Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach

Inputs of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to lakes derived from the surrounding landscape can be stored, mineralized or passed to downstream ecosystems. The balance among these OC fates depends on a suite of physical, chemical, and biological processes within the lake, as well as the degree of recalc...

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Main Authors:	Hanson, Paul C., Hamilton, David P., Stanley, Emily H., Preston, Nicholas, Langman, Owen C., Kara, Emily L.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2011
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136486/

id	pubmed-3136486
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-31364862011-07-21 Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach Hanson, Paul C. Hamilton, David P. Stanley, Emily H. Preston, Nicholas Langman, Owen C. Kara, Emily L. Research Article Inputs of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to lakes derived from the surrounding landscape can be stored, mineralized or passed to downstream ecosystems. The balance among these OC fates depends on a suite of physical, chemical, and biological processes within the lake, as well as the degree of recalcintrance of the allochthonous DOC load. The relative importance of these processes has not been well quantified due to the complex nature of lakes, as well as challenges in scaling DOC degradation experiments under controlled conditions to the whole lake scale. We used a coupled hydrodynamic-water quality model to simulate broad ranges in lake area and DOC, two characteristics important to processing allochthonous carbon through their influences on lake temperature, mixing depth and hydrology. We calibrated the model to four lakes from the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research site, and simulated an additional 12 ‘hypothetical’ lakes to fill the gradients in lake size and DOC concentration. For each lake, we tested several mineralization rates (range: 0.001 d−1 to 0.010 d−1) representative of the range found in the literature. We found that mineralization rates at the ecosystem scale were roughly half the values from laboratory experiments, due to relatively cool water temperatures and other lake-specific factors that influence water temperature and hydrologic residence time. Results from simulations indicated that the fate of allochthonous DOC was controlled primarily by the mineralization rate and the hydrologic residence time. Lakes with residence times <1 year exported approximately 60% of the DOC, whereas lakes with residence times >6 years mineralized approximately 60% of the DOC. DOC fate in lakes can be determined with a few relatively easily measured factors, such as lake morphometry, residence time, and temperature, assuming we know the recalcitrance of the DOC. Public Library of Science 2011-07-14 /pmc/articles/PMC3136486/ /pubmed/21779347 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021884 Text en Hanson et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Hanson, Paul C. Hamilton, David P. Stanley, Emily H. Preston, Nicholas Langman, Owen C. Kara, Emily L.
spellingShingle	Hanson, Paul C. Hamilton, David P. Stanley, Emily H. Preston, Nicholas Langman, Owen C. Kara, Emily L. Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach
author_facet	Hanson, Paul C. Hamilton, David P. Stanley, Emily H. Preston, Nicholas Langman, Owen C. Kara, Emily L.
author_sort	Hanson, Paul C.
title	Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach
title_short	Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach
title_full	Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach
title_fullStr	Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach
title_full_unstemmed	Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach
title_sort	fate of allochthonous dissolved organic carbon in lakes: a quantitative approach
description	Inputs of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to lakes derived from the surrounding landscape can be stored, mineralized or passed to downstream ecosystems. The balance among these OC fates depends on a suite of physical, chemical, and biological processes within the lake, as well as the degree of recalcintrance of the allochthonous DOC load. The relative importance of these processes has not been well quantified due to the complex nature of lakes, as well as challenges in scaling DOC degradation experiments under controlled conditions to the whole lake scale. We used a coupled hydrodynamic-water quality model to simulate broad ranges in lake area and DOC, two characteristics important to processing allochthonous carbon through their influences on lake temperature, mixing depth and hydrology. We calibrated the model to four lakes from the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research site, and simulated an additional 12 ‘hypothetical’ lakes to fill the gradients in lake size and DOC concentration. For each lake, we tested several mineralization rates (range: 0.001 d−1 to 0.010 d−1) representative of the range found in the literature. We found that mineralization rates at the ecosystem scale were roughly half the values from laboratory experiments, due to relatively cool water temperatures and other lake-specific factors that influence water temperature and hydrologic residence time. Results from simulations indicated that the fate of allochthonous DOC was controlled primarily by the mineralization rate and the hydrologic residence time. Lakes with residence times <1 year exported approximately 60% of the DOC, whereas lakes with residence times >6 years mineralized approximately 60% of the DOC. DOC fate in lakes can be determined with a few relatively easily measured factors, such as lake morphometry, residence time, and temperature, assuming we know the recalcitrance of the DOC.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2011
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136486/
_version_	1611465582764359680

Fate of Allochthonous Dissolved Organic Carbon in Lakes: A Quantitative Approach

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