Abiotic controls and temporal variability of river metabolism: multiyear analyses of Mississippi and Chattahoochee River data

• DOI: 10.1899/13-018.1
• Publication Date: 2013-08-27T13:37:15Z
• Authors: Walter K. Dodds; Allison M. Veach; Claire M. Ruffing; Danelle M. Larson; Jason L. Fischer; Katie H. Costigan
• Keywords: 13. Climate action; 15. Life on land; 01 natural sciences; 6. Clean water; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

AbstractWhole-ecosystem metabolism is an important indicator of the role of organic matter, C cycling, and trophic structure in rivers. Ecosystem metabolism is well studied in small streams, but less is known about metabolism in large rivers. We estimated daily whole-ecosystem metabolism over 2 y for 1 site each at the Mississippi and Chattahoochee Rivers in the USA to understand factors influencing temporal patterns of ecosystem metabolism. We estimated rates of gross primary production (GPP), community respiration (CR), and net ecosystem production (NEP) with a curve-fitting approach with publicly available discharge (Q), dissolved O2, temperature, and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) data. Models were run for week-long blocks, and power analyses suggested that rates should be established at least once for each 10-wk period throughout the year to characterize annual rates of metabolism accurately in these 2 rivers. We analyzed weekly rates averaged over 10-wk periods with Spearman rank correlat...