The manuscript entitled “Multiple evolutionary transitions of reproductive strategies in a phylum of aquatic colonial invertebrates” provides significant advances in the knowledge of the understudied phylum of bryozoans and, more generally, to the understanding of how reproduction evolved in animals. The workflow followed is very complete, with the inference of at least 10 independent origins of brood incubation in cheilostome bryozoans. and the ancestral-character estimation conducted opens the door to understand how reproductive mechanisms evolved over 100 million years of evolution, with important links to the fossil record and extant diversity.
The results of this study primarily comprise new genetic data, including new circularized (a total of 18, of which 12 are complete), three non-circularized and six partial mitogenomes, thus increasing the representation of bryozoans in public repositories and building up upon previous large-scale studies. Phylogenetic approaches based on mitochondrial and nuclear markers, either tested as mixed concatenated or individual datasets, allow to explore the data from several perspectives, including considerations on the fossil record, and ensure robustness of the inferences. Limitations in tree sampling and phylogenetic results are acknowledged and caveats are suggested to be addressed in future studies. Remarks on the need to review higher taxa and hypothesis proposed by other authors are supported by data.
This is a complete, robust and significant contribution to general knowledge on the evolution of animal reproduction.

Please see the attached file or minor corrections.

The authors have implemented the changes and addressed the minor issues/corrections raised during the first round of review. I have no more comments and endorse this manuscript to be accepted by Proceedings of the Royal Society B in its current state.