We appreciate the comments of Horacek et al. on our publication about African timber tracing (Vlam et al., 2018). In short, our results showed that the geographic origin of Tali timber could be inferred from genetic characteristics (DNA), but not from chemical characteristics obtained from measurements of 3 stable isotopes. Horacek et al. claim that the latter result was due to project design and not to the isotopic method. While we acknowledge some of advices by Horacek et al., our study design was well suitable to test the application of stable isotopes. It just did not work for the isotopes studied – carbon, oxygen and nitrogen – and at the small geographic ranges included in our study. Our results do not support, nor do we want to suggest, the conclusion that stable isotopes are not useful to perform timber tracing. Rather, we have shown for this species and at the sampled forest concessions, that stable isotopes of carbon oxygen and nitrogen do not allow differentiation and therefore offer no potential for chemical tracing.

中文翻译：

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热带木材示踪和稳定同位素：对 Horacek 等人的回应。

我们感谢 Horacek 等人的评论。关于我们关于非洲木材追踪的出版物（Vlam 等人，2018 年）。简而言之，我们的结果表明，大理木材的地理来源可以从遗传特征 (DNA) 推断出来，但不能从通过测量 3 种稳定同位素获得的化学特征推断出来。霍拉塞克等人。声称后者的结果是由于项目设计而不是同位素方法。虽然我们承认 Horacek 等人的一些建议，但我们的研究设计非常适合测试稳定同位素的应用。它只是不适用于研究的同位素——碳、氧和氮——以及我们研究中包括的小地理范围。我们的结果不支持，也不想暗示稳定同位素对进行木材追踪没有用的结论。相当，