This is an interesting paper on the conservation of oyster reefs and how acoustic enrichment can be used to facilitate recruitment. New to this topic, the authors investigate the influence of anthropogenic noise on the efficiency of acoustic enrichment techniques as UW is rising worldwide. Further, the Idea to combine laboratory and field experiments is great as most research so far on continuous underwater sound effects was done in laboratory settings. Sound fields in laboratory tank setups are often complicated and may not represent realistic sound fields. Nevertheless, I must question the interpretation of the results. In the laboratory setup it was found that added sound, any sound, would lead to increased settlement compared to "no sound" conditions. It does not seem that there is a difference between the "healthy" vs. "anthropogenic sound" conditions. The authors do explain this phenomenon in their discussion which is great because it was observed that anthropogenic underwater sound can initiate settlement in mussels. Due to the small sized laboratory setup, one can hypothesize that play-backed sound files of any kind would rather lead to a certain particle motion/ particle vibration scenario in the setup in which different sound types may not be distinguishable for larvae but rather a certain threshold of "environmental vibrations" that trigger the settlement. Field studies: the results of this study should be interpreted with caution as there are many different factors that induce 1) settlement (sound, light etc. as explained by the authors) and that determines the success of "anchoring" (turbulences). How would other factors influence settlements? e.g. Salinity, Temperature, Oxygen? It would be good if the authors could provide some environmental information on the two experimental sites. Looking into the results of the field experiments, the authors show that there is more settlement when the soundscape is enriched in a "quite location". On the other hand, there was no difference in recruitment between “enrichment” and "no enrichment" at "noisy sites". STILL the recruitment was higher compared to the "silent site" without enrichment. Even though lower compared to the "quiet site" with "enrichment". The results of this study show that added sound, any sound so far independent of being enriched or anthropogenic sound, leads to higher recruitment, in field and in laboratory studies. WHETHER anthropogenic sound disrupts the recruitment process, cannot be validated with the presented experiments as there are (not yet) Information on other environmental differences that have led to potential recruitment differences between sites (e.g. river vs. no river ?). I also would like to raise the issue of using a continuous stimulus signal for the enrichment treatment. Adding continuous noise playing back dawn chorus recordings (line 136-137) may be an issue for the entire ecosystem. Many organisms utilize natural rhythms and temporal variation for timing and chronobiological decision-making and orientation or need quiet or less noisy windows as temporal quiet windows channeling their own communication needs (there are various examples to cite). One may argue that a planned management and mitigation measure of acoustic enrichment should use a holistic view on its ecosystem effects. It needs to be considered that such a continuous enrichment sound may facilitate oyster larval settlement but at the same time may be perceived as noise and have adverse effects for other organisms – especially if exposed continuously.

Further:

• Maybe change Title as I do not think this is what you've found

• See Bittencourt et al. 2020 - anthropogenic sound diminishes soundscape variability (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111648)

• Add the word/definition Meroplankton to the paper

• Formatting of references not suitable for the target journal.

• Abstract

L.24: "navigational cues" - it is not only navigation but also about triggering settlement

• define the word "boost" - increased number of "settlers" or faster settling ?

L. 37 recruitment processes instead of patterns (see Title and stay consistent)

Introduction
- Already put an overview of what you did at the end of the Introduction with exact predictions based on your response variables (e.g. move first paragraph of Method to end Intro).

Methods
- Do you have Information on the ambient sounds of the tanks in which the oysters were reared ?
- L 277: A better control would be a speaker without noise but with electronics in place and active as there may be a confounding effect of an electrical field.

Discussion
- See main comments on interpretation
- line 377: I would assume that it would be indeed possible to replicate the field experiment by utilizing several harbors and quiet sites (and /or maybe gradients).
- add comment on caveat of potential side-effects of continuous sound exposure of dawn chorus playback.

This paper on oyster reef restoration investigates the use of acoustic enrichment in larvae recruitment and the influence of anthropogenic noise on its efficiency. Using both laboratory and field approaches this study tackles most problems generally encountered when only studying the effects of underwater noise in controlled environments such as aquaria are.
I acknowledge major improvements especially toning down conclusions and adressing limitations in the abstract and discussion compared to an earlier version. However, despite multiple changes have been made following former reviews, a few issues are still concerning. In addition, reducing the figures to solely showing differences in effect sizes is a reduction that prevents the reader from fully embacing the study results. Omitting visual presentation of main results (former version`s figure 2, 3,4) by cutting the figure down to solely presenting effect sizes (new figure 2) is a major drawback. Presenting (graphically) original data summaries of data actualy measured (mean recruitment per 15 mm² and mean SPLrms) and for the tested contexts and applied treatments, is important for grasping the relevant study results in meaningful data-related units. Showing only effect sizes is not sufficient.
Despite having addressed earlier concerns by the reviewer, the field experiment particularly still raises concerns because of two main issues that should be adressed a bit more in depth:
1) other environmental factors could have led to the described results (salinity, oxygen, water temperature). Including them in the discussion would add robustness to the results.
2) the “Control” treatment used PVC housing without electronics inside. The presence of electronics always means the presence of an electromagnetic (EM) field sorrounding the electronics, which may have an influence on the settling larvae. There is yet no irrefutable proof about these effects on oyster larvae, however, Garcia-Corona et al. (2019) conducted a study showing how EM affects the early development of Crassostrea gigas. The possible effects of EM on oyster larvae settling can thus not be ruled out. The manuscript would benefit from including this referece.

Finally, both laboratory and field experiment show that oyster larvae prefer an environment with added sound. However, not considering other environmental variables does not validate the hypothesis that anthropogenic noise has a negative effect on the recruitment. Keeping into consideration that anthropogenic noise has been so far found to be mostly negative for marine life, without a clearer view it should be included that, while this study gives deeper insight in the effects of specific soundscapes and oyster larvae recruitment, it cannot yet completely discriminate between the effects of increased natural sounds and anthropogenic noise.

Minor comments:
L58 – Anthropogenic noise doesn't only overlap with sounds produced by mammals and fish. For further research, please refer to [2] Duarte et al. (2021) The soundscape of the Anthropocene ocean.

L80 – Despite being undeniably true that anthropogenic noise can cause auditory masking in fish and mammals, these two groups have a very different way of detecting acoustic signals compared to bivalve larvae. Putting it as it is in the manuscript is confusing and misleading to the idea that, since fish and mammals can suffer from auditory masking, also oyster larvae would probably be. Even though i generally do not object to the general assumption of masking being relevant for bivalve larvae per se, you should improve the line of argument here. Please rephrase and/or refer also to paper on noise effects on plankton and/or invertebrates.

L318, L336, L339, L344 – Are these percentages related with statistical estimates? In that case, please include also the estimates in between brackets. If not related with estimates, please make these values more clearly.