Direct and Indirect Drivers of Energy and Nutrient Availability in Freshwater Ecosystems Across Spatial Scales

Freshwater ecosystems reflect the landscapes in which they are embedded. The biogeochemistry of these systems is fundamentally linked to climate and watershed processes that control fluxes of water and the mobilization of energy and nutrients imprinting as variation in stream water chemistry. Disentangling these processes is difficult as they operate at multiple scales varying across space. We examined the relative importance of climate, soil, and watershed characteristics in mediating direct and indirect pathways that influence carbon and nitrogen availability in streams and rivers across spatial scales. Our data set comprised landscape and climatic variables and 37,995 chemistry measurements of carbon and nitrogen across 459 streams and rivers spanning the continental United States. Models explained a small fraction of carbon and nitrogen concentrations at the continental scale (25% and 6%, respectively) but 61% and 40%, respectively, at smaller spatial scales. Hydrometeorological processes were always important in mediating the availability of solutes but the mechanistic implications were variable across spatial scales. The influence of hydrometeorology on concentrations was often not direct, rather it was mediated by soil characteristics for carbon and watershed characteristics for nitrogen. For example, the seasonality of precipitation was often important in determining carbon concentrations through its influence on soil moisture at biogeoclimatic spatial scales, whereas it had a direct influence on concentrations at the continental scale. Our results suggest that hydrometeorological forcing remains the consistent driver of energy and nutrient concentrations but the mechanism influencing patterns varies across broad spatial scales.

[1]  A. Harpold,et al.  Climate Controls on River Chemistry , 2022, Earth's Future.

[2]  W. McDowell,et al.  Climate Variability Drives Watersheds Along a Transporter‐Transformer Continuum , 2021, Geophysical Research Letters.

[3]  Jeremy B. Jones,et al.  Shifting stoichiometry: Long‐term trends in stream‐dissolved organic matter reveal altered C:N ratios due to history of atmospheric acid deposition , 2021, Global change biology.

[4]  Kristen L. Underwood,et al.  Streams as Mirrors: Reading Subsurface Water Chemistry From Stream Chemistry , 2021, Water Resources Research.

[5]  Jeremy B. Jones,et al.  Gradients of Anthropogenic Nutrient Enrichment Alter N Composition and DOM Stoichiometry in Freshwater Ecosystems , 2021, Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

[6]  S. Reed,et al.  Five Decades of Observed Daily Precipitation Reveal Longer and More Variable Drought Events Across Much of the Western United States , 2021, Geophysical Research Letters.

[7]  K. Williams,et al.  Hysteresis Patterns of Watershed Nitrogen Retention and Loss Over the Past 50 years in United States Hydrological Basins , 2021, Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

[8]  Jiquan Chen.  Biophysical Models and Applications in Ecosystem Analysis , 2021 .

[9]  N. Basu,et al.  Is the River a Chemostat?: Scale Versus Land Use Controls on Nitrate Concentration‐Discharge Dynamics in the Upper Mississippi River Basin , 2020, Geophysical Research Letters.

[10]  W. McDowell,et al.  Dissolved Organic Carbon and Nitrate Concentration‐Discharge Behavior Across Scales: Land Use, Excursions, and Misclassification , 2020, Water Resources Research.

[11]  C. Yackulic,et al.  Quantifying the demographic vulnerabilities of dry woodlands to climate and competition using range-wide monitoring data , 2020, bioRxiv.

[12]  A. V. Vecchia,et al.  Landscape Drivers of Dynamic Change in Water Quality of U.S. Rivers. , 2020, Environmental science & technology.

[13]  R. Evershed,et al.  Variation in dissolved organic matter (DOM) stoichiometry in U.K. freshwaters: Assessing the influence of land cover and soil C:N ratio on DOM composition , 2019, Limnology and Oceanography.

[14]  B. Engel,et al.  Runoff Response to Soil Moisture and Micro-topographic Structure on the Plot Scale , 2019, Scientific Reports.

[15]  P. Raymond,et al.  Generality of Hydrologic Transport Limitation of Watershed Organic Carbon Flux Across Ecoregions of the United States , 2018, Geophysical Research Letters.

[16]  S. Tank,et al.  Beyond respiration: Controls on lateral carbon fluxes across the terrestrial‐aquatic interface , 2018 .

[17]  J. Knowles,et al.  Surface and subsurface water contributions to streamflow from a mesoscale watershed in complex mountain terrain , 2018 .

[18]  M. Pace,et al.  Freshwater salinization syndrome on a continental scale , 2018, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[19]  Martyn P. Clark,et al.  The CAMELS data set: catchment attributes and meteorology for large-sample studies , 2017 .

[20]  A. M. Michalak,et al.  Eutrophication will increase during the 21st century as a result of precipitation changes , 2017, Science.

[21]  W. McDowell,et al.  Critical zone structure controls concentration‐discharge relationships and solute generation in forested tropical montane watersheds , 2017 .

[22]  S. Hobbie,et al.  Contrasting nitrogen and phosphorus budgets in urban watersheds and implications for managing urban water pollution , 2017, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[23]  Amy J. Burgin,et al.  Weather whiplash in agricultural regions drives deterioration of water quality , 2017, Biogeochemistry.

[24]  K. V. Van Meter,et al.  Time lags in watershed-scale nutrient transport: an exploration of dominant controls , 2016 .

[25]  Susie R. Wu,et al.  Applications of structural equation modeling (SEM) in ecological studies: an updated review , 2016, Ecological Processes.

[26]  M. Rode,et al.  Disentangling the influence of hydroclimatic patterns and agricultural management on river nitrate dynamics from sub-hourly to decadal time scales. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[27]  T. Kätterer,et al.  Preferential Transport in Macropores is Reduced by Soil Organic Carbon , 2016 .

[28]  D. Hannah,et al.  Using multi-tracer inference to move beyond single-catchment ecohydrology , 2016 .

[29]  J. Canadell,et al.  The nitrogen legacy: emerging evidence of nitrogen accumulation in anthropogenic landscapes , 2016 .

[30]  Walter K. Dodds,et al.  Nitrogen, phosphorus, and eutrophication in streams , 2016 .

[31]  A. Rinaldo,et al.  Storage selection functions: A coherent framework for quantifying how catchments store and release water and solutes , 2015 .

[32]  Nico Eisenhauer,et al.  From patterns to causal understanding: Structural equation modeling (SEM) in soil ecology , 2015 .

[33]  J. Read,et al.  Ecosystem Consequences of Changing Inputs of Terrestrial Dissolved Organic Matter to Lakes: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges , 2015, Ecosystems.

[34]  Roland Eils,et al.  circlize implements and enhances circular visualization in R , 2014, Bioinform..

[35]  D. Schindler,et al.  Temperature sensitivity of community respiration rates in streams is associated with watershed geomorphic features , 2014 .

[36]  Heejun Chang,et al.  Spatial Analysis of Annual Runoff Ratios and their Variability Across the Contiguous U.S. , 2014 .

[37]  Robert Horton,et al.  Regional-scale variation and distribution patterns of soil saturated hydraulic conductivities in surface and subsurface layers in the loessial soils of China , 2013 .

[38]  Marko Sarstedt,et al.  Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM): An emerging tool in business research , 2014 .

[39]  Gene E. Likens,et al.  Trends in stream nitrogen concentrations for forested reference catchments across the USA , 2013 .

[40]  D. Ketchen.  A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling , 2013 .

[41]  D. Engstrom,et al.  Climate-induced changes in lake ecosystem structure inferred from coupled neo- and paleoecological approaches. , 2012, Ecology.

[42]  Kate Maher,et al.  The role of fluid residence time and topographic scales in determining chemical fluxes from landscapes , 2011 .

[43]  S. Carpenter,et al.  Strong evidence for terrestrial support of zooplankton in small lakes based on stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[44]  Carolien Kroeze,et al.  Global river nutrient export: A scenario analysis of past and future trends , 2010 .

[45]  M. Shao,et al.  Spatial Distributions of Soil Surface-Layer Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity and Controlling Factors on Dam Farmlands , 2010 .

[46]  N. Griffiths,et al.  A review of allochthonous organic matter dynamics and metabolism in streams , 2010, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.

[47]  Samuel M. Scheiner,et al.  On the specification of structural equation models for ecological systems. , 2010 .

[48]  Andreas Richter,et al.  The boundless carbon cycle , 2009 .

[49]  H. Bormann,et al.  Seasonal and land use dependent variability of soil hydraulic and soil hydrological properties of two Northern German soils , 2008 .

[50]  W. Dodds.  Trophic state, eutrophication and nutrient criteria in streams. , 2007, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[51]  G. McGregor,et al.  Integrating climate-hydrology-ecology for alpine river systems , 2007 .

[52]  Noah Fierer,et al.  Environmental controls on the landscape-scale biogeography of stream bacterial communities. , 2007, Ecology.

[53]  Veerle Vanacker,et al.  Restoring dense vegetation can slow mountain erosion to near natural benchmark levels , 2007 .

[54]  J. Downing,et al.  Plumbing the Global Carbon Cycle: Integrating Inland Waters into the Terrestrial Carbon Budget , 2007, Ecosystems.

[55]  S. Carpenter,et al.  Differential support of lake food webs by three types of terrestrial organic carbon. , 2006, Ecology letters.

[56]  C. Goodale,et al.  The influence of climate on average nitrogen export from large watersheds in the Northeastern United States , 2006 .

[57]  C. Duarte,et al.  Prevalence of Heterotrophy and Atmospheric CO2 Emissions from Aquatic Ecosystems , 2005, Ecosystems.

[58]  Eric Post,et al.  LARGE‐SCALE SPATIAL GRADIENTS IN HERBIVORE POPULATION DYNAMICS , 2005 .

[59]  G. Pinay,et al.  Linking hydrology and biogeochemistry in complex landscapes , 2004 .

[60]  G. Asner,et al.  Nitrogen Cycles: Past, Present, and Future , 2004 .

[61]  W. McDowell,et al.  Merging aquatic and terrestrial perspectives of nutrient biogeochemistry , 2003, Oecologia.

[62]  P. Gong,et al.  Soil Diversity and Land Use in the United States , 2003, Ecosystems.

[63]  Daniel R. Miller,et al.  Effects of post-wildfire erosion on channel environments, Boise River, Idaho , 2003 .

[64]  D. McKnight,et al.  Trace Organic Moieties of Dissolved Organic Material in Natural Waters , 2003 .

[65]  N. Grimm,et al.  Carbon and nitrogen transfer from a desert stream to riparian predators , 2002, Oecologia.

[66]  M. Murakami,et al.  Reciprocal subsidies: dynamic interdependence between terrestrial and aquatic food webs. , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[67]  M. Power.  Prey exchange between a stream and its forested watershed elevates predator densities in both habitats. , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[68]  Shigeru Nakano,et al.  TERRESTRIAL–AQUATIC LINKAGES: RIPARIAN ARTHROPOD INPUTS ALTER TROPHIC CASCADES IN A STREAM FOOD WEB , 1999 .

[69]  C. Mock.  Climatic Controls and Spatial Variations of Precipitation in the Western United States , 1996 .

[70]  R. Qualls,et al.  Biodegradability of Dissolved Organic Matter in Forest Throughfall, Soil Solution, and Stream Water , 1992 .

[71]  J. Ward,et al.  The Four-Dimensional Nature of Lotic Ecosystems , 1989, Journal of the North American Benthological Society.

[72]  G. Minshall,et al.  The River Continuum Concept , 1980 .

[73]  H. B. N. Hynes,et al.  The stream and its valley , 1975 .

[74]  Peter M. Vitousek,et al.  Ecosystem Succession and Nutrient Retention: A Hypothesis , 1975 .

[75]  G. Likens,et al.  Linkages between Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecosystems , 1974 .

[76]  W. C. Krumbein.  : Factors of Soil Formation: A System of Quantitative Pedology , 1942 .