Release of CO2 and CH4 from lakes and drainage ditches in temperate wetlands

Shallow fresh water bodies in peat areas are important contributors to greenhouse gas fluxes to the atmosphere. In this study we determined the magnitude of CH4 and CO2 fluxes from 12 water bodies in Dutch wetlands during the summer season and studied the factors that might regulate emissions of CH4 and CO2 from these lakes and ditches. The lakes and ditches acted as CO2 and CH4 sources of emissions to the atmosphere; the fluxes from the ditches were significantly larger than the fluxes from the lakes. The mean greenhouse gas flux from ditches and lakes amounted to 129.1 ± 8.2 (mean ± SE) and 61.5 ± 7.1 mg m-2 h-1 for CO2 and 33.7 ± 9.3 and 3.9 ± 1.6 mg m-2 h-1 for CH4, respectively. In most water bodies CH4 was the dominant greenhouse gas in terms of warming potential. Trophic status of the water and the sediment was an important factor regulating emissions. By using multiple linear regression 87% of the variation in CH4 could be explained by PO4 3- concentration in the sediment and Fe2+ concentration in the water, and 89% of the CO2 flux could be explained by depth, EC and pH of the water. Decreasing the nutrient loads and input of organic substrates to ditches and lakes by for example reducing application of fertilizers and manure within the catchments and decreasing upward seepage of nutrient rich water from the surrounding area will likely reduce summer emissions of CO2 and CH4 from these water bodie

Denitrification in ditches, streams and shallow lakes

Het Nederlandse oppervlaktewater wordt sterk belast met stikstof. Dit is afkomstig uit de landbouw, maar ook van industrie, verkeer en huishoudens. Door het teveel aan stikstof verslechtert de waterkwaliteit. In ondiepe meren leidt dit bijvoorbeeld tot overmatige algengroei met zuurstofloosheid en vissterfte tot gevolg. Denitrificatie, de omzetting van de stikstofverbinding nitraat naar stikstofgas, is een natuurlijk proces dat stikstof uit oppervlaktewater verwijdert

Effects of aquatic vegetation type on denitrification

In a microcosm 15N enrichment experiment we tested the effect of floating vegetation (Lemna sp.) and submerged vegetation (Elodea nuttallii) on denitrification rates, and compared it to systems without macrophytes. Oxygen concentration, and thus photosynthesis, plays an important role in regulating denitrification rates and therefore the experiments were performed under dark as well as under light conditions. Denitrification rates differed widely between treatments, ranging from 2.8 to 20.9 µmol N m-2 h-1, and were strongly affected by the type of macrophytes present. These differences may be explained by the effects of macrophytes on oxygen conditions. Highest denitrification rates were observed under a closed mat of floating macrophytes where oxygen concentrations were low. In the light, denitrification was inhibited by oxygen from photosynthesis by submerged macrophytes, and by benthic algae in the systems without macrophytes. However, in microcosms with floating vegetation there was no effect of light, as the closed mat of floating plants caused permanently dark conditions in the water column. Nitrate removal was dominated by plant uptake rather than denitrification, and did not differ between systems with submerged or floating plant

A mathematical framework for critical transitions: normal forms, variance and applications

Critical transitions occur in a wide variety of applications including mathematical biology, climate change, human physiology and economics. Therefore it is highly desirable to find early-warning signs. We show that it is possible to classify critical transitions by using bifurcation theory and normal forms in the singular limit. Based on this elementary classification, we analyze stochastic fluctuations and calculate scaling laws of the variance of stochastic sample paths near critical transitions for fast subsystem bifurcations up to codimension two. The theory is applied to several models: the Stommel-Cessi box model for the thermohaline circulation from geoscience, an epidemic-spreading model on an adaptive network, an activator-inhibitor switch from systems biology, a predator-prey system from ecology and to the Euler buckling problem from classical mechanics. For the Stommel-Cessi model we compare different detrending techniques to calculate early-warning signs. In the epidemics model we show that link densities could be better variables for prediction than population densities. The activator-inhibitor switch demonstrates effects in three time-scale systems and points out that excitable cells and molecular units have information for subthreshold prediction. In the predator-prey model explosive population growth near a codimension two bifurcation is investigated and we show that early-warnings from normal forms can be misleading in this context. In the biomechanical model we demonstrate that early-warning signs for buckling depend crucially on the control strategy near the instability which illustrates the effect of multiplicative noise.Comment: minor corrections to previous versio

Algal response to nutrient enrichment in a forested oligotrophic stream

Nutrient input in streams alters the density and species composition of attached algal communities in open systems. However, in forested streams, the light reaching the streambed (rather than the local nutrient levels) may limit the growth of these communities. A nutrient-enrichment experiment in a forested oligotrophic stream was performed to test the hypothesis that nutrient addition has only minor effects on the community composition of attached algae and cyanobacteria under light limitation. Moderate nutrient addition consisted of increasing basal phosphorus (P) concentrations 3-fold and basal nitrogen (N) concentrations 2-fold. Two upstream control reaches were compared to a downstream reach before and after nutrient addition. Nutrients were added continuously to the downstream reach for 1¿year. Algal biofilms growing on ceramic tiles were sampled and identified for more than a year before nutrient addition to 12¿months after. Diatoms were the most abundant taxonomic group in the three stream reaches. Nutrient enrichment caused significant variations in the composition of the diatom community. While some taxa showed significant decreases (e.g., Achnanthes minutissima, Gomphonema angustum), increases for other taxa (such as Rhoicosphenia abbreviata and Amphora ovalis) were detected in the enriched reach (for taxonomic authors, see Table 2). Epiphytic and adnate taxa of large size were enhanced, particularly during periods of favorable growth conditions (spring). Nutrients also caused a change in the algal chl a, which increased from 0.5-5.8 to 2.1-10.7¿¿g¿chl · cm¿2. Our results indicate that in oligotrophic forested streams, long-term nutrient addition has significant effects on the algal biomass and community composition, which are detectable despite the low light availability caused by the tree canopy. Low light availability moderates but does not detain the long-term tendency toward a nutrient-tolerant community. Furthermore, the effects of nutrient addition on the algal community occur in spite of seasonal variations in light, water flow, and water chemical characteristics, which may confound the observations