mark on the time axis to the corresponding entry on the Literature.

For the structure of the manuscript I would recommend a complete data+method section after introduction, starting with existing data and new (own) data as well as explaining all methods used / developed in this article. This should not be included in the Introduction Section.

It would also help to put the Result-section (discussion) in one chapter with subchapters and close with a Final Conclusion Chapter:

1) Introduction
2) Data & Method
3.1 ... 3.5) Result-Section (If necessary for grouping, you can have 2 chapters (3+4) for the sesult-section.
last section: Key-Messages ...

Dear Author,

the paper improved a lot during the last iterations.
I am happy to accept the paper for publication.

Best regards,
T. Brücher