Quantification of carbon sequestration in soils following pasture to forest conversion in northwestern Ecuador

We studied the changes in soil carbon contents when pastures are converted to either secondary forest or plantation forest in north‐western Ecuador. At 40 sites within the region, paired pasture and forest plots were compared. We related the observed soil carbon concentrations, stocks, and changes (in the 0–0.25 m and 0.25–0.5 m layers) to land use history, climate, and soil characteristics. Variation in carbon concentrations over sites in volcanic soils could be well predicted for both pastures (R 2 = 0.96) and forests (R 2 = 0.93) on the basis of soil mineralogy, while for sedimentary soils, clearly less variation could be explained (R 2 = 0.14 for pastures and 0.39 for forests). The dominant factor explaining changes in carbon stocks following pasture to forest conversion was pasture age. Forests, paired with pastures less than 10 years old, had on average 9.3 Mg ha −1 less soil carbon than the pastures, while forests paired with pastures between 20 and 30 years old had on average 18.8 Mg ha −1 more soil carbon and forest paired with pastures older than 30 years had on average 15.8 Mg ha −1 more carbon than the pastures. In this region, reforestation of old pastures will generally lead to an increase of soil carbon stocks. These results can be used for optimal site selection for carbon sequestration projects and for including soil carbon in the estimated benefits of these projects.