July 19, 2002

 

Dr. Monica Turner

Ecosystems Editorial Office

University of Wisconsin

Department of Zoology, Birge Hall

430 Lincoln Drive

Madison, WI 53706

 

Re: Soil Carbon Dynamics following Forest Harvest: An Ecosystem Paradigm Reconsidered (MS# 020152)

 

Dear Dr. Turner,

 

Enclosed please find two paper copies and one disk copy of our revised manuscript. 

 

Our responses to the reviewers' few comments are detailed as follows.

 

Reviewer #1

 

The first five comments are exclamations of amazement, not suggestions for revision.

 

p. 24, para 3:  We revised our presentation of the review by Johnson and Curtis (2001) to say that some studies reported increases and others decreases; the average overall effects were slight.

 

p. 25, bottom: We added a statement about the value of long-term soil sampling studies. 

 

Reviewer #2

 

This reviewer had only one suggestion, which was to shorten the manuscript by about 1/4.  Believe it or not, this document was once much longer, and after 33 revisions (we number the documents) by 3 authors, we found only modest opportunities remaining for additional cuts.  These amounted to about 8% of the length of the paper.

 

I have to say that this is about the nicest set of reviews I have ever received, which is fitting because it was the best collective writing experience I have ever had.

 

Thank you for your facilitation of the process.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

 

Ruth Yanai