Effect of Revegetation in Extremely Degraded Grassland on Carbon Density in Alpine Permafrost Regions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have studied the "Effect of revegetation on ecosystem carbon density in the extremely degraded alpine grasslands". Alpine grasslands serve as a potential sink for carbon sequestration, at the same time, they are prone to degradation. The current study provided interesting results that these unique ecosystems can sequester significant amount of C if managed properly.

Although the MS is very well-designed and well written, I am curious about a few things: 

1. line 347-350 states that BAR in extremely degraded grasslands is higher than revegetated one due to poisonous weeds? What are the poisonous species encountered in these plots? and how they affect BBCD.... Please clarify.

2. Among the various soil physicochemical parameters measured, the authors didn't mention the value of soil bulk density (BD), since it's an important parameter and in alpine grasslands where trampling and grazing intensity prevails, may increase BD value.  It would have been interesting if a correlation was made between Soil C density and BD.

 

 

 

Author Response

Thanks very much for taking your time to review our manuscript entitled “Effect of revegetation in the extremely degraded grassland on carbon density in the alpine permafrost regions” [ID: sustainability-1906070]. The comments are valuable and very helpful for improving our work.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thanks very much for taking your time to review our manuscript entitled “Effect of revegetation in the extremely degraded grassland on carbon density in the alpine permafrost regions” [ID: sustainability-1906070]. The comments are valuable and very helpful for improving our work. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Excellent article, logical hypotheses, appropriate methodology, and clearly presented results.

I very appreciate the focus of the article, ecosystem carbon density is one of the most important indicators, especially in alpine permafrost regions. The authors approached this problem comprehensively investigating ABCD, BBCD and SOCD.

The topic is original and highly relevant and addresses the specific gap - so far little is known about the effect of revegetation in extremely degraded grassland on ECD.

The article will contribute both to a deeper understanding of ECD and concurrently to the knowledge of effect of the revegetation of degraded habitats.

I think the methodology is set out appropriately.

the conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and they address the main question posed.

The references are appropriate.

I have one minor comment:

Page 3: Table 1

 

Please sort the species in the column so that it is clear which species it is. For example, it is not clear whether A. nanschanica is Artemisia or Aconitum. It is ideal to sort the species alphabetically.

Author Response

Thanks very much for taking your time to review our manuscript entitled “Effect of revegetation in the extremely degraded grassland on carbon density in the alpine permafrost regions” [ID: sustainability-1906070]. The comments are valuable and very helpful for improving our work.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf