In freshwater ecosystems, phosphorus (P) is often considered a growth-limiting nutrient. The use of fertilizers on agricultural fields has led to runoff-driven increases in P availability in streams, and the subsequent eutrophication of downstream ecosystems. Isolated storms and periodic streambed dredging are examples of two common disturbances that contribute dissolved and particulate P to agricultural

Soil organic nitrogen (N) is a critical resource for plants and microbes, but the processes that govern its cycle are not well-described. To promote a holistic understanding of soil N dynamics, we need an integrated model that links soil organic matter (SOM) cycling to bioavailable N in both unmanaged and managed landscapes, including agroecosystems. We present a framework that unifies recent conceptual

Intensive management practices in large-scale oil palm plantations can slow down nutrient cycling and alter other soil functions. Thus, there is a need to reduce management intensity without sacrificing productivity. The aim of our study was to investigate the effect of management practices on gross rates of soil N cycling and soil fertility. In Jambi province, Indonesia, we established a management

We evaluated long-term trends and seasonal variations in the major physical–chemical properties of the circum-neutral Slapy reservoir (Vltava, Czech Republic) from 1960 to 2019. Mean annual water temperature increased by 2.1 °C, flow maxima shifted by ~ 13 days from the early April to mid-March, and the onset of thermal stratification of water column and spring algal peaks advanced by 19 and 21 days

Mercury is a global pollutant of critical concern but its movement through terrestrial upland systems is poorly understood. We investigated whether forest harvesting practices and varying hydrological conditions resulted in different subsurface transport pathways, fluxes and proportions of recent vs. ambient mercury in runoff. In a multiyear field experiment, we measured subsurface lateral mercury

Soil organic matter (SOM) stocks, decomposition and persistence are largely the product of controls that act locally. Yet the controls are shaped and interact at multiple spatiotemporal scales, from which macrosystem patterns in SOM emerge. Theory on SOM turnover recognizes the resulting spatial and temporal conditionality in the effect sizes of controls that play out across macrosystems, and couples

Human actions through land-use can alter soil phosphorus (P) distribution over time and space as vegetation is altered and added fertilizer P is translocated downslopes by runoff and erosion, or through the soil profile by leaching. In the southeastern US Piedmont, a more than 100-year period of human land-use of forest clearing and farming, which included P fertilization, caused severe surface erosion

Soil redox conditions exert substantial influence on biogeochemical processes in terrestrial ecosystems. Humid tropical forest soils are often characterized by fluctuating redox, yet how these dynamics affect patterns of organic matter decomposition and associated CO2 fluxes remains poorly understood. We used a 13C-label incubation experiment in a humid tropical forest soil to follow the decomposition

Aboveground litter not only is an important source of nutrients to soil microbes but also regulates the microclimate in topsoil. How the changes in aboveground litter quantity would affect the microbial biogeochemical cycles is still unclear. Here we conducted a litter input manipulation experiment in a temperate mixed forest to investigate how different amounts of litter input affect soil organic

Freshwater salinization is an emerging global problem impacting safe drinking water, ecosystem health and biodiversity, infrastructure corrosion, and food production. Freshwater salinization originates from diverse anthropogenic and geologic sources including road salts, human-accelerated weathering, sewage, urban construction, fertilizer, mine drainage, resource extraction, water softeners, saltwater

The impacts of changes in rainfall regimes and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition on the biogeochemical cycles of tropical dry forests (TDF) remain unclear. To analyze whether amounts of mean annual rainfall (1240 mm year−1 in subhumid vs. 642 mm year−1 in semiarid forests) and rates of atmospheric N deposition affect the N cycle in TDF, we examined N concentrations in (i) green leaves, (ii) forest

Geochemical indicators are emerging as important predictors of soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics, but evidence concerning the role of calcium (Ca) is scarce. This study investigates the role of Ca prevalence in SOC accumulation by comparing otherwise similar sites with (CaCO3-bearing) or without carbonates (CaCO3-free). We measured the SOC content and indicators of organic matter quality (C stable

Pollen shedding can produce rapid, abundant exchanges of nutrient-rich biomass from plant canopies to the surface. When pollen deposits onto understory plants, it can be washed off during storms via throughfall (a drip flux) and stemflow (a flux down plant stems). Pollen deposition may also alter the organismal community on plant surfaces, changing other biological particulates transported by throughfall

To identify the soil carbon stock changes from croplands/grasslands to forestlands in Japan, we compared the soil carbon stock of a cropland/grassland with that of an adjacent forestland at 22 different sites. With respect to a 0–30-cm depth basis, the soil carbon stock in the cropland/grassland was the same as that in the forestland; however, it was less than that in the forestland when an equivalent

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-021-00785-9

The restoration of drained afforested peatlands, through drain blocking and tree removal, is increasing in response to peatland restoration targets and policy incentives. In the short term, these intensive restoration operations may affect receiving watercourses and the biota that depend upon them. This study assessed the immediate effect of ‘forest-to-bog’ restoration by measuring stream and river

Soil organic carbon (SOC) constitutes an important reservoir in the global carbon cycle that is vulnerable to transformation and loss from land use and climate change. Anoxic conditions protect SOC from microbial degradation through limiting the energetics of respiration and inhibiting extracellular oxidative enzymes. Given growing evidence of prevalent anaerobic microsites in upland soils, we designed

Many forest soils are acidic and have very low plant-available pools of magnesium. Past and present sylvicultural, nutritional and/or climatic pressures endured by forest ecosystems can result in net losses of nutrients and ecosystem function losses. Liming with a carbonate product is an alternative to counteract these degradations but the effects of liming on the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients

Anthropogenic nutrient inputs fuel eutrophication and hypoxia ([O2] < 2 mg L−1), threatening coastal and near shore environments across the globe. The world’s second largest anthropogenic coastal hypoxic zone occurs annually along the Louisiana (LA) shelf. Springtime loading of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) from the Mississippi River, combined with summertime stratification and increased water

In many watersheds, nitrogen (N)-fixing alder (Alnus spp.) provides key nutrient subsidies to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The importance of these subsidies may increase as alder cover expands under climate warming at high latitudes. We assessed how landscape features and meteorological conditions affect aquatic N and phosphorus (P) availability and stoichiometry in 26 streams across natural

Methane emissions from plants in wetlands are mainly due to internal transport, from the anoxic soil layers where methane is produced, to the atmosphere. This pathway has not yet been clearly demonstrated for upland forest vegetation, where methane can be produced in deep soil layers. We developed a new method to trace methane transfer from the deep soil. We conducted a 13CH4 pulse labelling at 40-cm

Photodegradation helps explain why leaf litter mass loss rates are comparable between mesic environments and drylands, despite water availability limiting decomposer activity in drylands. With photodegradation, light energy directly mineralizes photoreactive organic molecules such as lignin, which contrasts with biotically-driven decomposition where lignin persists in decomposing leaf litter relative

The hydrogen isotopic composition of leaf wax–derived n-alkane (δ2Hn-alkane) and oxygen isotopic composition of hemicellulose–derived sugar (δ18Osugar) biomarkers are valuable proxies for paleoclimate reconstructions. Here, we present a calibration study along the Bale Mountains in Ethiopia to evaluate how accurately and precisely the isotopic composition of precipitation is imprinted in these biomarkers

Globally, water bodies adjacent to mangroves are considered significant sources of atmospheric CO2. We directly measured the partial pressure of CO2 in water [pCO2(water)] and related biogeochemical parameters with high temporal resolution, covering both diel and tidal cycles, in the mangrove-surrounding waters around the northern Bay of Bengal during the post-monsoon season. Mean pCO2(water) was marginally

Pyrogenic organic carbon (PyC) is a complex, heterogeneous class of thermally altered organic substrates, but its dynamics and how its behavior changes with soil depth remain poorly understood. We conducted a laboratory incubation study to investigate the interactive effects of pyrolysis temperature and soil depth on the turnover of PyC compared to its precursor wood and native SOC (NSOC). We incubated

Sequestering carbon (C) into stable soil pools has potential to mitigate increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Carbon accrues in grassland soil restored from cultivation, but the amount of physically protected C (here measured as microaggregate-within-macroaggregate C) and predominant mechanisms of accrual are not well understood. We modeled the rate of physically protected carbon accrued

Soil carbon diversity can be an important property for the stability of soil carbon. A problem is the lack of techniques for measuring this diversity. I suggest here the use of a combination of a general statistical principle, MAXimum ENTropy (MaxEnt), and a mechanistic model of organic matter decomposition, the Q model. The Q model provides the temporal development of the average carbon quality of

Legumes that possess the capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen (N) via symbiotic N2 fixation are widely considered to have the potential to regulate ecosystem N cycling. However, the N dynamics of those N2-fixing species in response to changes of climatic, edaphic and biotic factors are not well-understood, especially for alpine plants that are particularly susceptible to climate change. In this work

Lotic and lentic ecosystems are traditionally viewed as dominated by either benthic or water column processes. However, mid-sized rivers represent a transition zone where both benthic and water column processes may both contribute substantially to ecosystem dynamics. Ecosystem processes such as gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration (ER), or nutrient uptake, and the relative contribution

While soil organic carbon (C) is the foundation of productive and healthy ecosystems, the impact of the ecology of microorganisms on C-cycling remains unknown. We manipulated the diversity, applied here as species richness, of the microbial community present in similar soils on two contrasting land-covers—an adjacent pasture and forest—and observed the transformations of plant detritus and soil organic

Phenol oxidases are a group of extracellular enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of lignin and phenolic compounds in soil organic matter. Despite their importance, little is known about these enzymes in tropical soils, particularly the extent to which minerals like manganese (Mn) oxides contribute to the measured activity. We assayed phenol oxidase activity in surface and subsurface (A and B) horizons

Whether net primary productivity in an aquatic ecosystem is limited by nitrogen (N), limited by phosphorus (P), or co-limited by N & P is determined by the relative supply of N and P to phytoplankton compared to their elemental requirements for primary production, often characterized by the “Redfield” ratio. The supply of these essential nutrients is affected by both external inputs and biogeochemical

The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) export from land to ocean via rivers is a significant term in the global C cycle, and has been modified in many areas by human activity. DOC exports from large global rivers are fairly well quantified, but those from smaller river systems, including those draining oceanic regions, are generally under-represented in global syntheses. Given that these regions typically

The availability of dissolved inorganic and organic nutrients and their transformations along the fresh to marine continuum are being modified by various natural and anthropogenic activities and climate-related changes. Subtropical central and eastern Florida Bay, located at the southern end of the Florida peninsula, is classically considered to have inorganic nutrient conditions that are in higher-than-Redfield

Despite some well-documented drawbacks, the acetylene reduction assay (ARA) remains one of the most widespread methods for measuring biological nitrogen (N2) fixation (BNF) in symbiotic and free-living niches due to its low cost, simplicity, and high throughput potential. Because ARA measures a proxy reaction (the reduction of acetylene to ethylene by the nitrogenase enzyme), a conversion ratio (‘R

The effects of deposited nitrogen (N) on forest ecosystems largely depend on the amount of N retained in the ecosystems and its partitioning among ecosystem pools. However, our understanding of the capacity of tropical plantations to retain deposited N is limited. To evaluate the retention of deposited N in a human-disturbed pine plantation in southern China and compare the result with previous findings

A series of abiotic processes affected by salinity changes involve light-mediated reactions and different degradation pathways of organic compounds, including altered photo-oxidation, photo-degradation, and photolysis of organic matter (OM). Sunlight is known to degrade, oxidize, or mineralize dissolved organic matter (DOM) in waterways, creating large changes in compositional structure of DOM near

Spectroscopy is a powerful means of increasing the availability of soil data necessary for understanding carbon cycling in a changing world. Here, we develop a calibration transfer methodology to appropriately apply an existing mid infrared (MIR) spectral library with analyte data on the distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) into particulate (POC), mineral-associated (MAOC), and pyrogenic (PyC)

The rarity of rapid campaigns to characterize soils across scales limits opportunities to investigate variation in soil carbon stocks (SOC) storage simultaneously at large and small scales, with and without site-level replication. We used data from two complementary campaigns at 40 sites in the United States across the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), in which one campaign sampled profiles

Wetlands host anaerobic microbes which convert organic carbon into methane (CH4), a powerful greenhouse gas. Wetland plants can influence which carbon compounds are available for microbial processing by exuding freshly fixed carbon from their roots. Exudation of carbon from plant roots can trigger microbial priming: the process of new carbon stimulating the microbial community into processing more

Quantifying the upper limit of stable soil carbon storage is essential for guiding policies to increase soil carbon storage. One pool of carbon considered particularly stable across climate zones and soil types is formed when dissolved organic carbon sorbs to minerals. We quantified, for the first time, the potential of mineral soils to sorb additional dissolved organic carbon (DOC) for six soil orders

Changes in litter and nutrient inputs into soil could have significant consequences on forest carbon (C) dynamics via controls on the structure and microbial utilization of soil organic C (SOC). In this study, we assessed changes in physical fractions (250–2000 μm, 53–250 μm, and < 53 μm soil aggregates) and chemical fractions (labile, intermediate and recalcitrant pools) of SOC in the top 20 cm mineral

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is recognized for its importance in freshwater ecosystems, but historical reliance on DOM quantity rather than indicators of DOM composition has led to an incomplete understanding of DOM and an underestimation of its role and importance in biogeochemical processes. A single sample of DOM can be composed of tens of thousands of distinct molecules. Each of these unique

Carbon use efficiency—the proportion of substrate carbon that is converted to microbial biomass—is an important control on many ecosystem properties including carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling. Although CUE varies widely across terrestrial ecosystems, a coherent understanding of edaphic controls on CUE is lacking, thereby limiting the accuracy of global carbon models. The objective of this

Changes in the landscape pattern can disturb legacy nitrogen (N) release by influencing hydrological and biogeochemical processes; thus, understanding the effects of landscape patterns on riverine N exports from legacy sources is critical for preparing water quality improvement strategies. In this study, an empirical statistical model that incorporates the net anthropogenic nitrogen input (NANI), runoff

Woody detritus (WD), created by mortality of trees and their associated parts, is an important component of forested ecosystems with roles in energy flow, hydrologic and geomorphologic processes as well as in carbon and nutrient cycling. Although likely to be increasingly important as forest systems respond to climatic and other human induced changes, WD-related science is just beginning relative to

The perhumid coastal temperate rainforest (PCTR) of northwestern North America is projected to become warmer and wetter in coming decades, with largely unquantified implications for the magnitude and speciation of riverine nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) export from PCTR ecosystems. We collected streamwater at weekly to monthly intervals for a year and intensively during two multi-day storms (one each

We used a simple “toy” model to aid in the evaluation of the controls of biogeochemical patterns along a climate gradient. The model includes simplified treatments of water balance (precipitation minus Potential Evapotranspiration), leaching, weathering of cation- and P-bearing minerals, N cycling and loss, biomass production, and biological N fixation. We use δ15N as a central integrator of biogeochemical

It is well established that land use change (LUC) can impact soil organic carbon (SOC) in tropical regions, but the long-term effects of LUC on soil quality and C cycling remain unclear. Here, we evaluated how LUC affects soil C cycling in the Amazon region using a 100-year observational chronosequence spanning primary forest-to-pasture conversion and subsequent secondary forest succession. We found

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the third most important long-lived greenhouse gas and agriculture is the largest source of N2O emissions. Curbing N2O emissions requires understanding influences on the flux and sources of N2O. We measured flux and evaluated microbial sources of N2O using site preference (SP; the intramolecular distribution of 15N in N2O) in flux chambers from a grassland tilling and agricultural

As an illustration of the usefulness of the concept of water-agro-food systems, this paper describes the mechanisms behind the nitrogen cascade from agricultural soils to the coastal sea rivers through aquifers, riparian wetlands, rivers and streams and the estuary, for the case study of the Seine river watershed and its receiving coastal sea. It is stressed that the structure of the agro-food system

Alteration in the availability of soil base cations and micronutrients is critical to maintain stable ecosystem functioning under the predicted global change scenarios. However, changes in these soil cations and their relationships with soil physiochemical properties along soil profile remain unclear under the combined increasing N deposition and precipitation changes. In this study, the concentrations

The biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are inextricably linked for a range of reactions. For coupled reactions such as denitrification to occur, however, solutes must be found together in space and time. Using the framework of concentration-discharge (c-Q) relationships, we examine the frequency of synchronous C and N export (i.e. identical c-Q behavior) across a river network using > 5 years

During wildfire season in the western US, fire retardant chemicals are dropped from aircraft in an effort to control the spread of fire. Fire retardant dropped on sites that are not actively burning results in exceptionally high soil nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) “fertilization” effect on wildland soils impacting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Herein, we used microdialysis to evaluate the short-term

The world’s largest five freshwater lakes include tropical meromictic, temperate weakly stratified, and temperate holomictic lakes ranging in age from twenty-five million to ~ 10,000 years old. They contain > 50% of Earth’s surface liquid freshwater and 15% of Earth’s lake-water dissolved organic carbon. Large lakes, however, are understudied in terms of carbon cycling, including the roles of dissolved

Lawns are a common ecosystem type in human-dominated landscapes which can have negative impacts on water quality due to fertilizer applications, but also host a range of ecosystem services. While many studies have addressed water and nitrogen (N) dynamics in lawns, few have considered how topography interacts with human behaviors to control these dynamics. Our overarching objective was to determine

Over the last 100 years a shifting human population has seen large proportions of people relocating from rural agricultural regions to urban and suburban areas. Extensive development within these modified lands has altered soils and natural vegetative cover which directly affects many biophysical processes. The current study examines over 4 years of continuous (i.e., hourly) CO2 measurements within

Forest canopy is a complex interface between the atmosphere, the biosphere and the lithosphere, exerting a strong influence on forest durability through element recycling. Leaves are filters of the low atmosphere and can capture dry deposition (DD). Trees have developed strategies, such as resorption (R) during senescence, for nutrient conservation. These strategies seem to depend on the soil type

The initial online publication contained typesetting mistakes in the author information. The original article has been corrected.