Review of "Holocene paleoceanography of the Northeast Greenland shelf" by Teodora Pados-Dibattista, Christof Pearce, Henrieka Detlef1, Jørgen Brendtsen, Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz.

This manuscript is an interesting contribution to a number of ongoing international efforts to investigate the region of and off NE Greenland. This region is of particular importance for the Greenland Ice Sheet because it holds the NE Greenland Ice Stream, which accounts for a large part of the ice export from the ice sheet. The manuscript builds on established foraminiferal, isotopic and sediment-chemical data sets from a long sediment core obtained on the NE Greenland shelf which allow to reconstruct environmental change in this area at high temporal resolution and in great detail. The results are novel, the data interpretation is well-founded and in general I am in favor of a publication of this data set in Climate of the Past. However, I have two major concerns which should be addressed by the authors before publication is possible:

(1) The age model is based on a calibration which uses the Marine20 data set of Heaton et al. (2020, Radiocarbon). In this paper, Heaton et al. explicitly state already in the abstract (and in detail in the text) that the Marine20 data set "is not suitable for calibration in polar regions". Accordingly, Pados-Dibattista et al. need to find alternative ways of calibrating their radiocarbon data. They may think of using the IntCal20 data set and a suitable local reservoir correction. Proposed corrections have been published by e.g.,

Tauber, H., Funder, S., 1975. 14C content of recent molluscs from Scoresby Sund, central East Greenland. Grønlands Geol. Unders. Rapp. 75, 95–99.

Mangerud, J., Bondevik, S., Gulliksen, S., Hufthammer, A.K., Høisæter, T., 2006. Marine 14C reservoir ages for 19th century whales and molluscs from the North Atlantic. Quat. Sci. Rev. 25, 3228–3245.

Coulthard, R.D., Furze, M.F.A., Pienkowski, A.J., Nixon, F.C., England, J.E., 2010. New marine ΔR values for Arctic Canada. Quat. Geochronol. 5 (4), 419–434).

(2) The Discussion chapter needs to be reorganized. Currently, in its first part it consists of several subchapters (6.1-6.2) discussing Holocene environmental change on the NE Greenland shelf as derived from own data. This text is mostly fine, but more comparisons should be made with the paper of Zehnich et al. (2020) which contains (among other data) benthic isotopic data sets of higher temporal resolution than the ones of Pados-Dibattista et al. In the present manuscript the second part of the Discussion chapter holds two subchapters (6.3 and 6.4) which present a review of published knowledge concerning larger-scale Holocene climatic and environmental connections in and around the research area. What is missing is the combination of both parts. The authors need to show how their own results relate to larger scale developments and how they may improve our understanding of these developments.

Minor and more specific comments and proposed corrections (general and by line numbers):

Check the entire manuscript for consistency:

- sea ice vs. sea-ice

- West Spitzbergen Current vs. West Spitsbergen Current

Be consistent with using either British or American spelling (grey/gray, colour/color, -ise/-ize)

9: stable isotope and

14: iceberg

26-27: The reader might want to know why the "societal and environmental relevance of this sea-ice reduction" is particular important for Greenland...

34: meltwater

35: budget and stratification, and it influences

36: Indicate Northeast Greenland ice stream on the map! Later you use "Northeast Greenland Ice Stream". Be consistent with capital letters!

39ff: Is it necessary to mention all the site numbers and citations in the figure caption if they reappear in the Discussion anyway? I guess something like "Locations of cores discussed in the text are indicated" would be enough...

51: Moossen

55/56: "the returning branch of the West Spitzbergen Current" - if you mean the RAC, then call it RAC!

57: freshwater (check also in the entire manuscript!)

58: affects

63: Better: demanding an improved...

65-69: You should either be more specific in explaining the features connected with the NAO or delete this paragraph and introduce NAO later. As it reads now, it is very general and details (e.g., NAO+ and NAO-) need to be introduced later, anyway (e.g., "a redistribution of atmospheric mass" - what kind?; shifts from one phase to another" - what kind of "phases"?)

76: most of the Holocene

82: of the NE

83: better "neighbored banks"? The banks are not really surrounding the troughs!

87: Johannessen (check also in ref list!)

88-89: In your Fig. 2a, waters with S<32 only reach down to 150 m!

90: Atlantic sources

93-94: From Fig. 1 I cannot see that the RAC runs along the Greenland coast.

99: modulates the glaciers' basal

101-102: Make two sentences!

102: Start sentence with "Today, ..."

103: Polar Front lie east...   Start new sentence with "However, ..."

105-107: Make two sentences!

108: increases in size

108-110: Make two sentences!

113 vs. 120: Why are coordinates of the core site differing in detail?

117: Temperatures (WOA) from which season?

117: this transect

140: top sediment loss?

155: are shown

159: the 100-1000 μm fraction

167: bulk sample

169: intervals

170: The official silt size is 2-63 microns. Are you sure that you used a 60 micron mesh?

176: Clearly describe what is shown in this figure, from left to right!

185: Better: below the lowest radiocarbon-dated sample

186-187: Give a cross-reference to chapter 4.4 for the reworked species.

191: ... and focus on the last 9.4 ka.

200: lowest radiocarbon-dated level

203: insert reference to Fig. 3

203-204: I agree that there is mostly a good visual correlation (maybe you should calculate correlation coefficients?), but I do not see a "trend" to either higher or lower values. If it is there, it is weakly developed.

206: For me this "steady increase" is hard to see.

207: I think the variability in Ca/Fe between the core base and c. 340 cm is more than just a "slightly stronger fluctuation". The amplitude is orders of magnitude higher than in the rest of the core!

212-218: Be more specific and clearly distinguish between modern and extinct species!

229 and 236: I do not think that it makes sense to give an average percentage in the entire core for the total agglutinated or total calcareous species, especially if (as you write) the relative proportion is changing from the core base to the top. I ask you to calculate %agglutinated of all benthics for each sample and add this record to Fig. 5, also because you refer several times to the aggl/calc ratio later in the text.

230: Start new sentence with "However, ..."

238: Again, I cannot see a "steadily decreasing trend towards the top of the core". Values are relatively high near the core base, around 6.5 ka, and near the top. In between they are lower. No trend is visible...

244: Arctic

245: Why is there a period (.) behind the Roman letters for the ecozones? Looks strange...

245-246: It is more common to say "horizonal" and "vertical" axes.

257: Once "on average" is enough...

294: A trend means that values are changing in one direction, i.e., they become higher or lower. If values are mostly the same, then there is no trend. One would rather say that values remain constant (within a certain range).

298: Wouldn't "cluster" be the proper term?

308: in our interpretation

313: and in fjords

315: I suggest to label the panels/records (a) to (i) and give these labels in the figure caption together with the description of the individual panels/records. This will make it easier for the reader to identify certain records.

325-326: How can the bottom waters in these troughs be distinguished?

327: but may also be present due to...

328: shelf break

334-337: Kapp København is a location, not a deposit. Where are such places with Pliocene/early Pleistocene sediments? I cannot find anything on the map (Fig. 1). Is it likely that sediments were transported to your site, and how? Writing that "the breakup and significant retreat of a nearby glacier caused reworking of older sediments" is too general and the example (Seidenkrantz et al. 2019) is from far in the south...

340: What is the evidence that this was a "cold interval"? You should avoid introducing such a-priori statements before you discuss your own (and published) paleoclimatic evidence.

344: "would have characterised" ... if...?

340-348: Stratification and water masses on the NE Greenland shelf are also discussed by Zehnich et al. (2020). You should compare the results - here and in the other subchapters of the discussion.

343: Here you say that the area was heavily sea ice covered. Later (l.349 and in the discussion of the Syring et al. 2020 results) you state that planktic foraminifers were abundant and productivity was high. At first sight this sounds contradictory and needs a proper discussion. I am aware that this discussion comes when the relation to the ice margin is discussed, but you may from the beginning say that the results are only apparently contradictory.

348: A reference is needed when certain elements are ascribed to sources.

348: I cannot see that the d18O values are particularly low in this section. A potential influence of temperature changes on d18O should be discussed. There is evidence for an enhanced advection of Atlantic Water to the NE Greenland margin (Bauch et al., 2001). As shown in several papers on the W Svalbard margin, this advected AW was relatively warm, even when compared to today, and likely it was still relatively warm when it reached the NE Greenland margin as the RAC. Accordingly, there may be a temperature influence on the isotopic signal. Moreover, how would meltwater (near the surface) influence the d18O of benthic organisms? In any case, you should compare your isotope results (both d18O and d13C) to the isotope data sets of Zehnich et al. (2020).

356ff: Try to find better arguments for a linkage of your event with the 8.2 ka event. Can you derive information on the nature of these sediments from the X-ray photos? What about grain sizes? Wouldn't more icebergs leave traces by IRD-rich sediments?

357ff: Long sentence. Split into two!

374: appeared around 8 ka BP in the record, after a long absence

378: This refers to the previous sentence and should not start a new paragraph.

384ff: Core numbers are not necessary here and in many other places when references are given. Müller et al. discuss sea ice coverage and bioproduction, but temperatures only in a semiquantitative way. Werner et al. (2013, 2016) are more appropriate references for near-surface temperatures off W Svalbard and should be used here and in other subchapters of the discussion. They show that strongest AW advection started c. 10.8 ka. On the other hand, Risebrobakken et al. (2011) showed that highest SSTs came only c. 9 ka. Since there is a strong influence of AW at the NE Greenland shelf seea floor, the timing of AW and temperature maxima should be discussed with reference to results from the E Fram Strait. Is there a discrepancy? Can you speculate why? One may also ask whether results from SE Greenland are suitable for comparisons. The Nordic Seas are much wider than the Fram Strait and the heat distribution by AW works in a different way there.

403: Foster Bugt is not on the map in Fig. 1.

402-406: Okay, this is interesting information. What kind of conclusion can you draw?

412: <1

414-415: Theoretically, high d18O could also result from stronger AW influence. You should build your arguments on a combination of proxy interpretations. Example: Since the forams point at low bottom water temperatures, we interpret the high d18O valus as indicative of...

420: 4.2 ka

427: What can you conclude from the literature information?

432: from ... to ...

433: Atlantic Water

437 to previous times

444: Several papers show that there was a cooling trend after c. 5 ka. However, there is also evidence for some warming in the last 2 ka (e.g., Sarnthein et al., 2003; Werner et al., 2013; Telesinski et al. 2014a,b; Zehnich et al. 2020). Is this expressed in your data? If not, can you speculate why?

474: Syring et al., 2020b

501: Also Werner et al., 2013, 2016; Consolaro et al., 2018

523: Hillaire

539: started to resemble

542: Freshening is usually strongest near the sea surface and would thus increase (and not reduce) stratification...

543: and to a (near) perennial

545: What is "possible sea-ice cover"?

780: Sarnthein

Fig 1: Orange lettering is difficult to read on greenish background (insert map)

Comments to a manuscript by Pados-Dibattista and colleagues

The paper by Pados-Dibattista et al presents new data from a remote site at the northeastern Greenland shelf aiming to reconstruct variability of climate and ocean conditions during the Holocene. The topic is within the scope of the journal and the presented data are new and results are very interesting. The paper is generally well written but has some aspects in the results and the discussion (see below) which need to be improved before the final publication. I recommend publication after major revisions given that authors can address the criticism detailed below.

Major comments:

1. During the review I counted about 30 (!) abbreviations present in the paper and was often struggling with finding what those mean throughout the text. I suggest to the authors to make it easier for the reader, compile a list of all abbreviations used in the paper and present it in the beginning or alternatively at the end of the paper. This will facilitate finding them all in one place if needed.
2. Results section regarding foraminiferal analysis needs to be re-written starting with presenting a general information about foraminifera (this is present for planktonic but currently is missing for benthic ones). Such info shall include which benthic species were dominant (e.g. >10%), accessory (e.g. 5-10%) and rare (e.g. <5%). Then go into details regarding how many were calcareous vs how many were agglutinated and so on. The authors often write “the most abundant species” but it is unclear what they mean by those – dominant or accessory? This should be clarified. The authors shall also add figures with absolute abundances because relative abundances can sometimes be misleading as they are usually not normalized per sample weight or sample volume. There are some sort of graphs present in the appendices, and although those look a bit different they still have % instead of ind/g – if those are supposed to represent ind/g they shall be moved to the general text and be present alongside with % data instead of appendices.
3. The authors should run some kind of multivariate statistics to strengthen their visual ecozone subdivision. A simple cluster analysis combined with PCA or Factor analysis would help here to verify if changes in the assemblages are significant enough to define ecozones. For instance, in results (p10, line 53) the authors define ecozone II based on appearance of bulloides in the record. This species, however, is present in very low abundances (<1%) and it is important to show with statistical analyses that its presence makes significant changes in the assemblages.
4. All ecozones are labelled in a strange manner e.g. “345-310 cm or 9.4-8.2 ka” – this should be changed to “310-345 cm or 8.2-9.4 ka” to make it more logical. Similar changes should be made all over in the text where authors refer to time periods or core intervals.
5. In addition to age, core depth should be added to all foram graphs to make it easier to follow the text and connection to the age model. Also the width of the horizontal axis for the abundance data needs to be adjusted based on high (wide axis) or low (narrow axis) numbers – now all x-axis on graphs have the same width, but different range values, which makes it misleading for the reader.
6. Section 5 (p11, lines 96-113) is way too long and contains a lot of text which belongs to the discussion. Here the authors shall only keep information about foram groupings they used for interpretation later– like suggested below. All remaining information including interpretation shall be moved to the discussion. A much shorter section 5 can include the following: Atlantic Water group includes x, y, z species (Refs); Chilled Atlantic Water group - x, y, z species (Refs); Arctic Water group ….S feylingi….Some agglutinated species have been described in connection with particular water masses (refs) and we use those to reconstruct….
7. Section 6.2.1 (p13) shall be removed from the discussion as the authors say in the methods (p6, lines 190-19) that this section was not considered in the interpretation.
8. My last major point is about the discussion section, where the authors present their own data (section 6.2) separately from other studies (sections 6.3 and 6.4), which both shall be intertwined. So, the discussion needs to be rewritten.

Minor comments:

Abstract:

P1, Line 9: “We carried out benthic foraminiferal…” - This sentence jumps a bit abrupt from one topic to another. Start instead by saying “In order to reconstruct the variability of the East Greenland Current and general paleoceanographic conditions in the area during the Holocene, we carried out benthic foraminiferal assemblage, stable isotope- and sedimentological analyses etc…”

Introduction:

P1, Line 25: “According to model simulations, the Arctic Ocean may become seasonally ice-free as early as 2040-2050 (Stroeve 25 et al., 2012). However, despite the extreme societal and environmental relevance of this sea-ice reduction…” –  please add a sentence or two explaining what these “extreme societal and environmental” implications are, and then introduce to the public the lack of knowledge on the topic.

Regional setting

P3, lines 83-85: Please remove abbreviations 79NG and ZI as those are only relevant of figure caption to Fig.1. Also please mark all “abbreviated” features (SS, ZI, 79NG, NQIB) on the Figure 1 with the arrows to better indicate their position on the map.

P3, line 85: Please spell out 79NG and ZI.

Methods:

P5, lines 148-150: “A minimum of 300 benthic specimens were identified for each sample, except for four samples (10-11 cm, 15-16 cm, 30-31 cm, 195-196 cm). These four samples contained only between 242-296 specimens. These data were, therefore, treated with some caution…” – I suggest authors removing the part about samples where 300 ind count was not reached. It is a well-known fact now that despite 300 ind/ sample is a standard procedure (e.g. Murray, 2006) counting individuals less than that can still produce statistically significant results (see e.g. Fatela & Taborda, 2002. Mar. Micropal. 45, 169-174).

P5, line 157: “..was restricted by the number of available, clearly identifiable tests…” – what does this mean? Not corroded and well preserved individuals? Please explain.

Results:

P6, line 174: “The sediment of the lowest 40 cm of the core is much coarser…” -  it was mentioned in the methods that the authors did IRD analysis but that one is completely forgotten in the results and the discussion. Please add this information there.

P6, Figure 3: Please mark all available 14C dates close to the timescale.

P8, line 210: Please change the title to “Foraminiferal analysis” instead of “Foraminiferal content”

P8, line 211: Please change the title to “Redeposited core section 345-410 cm with Plio/Pleistocene Foraminifera” –Also I suggest the authors to swap the places for sections 4.4.1 and 4.4.2 and focus first on the core part which shows the main results. Then you can mention that the core base contains x,y,z forams, is likely redeposited, and is therefore excluded from interpretation.

P8, line 219: Please change to “The Holocene core section 0-345 cm”. Also consider swapping places with section 4.4.1 to present your most important findings first.

P8, line 223 – p9, line 239: This section needs to be re-written.

• Start with presenting foram concentrations as range (x-y) with an average z. Do this for both planktonics and benthics (calcareous and agglutinated separately). As it looks now, sometimes ranges are given but averages are missing, or the other way around. Please be consistent and present both all the time.
• Continue by telling which species were dominant, accessory and rare for each foram group (planktonics and benthics). Here, try to be consistent with spelling out species names fully every time they appear for the first time in a new section.

P8, line 230: “…from this point...” – which point? Please specify.

P8, line 232: “..the most abundant..” – what does this mean? Dominant? Accessory? If so what range and averages this species has?

P8, line 233-234: “…representing on average 42 % and 16 % (respectively) of the benthic agglutinated assemblage, and 27.5 % and 10.5 % of the total benthic assemblage. “ – information about their percentage within the agglutinated assemblage is irrelevant, please remove it and keep only % of the entire assemblage.

P8, line 236: “The most abundant..” – see comment above

P8, line 237: Spell out C. reniforme and E. clavatum,

P9, lines 242-243, Figure 5 caption: “The depicted species were chosen in order to show changes in the environment.” – this is vague and unclear. I assume those are changes in water masses such as…., if yes please specify. Also please add core depth in cm to this graph, adjust axis width so it reflects the abundances visually and add a graph with respective changes for absolute abundances of those species.

P9, lines 247-249: “..ecozones that were defined by visual interpretation of the species abundances” – please add here “within 0-345 cm core depth”.

P9, line 250: please change the title to “Ecozone I. (310-345 cm; ca. 8.2-9.4 ka BP)”. Do similar changes with swopping the ages and core depths so they appear in right order everywhere in the text.

P9, line 254: add “(unshown)” after the “agglutinated/calcareous ratio”

P9, line 256-258: “The benthic calcareous assemblage is dominated by C. reniforme (relative abundance on average 14 %), followed by S. horvathi (on average 12 %), E. clavatum (on average 11 %) and C. neoteretis (on average 9 %).” – where there any important accessory species?

P10, line 259: see my comment above regarding swopping the ages and core depths

P10, line 267:”..species Adercotryma glomerata significantly increases from 310 cm…” – based on figure 6 I cannot see any “significant” increase in A glomerata no matter how hard I try! So, I suggest to the authors to tone down this by removing word “significant” or to adjust the scale on A glomerata graph so it shows only 0-15% range with occasional peaks shown by axis break.

P10: Figure 6 – please add core depth and adjust axis width so it reflects the abundances visually. Also add a graph with respective changes for absolute abundances of those species.

P10, line 273: see my comment above regarding swopping the ages and core depths

P10, lines 275: “rises dramatically” – an increase from 1 to 7 % is not a dramatic increase. Please tone this statement down or change to “comes back to higher numbers”.

P10, lines 276-277: please add “Being present in abundances below 2% in ecozones I and II” to “Epistominella arctica increases…” Also remove “while the relative abundances of A. glomerata decrease” – as this is not visible from the Fig 6 as it looks now!

P10, line 278: see my comment above regarding swopping the ages and core depths in the title.

P10, line 279: please remove word “drastic”.  There are several instances in the record where calcareous benthics decrease but those are not mentioned.

P10, line 280: “…and increased relative abundances of E. arctica and Stainforthia feylingi.“ -Based on fig 5, S. feylingihas abundances quite similar to zones I and II but is not mentioned at all in the description of those.

P11, line 282: “..agglutinated species A. glomerata shows a drastic peak at the beginning of this ecozone.” – not just A glomerata but also R. fusiformis does the same and is worth mentioning here. Please add.

P11, line 283: “..Spiroplectammina biformis increase significantly compared to the previous interval.” – please consider changing to “Spiroplectammina biformis starts to increase as compared to the previous ecozones.

P11, line 284: see my comment above regarding swopping the ages and core depths in the title.

P 11, line 288: “..Saccamina difflugiformis shows a steep rise unique to this interval” – this species again has been present in other ecozones as well but is completely ignored in the description of those. Why?

P11, lines 296-313: This section needs to be completely rewritten and moved to the methods (see suggestion below). Note that all information containing interpretation needs to be moved to the discussion. You may want to keep the following information (copy pasted from the MS) and move that to the Methods rather than keeping this in the results: 

“In order to be able to describe the changes in water masses over time on the NE Greenland shelf, we place selected benthic calcareous foraminifera species into groupings that are based on environmental preferences of the species (Table A2 in appendices). The Atlantic Water group includes C. neoteretis and P. bulloides (e.g., Mackensen and Hald, 1988; Seidenkrantz 1995; Rytter et al., 2002; Jennings et al., 2004; 300 Jennings et al., 2011; Cage et al., 2021). The chilled Atlantic Water group includes I. norcrossi and M. barleeanum (e.g., Slubowska-Woldengen et al., 2007; Perner et al., 2011; Perner et al., 2015; Cage et al., 2021). The Arctic Water group includes S. horvathi and E. arctica (e.g., Green, 1960; Lagoe, 1979; Wollenburg and Mackensen, 305 1998; Jennings et al, 2020). Stainforthia feylingi is used here as a sea-ice edge indicator species that tolerates unstable conditions (Knudsen and Seidenkrantz, 1994; Seidenkrantz, 2013); its increase may refer to the location of a sea-ice margin at the study site. Moreover, we use in the interpretation the abundances of the agglutinated species A. glomerata, T. earlandi, T. torquata, S. biformis and S. difflugiformis, as those have been linked to specific water masses in the Arctic (e.g., Hald and Korsun, 1997; Jennings and Helgadottir, 1994; Korsun and Hald, 2000; Lloyd 2006; Perner et al., 2012; Perner et al., 2015, Wangner et al., 2018).

Discussion:

P12, lines 324-325: Please change: “the temperature profile” to “CTD profile”, “not exceeding” to “below” and “closer in character to that” to “closer in character to the water”

P13, line 326: please change “the site” to “our study site” and “but may also be due to wind-driven upwelling” to “but may also be present due to wind-driven upwelling

P13, lines 332-338: This section needs to be removed – see my major comment 7.

P13, line 339: please change “9.4-8.2” to 8.2-9.4”

P13, line 340: Before jumping into the discussion, you need to lead to it first based on what your data show. E.g. start with saying something like “ The AMS 14C dating places this core interval into the early Holocene, which based on our data and previous studies (Refs) is suggested to be dominated by colder climate conditions over the study site. This cold interval was characterized by….”

P13, line 342:  “Atlantic water indicator species” – please add “such as” and list those. Also change “points to” to “suggests”.

P13, line 349: please change “was also characterised” to “was also likely characterised”

P13, line 350: please add “and” between “foraminifera” and “the presence of E. arctica”

P14, line 370: please change “8.2-6.2” to “6.2-8.2”

P14, lines 373-375: “C. neoteretis and A. glomerata had their highest relative abundances during this interval…and P. bulloides appeared in the record after a long absence around 8 ka BP (Figs. 5 and 6), suggesting highly stable bottom waters (Rytter et al., 2002).”  “ - please spell out C. neoteretis fully or change to “Species C. neoteretis” (this applies to all species names at the start of a new sentence, as it is not correct to start a new sentence with an abbreviation). Also abundances of A. glomerata in zone II are not much higher than in zone 5, associated with Neoglaciation, so please change the statement about its highest abundances. As for P. bulloides – see my comment regarding its abundances <1%. The authors should discuss this and run a multivariate statistical analysis to see if this assemblage change is significant or not and add a discussion regarding this in the text.

P14, line 388: “..on the ME and SE Greenland shelf…” – what does abbreviation ME stands for? Please explain.

P14, line 391: please change “6.2-4.2” to “4.2-6.2” in the title

P15, line 407: please change “4.2-3.2” to “3.2-4.2” in the title

P15, line 431: please change “3.2-0.3” to “0.3-3.2”

Sections 6.3 and 6.4: This sections solely focus on findings of the others instead of putting own data into perspective of other studies. I suggest to move these sections to the introduction where they more naturally belong in their present form, otherwise the authors shall make an effort in answering the question how their own data fit into other studies they give an overview to herein. Go back to your aim. What are your data telling you about dynamics of the water masses you aimed to reconstruct? E.g. was EGC weaker or stronger? What does this mean for AMOC and climate in the Arctic (based on other studies)? What are future implications of those changes (again based on other studies)? As for now the authors treat their own data separately from other studies and this makes the last two sections look a bit off place giving a feeling that those shall be moved to the introduction or included in a review paper on the topic.

Conclusions:

This section contains too much information in its present form and is difficult to read due to its bullet-point structure. I suggest condensing  conclusions, to present the most essential findings, again linking back to the hypothesis, aim and motivation of the study.