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Biophysical controls on organic carbon fluxes in fluvial networks

Nature Geoscience volume 1, pages 95–100 (2008)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 20 July 2009

This article has been updated

Abstract

Metabolism of terrestrial organic carbon in freshwater ecosystems is responsible for a large amount of carbon dioxide outgassing to the atmosphere, in contradiction to the conventional wisdom that terrestrial organic carbon is recalcitrant and contributes little to the support of aquatic metabolism. Here, we combine recent findings from geophysics, microbial ecology and organic geochemistry to show geophysical opportunity and microbial capacity to enhance the net heterotrophy in streams, rivers and estuaries. We identify hydrological storage and retention zones that extend the residence time of organic carbon during downstream transport as geophysical opportunities for microorganisms to develop as attached biofilms or suspended aggregates, and to metabolize organic carbon for energy and growth. We consider fluvial networks as meta-ecosystems to include the acclimation of microbial communities in downstream ecosystems that enable them to exploit energy that escapes from upstream ecosystems, thereby increasing the overall energy utilization at the network level.

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Figure 1: Heuristic concept of downstream changes of channel geomorphology, geophysical opportunity and microbial lifestyles.

Change history

  • 20 July 2009

    In the version of this of this Progress Article originally published, Table 1 was incorrect and subsequently the values of global fluvial respiration and global net heterotrophy reported in text were incorrect. These errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Kenneth Bencala, Robert Runkel and Björn Gücker for making available data from tracer experiments. Patrick J. Mulholland, Robert Hall, Jeff Houser, Urs Ühlinger and Walter Dodds provided data on whole-ecosystem metabolism. Wilfred F. Wollheim, Balazs M. Feteke and Charles Vörösmarty generously made available unpublished data on stream and river surface area. Our work in this area is supported by the FWF (P16935-B03, S10005-B17) and ESF (I43-B06) to T.J.B., NSF (DEB-0516516, EAR 0450331) to L.A.K., NSF (OCE-0423565, DEB-0614282, BCS-0709685) to C.S.H., NSF (EAR-0408744) to A.I.P. and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science to E.M. T.J.B. and A.I.P. are affiliates of NSF EAR-0636043.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Freshwater Ecology, University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, Vienna, A-1090, Austria

    Tom J. Battin

  2. WasserCluster Lunz, Lunz am See, A-9232, Austria

    Tom J. Battin

  3. Stroud Water Research Center, 970 Spencer Road, Avondale, 19311, Pennsylvania, USA

    Louis A. Kaplan & J. Denis Newbold

  4. Institute of Ecosystem Studies, 65 Sharon Turnpike, Millbrook New York, 12545-0129, USA

    Stuart Findlay

  5. Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, 02543, Massachusetts, USA

    Charles S. Hopkinson

  6. Centre d'Estudis Avangats de Blanes, CSIC, Acces a la Cala St. Francesc, 14 Blanes, Spain

    Eugenia Marti

  7. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, 60208-3109, Illinois, USA

    Aaron I. Packman

  8. Department of Ecology, University of Barcelona, Avda. Diagonal 645, Barcelona, 08028, Spain

    Francesc Sabater

Authors
  1. Tom J. Battin
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  2. Louis A. Kaplan
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Contributions

T.J.B. initiated, conceived and coordinated the paper; L.A.K. contributed to the concept and writing; C.S.H. contributed the estuarine part; A.I.P. and J.D.N. contributed the description of solute transport dynamics; S.F., E.M. and F.S. contributed the opportunity, capacity and performance concept.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tom J. Battin.

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Battin, T., Kaplan, L., Findlay, S. et al. Biophysical controls on organic carbon fluxes in fluvial networks. Nature Geosci 1, 95–100 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo101

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