River ecosystem metabolism and carbon biogeochemistry in a changing world.

River networks represent the largest biogeochemical nexus between the continents, ocean and atmosphere. Our current understanding of the role of rivers in the global carbon cycle remains limited, which makes it difficult to predict how global change may alter the timing and spatial distribution of riverine carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions. Here we review the state of river ecosystem metabolism research and synthesize the current best available estimates of river ecosystem metabolism. We quantify the organic and inorganic carbon flux from land to global rivers and show that their net ecosystem production and carbon dioxide emissions shift the organic to inorganic carbon balance en route from land to the coastal ocean. Furthermore, we discuss how global change may affect river ecosystem metabolism and related carbon fluxes and identify research directions that can help to develop better predictions of the effects of global change on riverine ecosystem processes. We argue that a global river observing system will play a key role in understanding river networks and their future evolution in the context of the global carbon budget.

Can Common Pool Resource Theory Catalyze Stakeholder-Driven Solutions to the Freshwater Salinization Syndrome?

Freshwater salinity is rising across many regions of the United States as well as globally, a phenomenon called the freshwater salinization syndrome (FSS). The FSS mobilizes organic carbon, nutrients, heavy metals, and other contaminants sequestered in soils and freshwater sediments, alters the structures and functions of soils, streams, and riparian ecosystems, threatens drinking water supplies, and undermines progress toward many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There is an urgent need to leverage the current understanding of salinization's causes and consequences─in partnership with engineers, social scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders─into locally tailored approaches for balancing our nation's salt budget. In this feature, we propose that the FSS can be understood as a common pool resource problem and explore Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom's social-ecological systems framework as an approach for identifying the conditions under which local actors may work collectively to manage the FSS in the absence of top-down regulatory controls. We adopt as a case study rising sodium concentrations in the Occoquan Reservoir, a critical water supply for up to one million residents in Northern Virginia (USA), to illustrate emerging impacts, underlying causes, possible solutions, and critical research needs.

Global change-driven effects on dissolved organic matter composition: Implications for food webs of northern lakes.

Northern ecosystems are experiencing some of the most dramatic impacts of global change on Earth. Rising temperatures, hydrological intensification, changes in atmospheric acid deposition and associated acidification recovery, and changes in vegetative cover are resulting in fundamental changes in terrestrial-aquatic biogeochemical linkages. The effects of global change are readily observed in alterations in the supply of dissolved organic matter (DOM)-the messenger between terrestrial and lake ecosystems-with potentially profound effects on the structure and function of lakes. Northern terrestrial ecosystems contain substantial stores of organic matter and filter or funnel DOM, affecting the timing and magnitude of DOM delivery to surface waters. This terrestrial DOM is processed in streams, rivers, and lakes, ultimately shifting its composition, stoichiometry, and bioavailability. Here, we explore the potential consequences of these global change-driven effects for lake food webs at northern latitudes. Notably, we provide evidence that increased allochthonous DOM supply to lakes is overwhelming increased autochthonous DOM supply that potentially results from earlier ice-out and a longer growing season. Furthermore, we assess the potential implications of this shift for the nutritional quality of autotrophs in terms of their stoichiometry, fatty acid composition, toxin production, and methylmercury concentration, and therefore, contaminant transfer through the food web. We conclude that global change in northern regions leads not only to reduced primary productivity but also to nutritionally poorer lake food webs, with discernible consequences for the trophic web to fish and humans.

Whole-stream 13C tracer addition reveals distinct fates of newly fixed carbon.

Many estimates of freshwater carbon (C) fluxes focus on inputs, processing, and storage of terrestrial C; yet inland waters have high rates of internally fixed (autochthonous) C production. Some fraction of newly fixed C may be released as biologically available, dissolved organic C (DOC) and stimulate microbial-driven biogeochemical cycles soon after fixation, but the fate of autochthonous C is difficult to measure directly. Tracing newly fixed C can increase our understanding of fluxes and fate of autochthonous C in the context of freshwater food webs and C cycling. We traced autochthonous C fixation and fate using a dissolved inorganic C stable isotope addition (13C(DIC)). We added 13C(DIC) to North Fork French Creek, Wyoming, USA during two days in August. We monitored changes in 13C pools, fluxes, and storage for 44 d after the addition. Two-compartment flux models were used to quantify net release of newly fixed 13C(DOC) and 13C(DIC) into the water column. We compared net 13C fixation with tracer 13C(DIC) removal and gross primary production (GPP) to account for the mass of tracer fixed, released, lost to the atmosphere, and exported downstream. Much of the fixed C turned over rapidly and did not enter longer-term storage pools. Net C fixed was 70% of GPP measured with O2. Algae likely released the remaining 30% via 13C(DOC) exudation and respiration of newly fixed C. Primary producers released 13C(DOC) at rates of up to 16% per day during the 13C addition, but exudation of new labile C declined to near zero by day 6. DIC production from newly fixed C accounted for 21% of ecosystem respiration the day after the 13C addition. All measured organic C (OC) pools were enriched with 13C 1 d after the tracer addition. 20% of fixed 13C remained in benthic OC by day 44, and average residence time of autochthonous C in benthic OC was 62 d. Newly fixed C had two distinct fates: short-term (< 1 week) exudation and respiration or longer-term storage and downstream export. Autochthonous C in streams likely fuels short-term microbial production and biogeochemical cycling, in addition to providing a longer-term resource for consumers.

Linking calcification by exotic snails to stream inorganic carbon cycling.

Biotic calcification is rarely considered in freshwater C budgets, despite calculations suggesting that calcifying animals can alter inorganic C cycling. Most studies that have quantified biocalcification in aquatic ecosystems have not directly linked CO(2) fluxes from biocalcification with whole-ecosystem rates of inorganic C cycling. The freshwater snail, Melanoides tuberculata, has achieved a high abundance and 37.4 g biomass m(-2) after invading Kelly Warm Springs in Grand Teton National Park. This high biomass suggests that introduced populations of Melanoides may alter ecosystem processes. We measured Melanoides growth rates and biomass to calculate the production of biomass, shell mass, and CO(2). We compared Melanoides biomass and inorganic C production with ecosystem C pools and fluxes, as well as with published rates of CO(2) production by other calcifying organisms. Melanoides calcification in Kelly Warm Springs produced 12.1 mmol CO(2) m(-2) day(-1) during summer months. We measured high rates of gross primary productivity and respiration in Kelly Warm Springs (-378 and 533 mmol CO(2) m(-2) day(-1), respectively); CO(2) produced from biocalcification increased net CO(2) production in Kelly Warm Springs from 155 to 167 mmol CO(2) m(-2) day(-1). This rate of CO(2) production via biocalcification is within the published range of calcification by animals. But these CO(2) fluxes are small when compared to ecosystem C fluxes from stream metabolism. The influence of animals is relative to ecosystem processes, and should always be compared with ecosystem fluxes to quantify the importance of a specific animal in its environment.

Author Correction: Carbon dioxide stimulates lake primary production.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Carbon dioxide stimulates lake primary production.

Gross primary production (GPP) is a fundamental ecosystem process that sequesters carbon dioxide (CO2) and forms the resource base for higher trophic levels. Still, the relative contribution of different controls on GPP at the whole-ecosystem scale is far from resolved. Here we show, by manipulating CO2 concentrations in large-scale experimental pond ecosystems, that CO2 availability is a key driver of whole-ecosystem GPP. This result suggests we need to reformulate past conceptual models describing controls of lake ecosystem productivity and include our findings when developing models used to predict future lake ecosystem responses to environmental change.