Resistance and resilience of ecosystem metabolism in a flood‐prone river system

Uehlinger, Urs

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2427.2000.00620.x

Cited by 142 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The time scale for recovery and the magnitude of the response vary between organisms and processes, and may also vary between different parts of a river (Uehlinger 2000). Therefore, an important question to be addressed is whether any particular group of organisms, process, or river reach could serve as an indicator for the responses of the entire river ecosystem, or at least major parts of it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecasting Environmental Responses to Restoration of Rivers Used as Log Floatways: An Interdisciplinary Challenge

et al. 2005

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Log floating in the 19th to mid 20th centuries has profoundly changed the environmental conditions in many northern river systems of the world. Regulation of flow by dams, straightening and narrowing of channels by various piers and wing dams, and homogenization of bed structure are some of the major impacts. As a result, the conditions for many riverine organisms have been altered. Removing physical constructions and returning boulders to the channels can potentially restore conditions for these organisms. Here we describe the history of log driving, review its impact on physical and biological conditions and processes, and predict the responses to restoration. Reviewing the literature on comparable restoration efforts and building upon this knowledge, using boreal Swedish rivers as an example, we address the last point. We hypothesize that restoration measures will make rivers wider and more sinuous, and provide rougher bottoms, thus improving land-water interactions and increasing the retention capacity of water, sediment, organic matter and nutrients. The geomorphic and hydraulic/hydrologic alterations are supposed to favor production, diversity, migration and reproduction of riparian and aquatic organisms. The response rates are likely to vary according to the types of processes and organisms. Some habitat components, such as beds of very large boulders and bedrock outcrops, and availability of sediment and large woody debris are believed to be extremely difficult to restore. Monitoring and evaluation at several scales are needed to test our predictions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forecasting Environmental Responses to Restoration of Rivers Used as Log Floatways: An Interdisciplinary Challenge

et al. 2005

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“…Moreover, the theoretical expectation is that after disturbances, U gross should prevail over R (Grimm 1987). Sampling the streams only in baseflow conditions and at monthly intervals may have prevented us from capturing potential successional changes, which can occur very rapidly in stream ecosystems, especially in highly resilient ecosystems, such as headwater streams (Grimm 1987, Martí et al 1997, Uehlinger 2000. Further studies monitoring net uptake and release processes after extreme flood or drought events are needed to understand changes in in-stream nutrient cycling during ecosystem succession and the stability of these ecosystems before hydrological disturbances.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A round-trip ticket: the importance of release processes for in-stream nutrient spiraling

Schiller¹,

Bernal²,

Sabater³

et al. 2015

Freshwater Science

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Most nutrient-spiraling studies have focused on estimates of gross uptake (U gross ), which show that streams take up dissolved inorganic nutrients very efficiently. However, studies based on estimates of net uptake (U net ) emphasize that streams tend to be at biogeochemical steady state (i.e., U net ≈ 0), at least on a time scale of hours. These findings suggest that streams can be highly reactive ecosystems but remain at short-term biogeochemical steady state if U gross is counterbalanced by release (R), a process that remains widely unexplored. Here, we propose a novel approach to infer R by comparing U net and U gross estimated from ambient and plateau concentrations obtained from standard short-term nutrient additions along a reach. We used this approach to examine the temporal variation of R and its balance with U gross in 2 streams with contrasting hydrological regime (i.e., perennial vs intermittent) during 2 years. We focused on the spiraling metrics of NH 4 + and soluble reactive P (SRP), essential sources of N and P in stream ecosystems. R differed substantially between the 2 streams. The perennial stream had a higher proportion of dates with R > 0 and a 2× higher mean R than the intermittent stream for both nutrients. Despite these differences, the magnitude of R and U gross tended to be similar for both nutrients within each stream, which lead to U net ≈ 0 in most cases. A notable exception occurred for SRP in the intermittent stream, where R tended to be higher than U gross during most of the winter period, probably because of desorption of P from stream sediments. Together, our findings shed light on the contribution of release processes to the dynamics of nutrient spiraling and support the idea that streams can be active ecosystems with high spiraling fluxes while simultaneously approaching short-term biogeochemical steady-state.

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“…Resilient streams recover more quickly from natural pulse disturbances, e.g., bedmoving spates, and are expected to exhibit less metabolic variation in response to such events (Uehlinger 2000). Human land use, on the other hand, is a press disturbance that inflicts ongoing stress that allows limited opportunity for the ecosystem to recover (Lake 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Land use affects temporal variation in stream metabolism

Clapcott¹,

Young²,

Neale³

et al. 2016

Freshwater Science

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Stream metabolism (gross primary production and ecosystem respiration) is increasingly used to assess waterway health because mean values are responsive to spatial variation in land use, but little is known about how human land use influences the temporal variability of stream metabolism. We investigated daily variation in dissolved O 2 (DO) concentrations and calculated mean and within-season variation in gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) rates at 13 stream sites across a landuse intensity gradient in the Auckland region, New Zealand, over 9 y. Based on generalized linear mixed models, mean daily GPP (0.1-12.6 g O 2 m −2 d ) and seasonal variation in stream metabolism were significantly related to landuse intensity with higher variability associated with higher values of a landuse stress score. Overall, mean daily rates and day-to-day variation in GPP and ER were greatest in summer and least in winter. We recommend summer monitoring over a minimum 5-d period to assess stream health. Our results show that human land use affects the mean and the temporal variability of DO and stream metabolism. This finding has important consequences for characterizing in-stream processes and the resilience of stream ecosystems. Only long-term temporal monitoring provides the data needed to assess fully how streams function.

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Resistance and resilience of ecosystem metabolism in a flood‐prone river system

Cited by 142 publications

References 43 publications

Forecasting Environmental Responses to Restoration of Rivers Used as Log Floatways: An Interdisciplinary Challenge

Forecasting Environmental Responses to Restoration of Rivers Used as Log Floatways: An Interdisciplinary Challenge

A round-trip ticket: the importance of release processes for in-stream nutrient spiraling

Land use affects temporal variation in stream metabolism

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