In Arctic catchments, bacterioplankton are dispersed through soils and streams, both of which freeze and thaw/flow in phase, seasonally. To characterize this dispersal and its potential impact on biogeochemistry, we collected bacterioplankton and measured stream physicochemistry during snowmelt and after vegetation senescence across multiple stream orders in alpine, tundra, and tundra-dominated-by-lakes catchments. In all catchments, differences in community composition were associated with seasonal thaw, then attachment status (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change is causing larger wildfires and more extreme precipitation events in many regions. As these ecological disturbances increasingly coincide, they alter lateral fluxes of sediment, organic matter, and nutrients. Here, we report the stream chemistry response of watersheds in a semiarid region of Utah (USA) that were affected by a megafire followed by an extreme precipitation event in October 2018.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman modification of water and nutrient flows has resulted in widespread degradation of aquatic ecosystems. The resulting global water crisis causes millions of deaths and trillions of USD in economic damages annually. Semiarid regions have been disproportionately affected because of high relative water demand and pollution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStream bacterioplankton communities, a crucial component of aquatic ecosystems and surface water quality, are shaped by environmental selection (i.e., changes in taxa abundance associated with more or less favorable abiotic conditions) and passive dispersal (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRiverine fluxes of carbon and inorganic nutrients are increasing in virtually all large permafrost-affected rivers, indicating major shifts in Arctic landscapes. However, it is currently difficult to identify what is causing these changes in nutrient processing and flux because most long-term records of Arctic river chemistry are from small, headwater catchments draining <200 km or from large rivers draining >100,000 km. The interactions of nutrient sources and sinks across these scales are what ultimately control solute flux to the Arctic Ocean.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImbalances in C:N:P supply ratios may cause bacterial resource limitations and constrain biogeochemical processes, but the importance of shifts in soil stoichiometry are complicated by the nearly limitless interactions between an immensely rich species pool and a multiple chemical resource forms. To more clearly identify the impact of soil C:N:P on bacteria, we evaluated the cumulative effects of single and coupled long-term nutrient additions (i.e.
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