@article {4856, title = {Differentiating physical and biological storage of nitrogen along an intermittent Antarctic stream corridor}, journal = {Freshwater Science}, volume = {42}, year = {2023}, month = {09/2023}, abstract = {

In many temperate streams, biological uptake of N acts to attenuate the transport of excess N from allochthonous anthropogenic imports. Relatively few studies have determined how this N uptake relates to the magnitude of physical vs. biological N storage in the stream corridor, especially for intermittent systems where allochthonous N imports are often low and N transport may only occur during brief periods of streamflow. Glacial meltwater streams in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica provide an excellent setting to quantify autochthonous N cycling and storage processes supported by abundant algal mats and well-connected hyporheic zones. We combined historic point-scale sediment and periphyton sample datasets with remote sensing-based modeling of periphyton coverage to estimate how much N was stored in periphyton biomass and the hyporheic zone of a 5-km long McMurdo Dry Valley stream corridor (\>100,000 m2). We contextualized these N storage calculations by estimating the magnitude of annual N imports to and exports from the stream corridor based on \>2 decades of streamflow and surface water data, source glacier ice cores and meltwater data, and past studies of local aeolian deposition and biological N fixation rates. We found that in this highly oligotrophic system, stream corridor-scale N storage was ~1000x that of total annual N import or export fluxes. More than 90\% of this temporarily stored N was autochthonous organic matter in the shallow (\<10 cm) hyporheic zone, which acts as a reservoir that sustains N availability in the water column. Despite its location in a polar desert devoid of higher-order vegetation, area-normalized N storage (~40 g N/m2) was greater than that reported for streams at lower latitudes (~1\–22 g N/m2). We also demonstrated that NH4+ sorption to stream sediment may be an important physicochemical N storage mechanism that responds to short-term fluctuations in streamflow and governs the mobility of inorganic N. Altogether, this research illustrates the importance of quantifying N storage within stream corridors when evaluating the significance of internal cycling and physical retention processes that modulate N availability.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, hyporheic zone, McMurdo LTER, nitrogen cycling, nutrient budget, organic matter, periphyton}, issn = {2161-9549}, doi = {10.1086/725676}, url = {https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/725676}, author = {Singley, Joel G. and Salvatore, Mark R. and Michael N. Gooseff and Diane M. McKnight and Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley} } @article {4864, title = {Nitrogen fixation facilitates stream microbial mat biomass across the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica}, journal = {Biogeochemistry}, year = {2023}, month = {07/2023}, abstract = {

Nitrogen (N) fixation is a fundamental mechanism by which N enters streams. Yet, because of modern N saturation, it is difficult to study the importance of N-fixation to stream nutrient budgets. Here, we utilized relatively simple and pristine McMurdo Dry Valley streams to investigate the role of N-fixing Nostoc abundance, streamwater dissolved inorganic N (DIN) concentration, and distance from the source glacier in regulating the elemental and isotopic composition of three microbial mat types (black, orange, and green) at the landscape scale. We found Nostoc-based black mats were the most enriched in δ15N, and δ15N signatures of mats increased where Nostoc was abundant, but did not surpass the atmospheric standard (δ15N \≈ 0\‰). Furthermore, green and orange mat δ15N signatures became more depleted with increasing DIN, indicating that mats utilize glacial meltwater-sourced N when available. The distance from the source glacier explained limited variability in mat δ15N across sites, indicating the influence of individual stream characteristics on N spiraling. To further explore longitudinal N spiraling processes generating observed δ15Ν patterns, we developed a simple steady-state mathematical model. Analysis of plausible scenarios with this model confirmed that streams both have the capacity to remove allochthonous DIN over the plausible range of inputs, and that internal N sources are required to account for δ15N signatures and observed DIN concentrations at stream outlets. Collectively, these data and modeling results demonstrate that N-fixation exerts substantial influence within and across these streams, and is presumably dependent upon interconnected organic matter reserves, mineralization rates, and geomorphology.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, biofilm, C, cyanobacteria, hyporheic zone, MCM LTER, mineralization, N, P biogeochemistry}, doi = {10.1007/s10533-023-01069-0}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10533-023-01069-0}, author = {Tyler J. Kohler and Singley, Joel G. and Wlostowski, Adam and Diane M. McKnight} } @article {4586, title = {Diatoms in hyporheic sediments trace organic matter retention and processing in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica}, journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences}, volume = {126}, year = {2021}, month = {02/2021}, pages = {e2020JG006097}, abstract = {

In low-nutrient streams in cold and arid ecosystems, the spiraling of autochthonous particulate organic matter (POM) may provide important nutrient subsidies downstream. Because of its lability and the spatial heterogeneity of processing in hyporheic sediments, the downstream transport and fate of autochthonous POM can be difficult to trace. In Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valley (MDV) streams, any POM retained in the hyporheic zone is expected to be derived from surface microbial mats that contain diatoms with long-lasting silica frustules. We tested whether diatom frustules can be used to trace the retention of autochthonous POM in the hyporheic zone and whether certain geomorphic locations promote this process. The accumulation of diatom frustules in hyporheic sediments, measured as biogenic silica, was correlated with loss-on-ignition organic matter and sorbed ammonium, suggesting that diatoms can be used to identify locations where POM has been retained and processed over long timescales, regardless of whether the POM remains intact. In addition, by modeling the upstream sources of hyporheic diatom assemblages, we found that POM was predominantly derived from N-fixing microbial mats of the genus Nostoc. In terms of spatial variability, we conclude that the hyporheic sediments adjacent to the stream channel that are regularly inundated by daily flood pulses are where the most POM has been retained over long timescales. Autochthonous POM is retained in hyporheic zones of low-nutrient streams beyond the MDVs, and we suggest that biogenic silica and diatom composition can be used to identify locations where this transfer is most prevalent.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, benthic processes, biogenic silica, biogeochemical cycles processes and modeling, carbon cycling, diatoms, groundwater/surface water interactions, hyporheic zone, McMurdo Dry Valleys, nitrogen cycling, particulate organic matter}, doi = {10.1029/2020JG006097}, url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JG006097}, author = {Heindel, Ruth C and Darling, Joshua P. and Singley, Joel G. and Bergstrom, Anna J. and Diane M. McKnight and Lukkari, Braeden M. and Kathleen A. Welch and Michael N. Gooseff} } @article {4626, title = {The role of hyporheic connectivity in determining nitrogen availability: Insights from an intermittent Antarctic stream}, journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences}, year = {2021}, month = {04/2022}, abstract = {

Due to widespread manipulation of nitrogen (N), much research has focused on processes controlling the fate of anthropogenic N in streams. Yet, in a variety of oligotrophic systems, N fixed by periphyton is a significant driver of ecosystem metabolism. Due to difficulties partitioning allochthonous and autochthonous sources, there is limited information regarding how the latter is processed. Autochthonous N may be particularly important in alpine, arid, or polar environments. We test the hypothesis that the availability of remineralized autochthonous N is controlled by connectivity between the hyporheic zone and main channel due to the contrasting biogeochemical functions of benthic autotrophs (including N-fixing Nostoc) and hyporheic heterotrophs in an intermittent Antarctic stream. There, we collected surface water and hyporheic water concurrently at 4-6 hour intervals over a 32.5-hr period during one flow season and opportunistically throughout a second. Hyporheic water had 7 to 30 times greater nitrate-N concentrations relative to surface water across all flow conditions. In contrast, ammonium concentrations were generally lower, although similar among locations. Additionally, nitrate in hyporheic water was positively correlated with silica, an indicator of hyporheic residence time. A laboratory assay confirmed prior inferences that hyporheic microbial communities possess the functional potential to perform nitrification. Together, these findings suggest that remineralized autochthonous N accumulates in the hyporheic zone even as streamflow varies and likely subsidizes stream N availability\—which supports prior inferences from N stable isotope data at this site. These results highlight the importance of hyporheic connectivity in controlling autochthonous N cycling and availability in streams.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, Antarctica, autochthonous nitrogen, hyporheic zone, nitrogen cycling, streamflow}, issn = {2169-8953}, doi = {10.1029/2021JG006309}, url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021JG006309}, author = {Singley, Joel G. and Gooseff, Michael N. and Diane M. McKnight and Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley} } @phdthesis {4692, title = {Stream corridor connectivity controls on nitrogen cycling}, volume = {PhD}, year = {2021}, month = {05/2021}, school = {University of Colorado Boulder}, type = {Doctoral}, address = {Boulder, CO, USA}, abstract = {

As water flows downstream, it is transported to and from environments that surround the visible stream. Along with surface water, these laterally and vertically connected environments comprise the stream corridor. Stream corridor connectivity influences many ecosystem services, including retention of excess nutrients. The subsurface area where stream water and groundwater mixes\—the hyporheic zone\—represents one of the most biogeochemically active parts of stream corridors.

The goal of my research is to advance understanding of how connectivity between different parts of a stream corridor controls the availability and retention of nitrogen (N), a nutrient that can limit primary productivity (low-N) and negatively impact water quality (excess N). First, I developed and applied a new machine learning method to objectively characterize the extent and variability of hyporheic exchange in terms of statistically unique functional zones using geophysical data. In applying this method to a benchmark dataset, I found that hyporheic extent does not scale uniformly with streamflow and that changes in the heterogeneity of connectivity differ over small (\<10 m) distances. Next, I leveraged the relative simplicity of ephemeral streams of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDVs), Antarctica, to isolate stream corridor processes that influence the fate of N. Through intensive field sampling campaigns, I found that the hyporheic zone can be a persistent source of N even in this low nutrient environment. Next, I combined historic sample data and remote sensing analysis to estimate how much N is stored in an MDV stream corridor. My results indicate that up to 103 times more N is stored in this system than is exported each year, with most of this storage in the shallow (\< 10 cm) hyporheic zone. Lastly, I examined 25 years of data for 10 streams to assess how stream corridor processes control concentration-discharge relationships. I found that in the absence of hillslope connectivity, stream corridor processes alone can maintain chemostasis \– relatively small concentration changes with large fluctuations in streamflow \– of both geogenic solutes and primary nutrients. My analysis also revealed that solutes subject to greater control by biological processes exhibit more variability within chemostatic relationships than weathering solutes that are only minimally influenced by biota.

Altogether, this research advances understanding of processes that are difficult to measure or are often overlooked in typical studies of temperate stream corridors. My findings provide insight into the surprising ways in which N is mobilized, transformed, and retained due to stream corridor connectivity in intermittent stream systems with few N inputs.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, Antarctica, hyporheic zone, nitrogen cycling, streams}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/docview/2572593127}, author = {Singley, Joel G.}, editor = {Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley and Michael N. Gooseff} } @article {4489, title = {Nutrient uptake in the supraglacial stream network of an Antarctic glacier}, journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences}, year = {2020}, month = {08/2020}, abstract = {

In polar regions, where many glaciers are cold-based (frozen to their beds), biological communities on the glacier surface can modulate and transform nutrients, controlling downstream delivery. However, it remains unclear whether supraglacial streams are nutrient sinks or sources and the rates of nutrient processing. In order to test this, we conducted tracer-injections in three supraglacial streams (62 to 123 m long) on Canada Glacier in the Taylor Valley, of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. We conducted a series of additions including: nitrate (N), N + phosphate (P), N+ P + glucose (C), and N+C. In two reaches, N-only additions resulted in N uptake. The third reach showed net N release during the N-only addition, but high N uptake in the N+P addition, indicating P-limitation or N+P co-limitation. Co-injecting C did not increase N-uptake. Additionally, in these systems at low N concentrations the streams can be a net source of nitrogen. We confirmed these findings using laboratory-based nutrient incubation experiments on sediment collected from stream channels on Canada Glacier and two other glaciers in the Taylor Valley. Together, these results suggest there is active biological processing of nutrients occurring in these supraglacial streams despite low sediment cover, high flow velocities and cold temperatures, modifying the input signals to proglacial streams. As glaciers world-wide undergo rapid change, these findings further our understanding of how melt generated on glacier surfaces set the initial nutrient signature for subglacial and downstream environments.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM, McMurdo Dry Valleys, nitrogen, nutrient tracers, nutrient uptake, sediments, supraglacial streams}, doi = {10.1029/2020JG005679}, url = {https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020JG005679}, author = {Bergstrom, Anna J. and Michael N. Gooseff and Singley, Joel G. and Cohen, Matthew J. and Kathleen A. Welch} } @article {4031, title = {Characterizing hyporheic exchange processes using high-frequency electrical conductivity-discharge relationships on subhourly to interannual timescales}, journal = {Water Resources Research}, volume = {53}, year = {2017}, month = {05/2017}, pages = {4124 - 4141}, abstract = {

Concentration-discharge (C-Q) relationships are often used to quantify source water contributions and biogeochemical processes occurring within catchments, especially during discrete hydrological events. Yet, the interpretation of C-Q hysteresis is often confounded by complexity of the critical zone, such as numerous source waters and hydrochemical nonstationarity. Consequently, researchers must often ignore important runoff pathways and geochemical sources/sinks, especially the hyporheic zone because it lacks a distinct hydrochemical signature. Such simplifications limit efforts to identify processes responsible for the transience of C-Q hysteresis over time. To address these limitations, we leverage the hydrologic simplicity and long-term, high-frequency Q and electrical conductivity (EC) data from streams in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. In this two end-member system, EC can serve as a proxy for the concentration of solutes derived from the hyporheic zone. We utilize a novel approach to decompose loops into subhysteretic EC-Q dynamics to identify individual mechanisms governing hysteresis across a wide range of timescales. We find that hydrologic and hydraulic processes govern EC response to diel and seasonal Q variability and that the effects of hyporheic mixing processes on C-Q transience differ in short and long streams. We also observe that variable hyporheic turnover rates govern EC-Q patterns at daily to interannual timescales. Last, subhysteretic analysis reveals a period of interannual freshening of glacial meltwater streams related to the effects of unsteady flow on hyporheic exchange. The subhysteretic analysis framework we introduce may be applied more broadly to constrain the processes controlling C-Q transience and advance understanding of catchment evolution.\ 

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM}, doi = {10.1002/wrcr.v53.510.1002/2016WR019739}, url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016WR019739/full}, author = {Singley, Joel G. and Wlostowski, Adam and Bergstrom, Anna J. and Eric R. Sokol and Torrens, Christa L. and Chris Jaros and Wilson, Colleen E. and Hendrickson, Patrick J. and Michael N. Gooseff} } @mastersthesis {4067, title = {Nitrate Dynamics Under Unsteady and Intermittent Flow in an Antarctic Stream}, volume = {M.S.}, year = {2017}, school = {University of Colorado at Boulder}, type = {masters}, abstract = {

Low order streams are a primary vector and modulator for the transport of anthropogenically derived reactive nitrogen, especially as nitrate (NO3\–). A large proportion of low orders streams experience short-term unsteady and intermittent flow conditions, and the prevalence of these dynamics is likely to increase due to climate change and human management. While such hydrologic variability is recognized as an important first-order control on the transport of NO3\–, prior reliance on manual sampling has resulted in a disparity between our understanding physical and hydrochemical dynamics at short-timescales, such that a large gap exists in our understanding of how unsteady and intermittent sub-daily discharge affects instream NO3\– transport patterns. To address this challenge, I used in situ sensors to collect high-frequency (i.e., 15 minute) NO3\– concentration and discharge data in an ephemeral, oligotrophic glacial meltwater stream in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. I analyzed concentration-discharge relationships using a power-law framework to identify a flow threshold that governed NO3\– transport dynamics. I observed relative chemostasis of NO3\– during large magnitude diel flood pulsing events. This suggests that biological and physical processes controlling the transport and transformation of NO3\–, and N more generally, are likely to exhibit spatial and temporal variability at very short timescales in response to extreme hydrologic variability. Such spatiotemporal variability in N processing dynamics has not been included in prior conceptual models of N cycling in MDV streams. As such, I propose a conceptual model in which short-term flow pulsing and cessation shift sediment redox conditions and microbial processes such that the shallow hyporheic zone temporally becomes a net source and storage zone for a spatially distributed pool of NO3\–. The results of this approach will inform understanding of how highly variable hydrological conditions measured at very short timescales interacts with instream biogeochemical processes to control N transport.

}, keywords = {LTER-MCM}, url = {http://search.proquest.com/openview/88a6ce6614e2a0cfc757c8fd7a887504/1?pq-origsite=gscholar\&cbl=18750\&diss=y}, author = {Singley, Joel G.}, editor = {Eve-Lyn S. Hinckley} }