Back to Search Start Over

Heat Waves Alter Macrophyte-Derived Detrital Nutrients Release under Future Climate Warming Scenarios

Heat Waves Alter Macrophyte-Derived Detrital Nutrients Release under Future Climate Warming Scenarios

Authors :
Li, Zhongqiang
Xu, Zhiyan
Yang, Yujing
Stewart, Rebecca I. A.
Urrutia Cordero, Pablo
He, Liang
Zhang, Huan
Hansson, Lars-Anders
Li, Zhongqiang
Xu, Zhiyan
Yang, Yujing
Stewart, Rebecca I. A.
Urrutia Cordero, Pablo
He, Liang
Zhang, Huan
Hansson, Lars-Anders
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

In addition to a rise in global air and water mean temperatures, extreme climate events such as heat waves are increasing in frequency, intensity, and duration in many regions of the globe. Developing a mechanistic understanding of the impacts of heat waves on key ecosystem processes and how they differ from just an increase in mean temperatures is therefore of utmost importance for adaptive management against effects of global change. However, little is known about the impact of extreme events on freshwater ecosystem processes, particularly the decomposition of macrophyte detritus. We performed a mesocosm experiment to evaluate the impact of warming and heat waves on macrophyte detrital decomposition, applied as a fixed increment (+4 degrees C) above ambient and a fluctuating treatment with similar energy input, ranging from 0 to 6 degrees C above ambient (i.e., simulating heat waves). We showed that both warming and heat waves significantly accelerate dry mass loss of the detritus and carbon (C) release but found no significant differences between the two heated treatments on the effects on detritus dry mass loss and C release amount. This suggests that moderate warming indirectly enhanced macrophyte detritus dry mass loss and C release mainly by the amount of energy input rather than by the way in which warming was provided (i.e., by a fixed increment or in heat waves). However, we found significantly different amounts of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) released between the two warming treatments, and there was an asymmetric response of N and P release patterns to the two warming treatments, possibly due to species-specific responses of decomposers to short-term temperature fluctuations and litter quality. Our results conclude that future climate scenarios can significantly accelerate organic matter decomposition and C, N, and P release from decaying macrophytes, and more importantly, there are asymmetric alterations in macrophyte-derived detrital N and P release

Details

Database :
OAIster
Notes :
English
Publication Type :
Electronic Resource
Accession number :
edsoai.on1280662107
Document Type :
Electronic Resource
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1021.acs.est.1c00884