Response to Editor to the comment by Delarue (2016) to our paper entitled "Persistent high temperature and low precipitation reduce peat carbon accumulation"

In his Letter to Editor, Delarue (2016) suggests that our observation of increased microbial activity cannot adequately explain the observed changes in peat chemistry (Bragazza et al., 2016). Shortly, he argues that our interpretation of the results does not account for the plant cover dynamics, and/or the preferential decomposition of labile polysaccharides. Whilst Delarue (2016) raises an interesting point, below we demonstrate that his comments cannot explain the pattern in our data. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.