Response to Editor to the comment by Schipper & Smith to our paper entitled "Continuous soil carbon storage of old permanent pastures in Amazonia"

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Fontaine, Sébastien | Stahl, Clement | Klumpp, Katja | Picon-Cochard, Catherine | Grise, Marcia Mascarenha | Dezécache, Camille | Ponchant, Lise | Freycon, Vincent | Blanc, Lilian | Bonal, Damien | Burban, Benoît | Soussana, Jean-François | Blanfort, Vincent, V. | Alvarez, Gaël

Edité par CCSD ; Wiley -

International audience. First of all, we recall that the message conveyed in our paper is that Amazonian forest and old tropical pastures act as C sinks by accumulating recurrently (continuously) C in biomass and soil. We do not support the idea that deforestation increases soil C as suggested in the title of Schipper and Smith comment. In our study, pasture C sink was estimated by two independent methods: eddy covariance measurements (Eddy) and a 36-years chronosequence analyzing soil organic C stock to a depth of 100 cm (Chrono). Both methods provide evidence that pastures ≥24 years can restore all or part of C sink of Amazonian forest if sustainable management is applied. Realizing that old pastures accumulate C is crucial in the Amazonian context where pastures are currently replaced by intensive crops (e.g. soybean) inducing a possible loss of this C sink.

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