Publications by authors named "Matthew N Waters"

Nutrient enrichment and climate change promote algal blooms, leading to many lakes being characterized as eutrophic (i.e., green) worldwide.

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Article Synopsis
  • Reservoirs in river networks play a crucial role in nitrogen processing, with factors like water residence time significantly influencing nitrogen deposition and transformation.
  • The study examined sediment cores from eight reservoirs in contrasting watersheds—one urbanized and regulated, the other rural and unregulated—to assess the relationship between sediment nitrogen concentrations and residence time, along with other parameters.
  • Findings indicated a strong correlation between longer residence times and increased nitrogen deposition due to enhanced algal uptake, with drought conditions further extending residence times and potentially elevating sediment nitrogen levels by 2.5-4%.
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Nano-porous aerogels are an advantageous approach to produce low-density materials with high surface area, particularly when using biobased materials. Frequently, most biobased aerogels are synthesized through a bottom-up approach, which requires high energy inputs to break and rebuild the raw materials, and for elimination of water. To curb this, this work focused on generating aerogels by a top-down approach through the delignification of a wood substrate while eliminating water by solvent exchange.

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Human-induced deforestation and soil erosion were environmental stressors for the ancient Maya of Mesoamerica. Furthermore, intense, periodic droughts during the Terminal Classic Period, ca. Common Era 830 to 950, have been documented from lake sediment cores and speleothems.

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With the increasing need for bio-based materials developed by environmentally friendly procedures, this work shows a green method to develop shape-controlled structures from cellulose dissolving pulp coated by chitosan. This material was then tested to adsorb a common and widespread pollutant, 2,4-dichlorophenol under different pH conditions (5.5 and 9).

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Nutrient recycling by consumers can strongly impact nutrient availability for autotrophic and heterotrophic microbes, thus impacting functions such as primary production and decomposition. Filter-feeding freshwater mussels form dense, multispecies assemblages in aquatic ecosystems and have been shown to play a critical role in nutrient cycling. Mussel excretion can enhance benthic primary production and influence algal species composition.

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Cyanobacterial metabolites are increasingly studied, in regards to their biosynthesis, ecological role, toxicity, and potential biomedical applications. However, the history of cyanotoxins prior to the last few decades is virtually unknown. Only a few paleolimnological studies have been undertaken to date, and these have focused exclusively on microcystins and cylindrospermopsins, both successfully identified in lake sediments up to 200 and 4700 years old, respectively.

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Recent studies have shown that sediments of temperate and tropical lakes are sinks for organic carbon (OC), but little is known about OC burial in subtropical lakes. There are questions regarding the ability of subtropical lakes to store OC, given their relatively warmwater temperatures, lack of ice cover, frequent water-column mixing, and labile carbon forms. We used 210Pb-dated sediment cores from 11 shallow Florida (USA) lakes to estimate OC burial, i.

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The publication contained a dating model that was based on AD/BC dates instead of years before present (YBP) dates for the three C AMS values. As a result, dates reported as YBP should be reported as BC. While all of the dates for the prescribed burning period are correct given that they were based on the Pb model, all dates reported as YBP should read BC.

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Prescribed fire is a common management practice for forests and other terrestrial environments. Following a prescribed burn, ash erodes into aquatic environments potentially altering terrestrial-aquatic connectivity and water quality. In this study, we collected a sediment core from Ocean Pond, FL, USA, a lake that has received fire ash from decades of prescribed burning events.

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There is concern that accelerating sea-level rise will exceed the vertical growth capacity of coastal-wetland substrates in many regions by the end of this century. Vertical vulnerability estimates rely on measurements of accretion and/or surface-elevation-change derived from soil cores and/or surface elevation tables (SETs). To date there has not been a broad examination of whether the multiple timescales represented by the processes of accretion and elevation change are equally well-suited for quantifying the trajectories of wetland vertical change in coming decades and centuries.

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Urbanization, agriculture, and other land transformations can affect water quality, decrease species biodiversity, and increase metal and nutrient concentrations in aquatic systems. Metal pollution, in particular, is a reported consequence of elevated anthropogenic inputs, especially from urbanized areas. The objectives of this study were to quantify metal (Cu, Al, Cd, Ni, and Pb) concentrations in the waters and biota of four streams in South Georgia, USA, and relate metal concentrations to land use and abiotic and biotic stream processes.

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Anthocyanins in upper (adaxial) leaf tissues provide greater photoprotection than in lower (abaxial) tissues, but also predispose tissues to increased shade acclimation and, consequently, reduced photosynthetic capacity. Abaxial anthocyanins may be a compromise between these costs/benefits. Plants adapted to shaded understory environments often exhibit red/purple anthocyanin pigmentation in lower (abaxial) leaf surfaces, but rarely in upper (adaxial) surfaces.

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Carbon stable isotopes (δ(13)C) of particulate organic matter (POM) have been used as indicators for energy flow, primary productivity and carbon dioxide concentration in individual lakes. Here, we provide a synthesis of literature data from 32 freshwater lakes around the world to assess the variability of δ(13)C(POM) along latitudinal, morphometric and biogeochemical gradients. Seasonal mean δ(13)C(POM), a temporally integrated measure of the δ(13)C(POM), displayed weak relationships with all trophic state indices [total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and chlorophyll a (Chl a)], but decreased significantly with the increase in latitude, presumably in response to the corresponding decrease in water temperature and increase in CO(2) concentration.

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Liver samples from 33 wild American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) livers from the Charleston, South Carolina, area were analyzed for arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and selenium (Se) concentrations. Alligators are top predators and are considered a good biomonitoring species for various toxins, including heavy metals. Alligators from other areas in the US have shown high concentrations of mercury and other heavy metals, but the Charleston area, which is highly industrialized, has not been investigated.

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