Statistics for Spatial Data.

Because freshwater covers such a small fraction of the Earth’s surface area, inland freshwater ecosystems (particularly lakes, rivers, and reservoirs) have rarely been considered as potentially important quantitative components of the carbon cycle at either global or regional scales. By taking published estimates of gas exchange, sediment accumulation, and carbon transport for a variety of aquatic systems, we have constructed a budget for the role of inland water ecosystems in the global carbon cycle. Our analysis conservatively estimates that inland waters annually receive, from a combination of background and anthropogenically altered sources, on the order of 1.9 Pg C y−1 from the terrestrial landscape, of which about 0.2 is buried in aquatic sediments, at least 0.8 (possibly much more) is returned to the atmosphere as gas exchange while the remaining 0.9 Pg y−1 is delivered to the oceans, roughly equally as inorganic and organic carbon. Thus, roughly twice as much C enters inland aquatic systems from land as is exported from land to the sea. Over prolonged time net carbon fluxes in aquatic systems tend to be greater per unit area than in much of the surrounding land. Although their area is small, these freshwater aquatic systems can affect regional C balances. Further, the inclusion of inland, freshwater ecosystems provides useful insight about the storage, oxidation and transport of terrestrial C, and may warrant a revision of how the modern net C sink on land is described.

/pdf/plumbing-the-global-carbon-cycle-integrating-inland-waters-1enndt5kqx.pdf

Plumbing the Global Carbon Cycle: Integrating Inland Waters into the Terrestrial Carbon Budget

Instead of containing stable and chemically unique ‘humic substances’, as has been widely accepted, soil organic matter is a mixture of progressively decomposing organic compounds; this has broad implications for soil science and its applications. The exchange of nutrients, energy and carbon between soil organic matter, the soil environment, aquatic systems and the atmosphere is important for agricultural productivity, water quality and climate. Long-standing theory suggests that soil organic matter is composed of inherently stable and chemically unique compounds. Here we argue that the available evidence does not support the formation of large-molecular-size and persistent ‘humic substances’ in soils. Instead, soil organic matter is a continuum of progressively decomposing organic compounds. We discuss implications of this view of the nature of soil organic matter for aquatic health, soil carbon–climate interactions and land management. Soil organic matter contains a large portion of the world's carbon and plays an important role in maintaining productive soils and water quality. Nevertheless, a consensus on the nature of soil organic matter is lacking. Johannes Lehmann and Markus Kleber argue that soil organic matter should no longer be seen as large and persistent, chemically unique substances, but as a continuum of progressively decomposing organic compounds.

The contentious nature of soil organic matter

We explore the role of lakes in carbon cycling and global climate, examine the mechanisms influencing carbon pools and transformations in lakes, and discuss how the metabolism of carbon in the inland waters is likely to change in response to climate. Furthermore, we project changes as global climate change in the abundance and spatial distribution of lakes in the biosphere, and we revise the estimate for the global extent of carbon transformation in inland waters. This synthesis demonstrates that the global annual emissions of carbon dioxide from inland waters to the atmosphere are similar in magnitude to the carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans and that the global burial of organic carbon in inland water sediments exceeds organic carbon sequestration on the ocean floor. The role of inland waters in global carbon cycling and climate forcing may be changed by human activities, including construction of impoundments, which accumulate large amounts of carbon in sediments and emit large amounts of methane to the atmosphere. Methane emissions are also expected from lakes on melting permafrost. The synthesis presented here indicates that (1) inland waters constitute a significant component of the global carbon cycle, (2) their contribution to this cycle has significantly changed as a result of human activities, and (3) they will continue to change in response to future climate change causing decreased as well as increased abundance of lakes as well as increases in the number of aquatic impoundments.

/pdf/lakes-and-reservoirs-as-regulators-of-carbon-cycling-and-1nvh2w013k.pdf

Lakes and reservoirs as regulators of carbon cycling and climate

Communities of microscopic plant life, or phytoplankton, dominate the Earth's aquatic ecosystems. This important new book by Colin Reynolds covers the adaptations, physiology and population dynamics of phytoplankton communities in lakes and rivers and oceans. It provides basic information on composition, morphology and physiology of the main phyletic groups represented in marine and freshwater systems and in addition reviews recent advances in community ecology, developing an appreciation of assembly processes, co-existence and competition, disturbance and diversity. Although focussed on one group of organisms, the book develops many concepts relevant to ecology in the broadest sense, and as such will appeal to graduate students and researchers in ecology, limnology and oceanography.

/pdf/the-ecology-of-phytoplankton-4ev70n3jsq.pdf

The Ecology of Phytoplankton

Terrestrial ecosystems in the humid tropics play a potentially important but presently ambiguous role in the global carbon cycle. Whereas global estimates of atmospheric CO2 exchange indicate that the tropics are near equilibrium or are a source with respect to carbon, ground-based estimates indicate that the amount of carbon that is being absorbed by mature rainforests is similar to or greater than that being released by tropical deforestation (about 1.6 Gt C yr-1). Estimates of the magnitude of carbon sequestration are uncertain, however, depending on whether they are derived from measurements of gas fluxes above forests or of biomass accumulation in vegetation and soils. It is also possible that methodological errors may overestimate rates of carbon uptake or that other loss processes have yet to be identified. Here we demonstrate that outgassing (evasion) of CO2 from rivers and wetlands of the central Amazon basin constitutes an important carbon loss process, equal to 1.2 +/- 0.3 Mg C ha-1 yr-1. This carbon probably originates from organic matter transported from upland and flooded forests, which is then respired and outgassed downstream. Extrapolated across the entire basin, this flux-at 0.5 Gt C yr-1-is an order of magnitude greater than fluvial export of organic carbon to the ocean. From these findings, we suggest that the overall carbon budget of rainforests, summed across terrestrial and aquatic environments, appears closer to being in balance than would be inferred from studies of uplands alone.

http://boto.ocean.washington.edu/lc/RIVERS/119_richey_je_416-617-620.pdf

Outgassing from Amazonian rivers and wetlands as a large tropical source of atmospheric CO2.

We investigated the influences of forest or pasture land use and stream size on particulate and dissolved material concentrations in a network of second to third order streams in Rondonia, in the Brazilian Amazon During the dry season, a second order stream originating in pasture had lower concentrations of dissolved oxygen and nitrate, higher concentrations of chlorophyll, total suspended solids, particulate organic carbon, particular organic nitrogen, ammonium, and phosphate than a second order stream originating in forest Where the second order forest stream exited forest and entered pasture, concentrations of dissolved oxygen dropped from 6 mg/L to almost 0 mg/L and nitrate concentrations dropped from 12 μM to 2 μM over a reach of 2 km These changes indicated a strong influence of land use During the rainy season, differences among reaches of all particulate and dissolved materials were diminished Concentrations of oxygen, chlorophyll, total suspended solids, particulate organic carbon and nitrogen, nitrate, ammonium, and phosphate in the third order pasture stream more closely resembled the second order forest stream than the second order pasture stream, suggesting that conditions in the channels of larger pasture streams more strongly control concentrations of these materials If this pattern is widespread in stream networks of regions that consist of a mosaic of forest and pasture lands, it may have important consequences for understanding the effects of deforestation on larger rivers of the Amazon Basin This would indicate that the effects of forest clearing on the concentrations of many suspended and dissolved materials will be most easily detected in very small streams but potentially difficult to detect in larger streams and rivers

Influences of land use and stream size on particulate and dissolved materials in a small Amazonian stream network

We investigated how clearing of the tropical rainforest for cattle pasture along small, terra firme lowland streams in the Brazilian Amazon influenced stream hydraulic characteristics, solute concentrations and uptake of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. Measurements of stream channel structure, hydraulic properties and nutrient uptake were obtained from short-term conservative and non-conservative solute injections and an in-stream transport model in two watersheds with pairs of similar-sized forest and pasture streams in Rondonia. The pasture stream channels were deeper and had a lower cover of sandy bottom habitat and a higher cover of aquatic grass habitat than the forest streams. The pasture streams had larger transient storage zones, higher ratios of transient to channel storage and a shorter hydraulic uptake length than the forest streams. The pasture streams had lower concentrations of dissolved oxygen and NO3− and higher concentrations of dissolved Fe2+. Forest streams exhibited no NO3− uptake, but one pasture stream took up NO3− while the other did not. Uptake of NH4+ was low and variable among streams. Uptake velocities and rates of PO43− were greater in pasture streams compared to those in forest streams. In all streams, uptake lengths for NO3−, NH4+ and PO43− were long and indicated generally lower rates of uptake than in most comparably sized temperate forest streams. Uptake lengths or velocities were not correlated with stream transient storage, suggesting that other factors, such as hypoxia in pasture streams, controlled nutrient uptake. The structural differences are typical for the region, suggesting that deforestation may be altering stream hydrology and biogeochemistry over many thousands of kilometres of primary and secondary stream channels in the Amazon Basin. A better understanding of the extent and distribution of altered hydraulic and biogeochemical function in small streams is required to assess the importance of these changes for larger river networks in the Amazon basin. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Deforestation alters the hydraulic and biogeochemical characteristics of small lowland Amazonian streams

In the Amazon basin, seasonal and interannual spectral changes measured by satellites result from anthropogenic disturbance and from the interaction between climate variation and the surface cover. Measurements of spectral change, and the characterization of that change, provide information concerning the physical processes evident at this mesoscale. A 17-yr sequence of daily Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) global area coverage (GAC) images were analyzed to produce a monthly record of surface spectral change encompassing El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles. Monthly cloud-free composite images from daily AVHRR data were produced by linear filters that minimized the finescale spatial variance and allowed for a wide range analysis within a consistent mathematical framework. Here the use of a minimized local variance (MLV) filter that produced spatially smooth images in which major land-cover boundaries and spatial gradients are clearly represented is discussed. Changes in the...

/pdf/detection-of-mesoscale-seasonal-and-interannual-variation-in-42u8tv2kun.pdf

Victoria M. Ballester

Papers

Outgassing from Amazonian rivers and wetlands as a large tropical source of atmospheric CO2.

Influences of land use and stream size on particulate and dissolved materials in a small Amazonian stream network

Deforestation alters the hydraulic and biogeochemical characteristics of small lowland Amazonian streams

Detection of Mesoscale Seasonal and Interannual Variation in the Vegetation of the Amazon Basin