Changes in the Characteristics of Dissolved Organic Matter by Microbial Transformation and the Subsequent Effects on Copper Binding

Abstract

Microbial changes in the characteristics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and the subsequent effects on the conditional stability constants of copper were investigated using 14 day-incubations of Pony Lake fulvic acid (PLFA), Suwannee River fulvic acid (SRFA) and the mixtures of the humic substances and glucose. After incubation, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations were diminished, and specific UV absorbance values and DOC-normalized fluorescence intensities increased. The microbial changes were minimal for the samples contaning humic substances only whereas they were much pronounced for the mixtures with glucose. The extent of the changes increased with a higher content of glucose in the mixtures. The same trend was observed even for glucose solution. Our results suggest that labile organic moieties may be transformed into more chromophoric and humidified components by biodegradation. For the mixture samples, the copper binding stability constants did not change or even decreased after incubation. Therefore, microbially induced enrichment of the fulvic-and humic-like carbon structures in DOM appears to result in little change or the decrease of the copper binding coefficients.