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Effects of watershed land use on sources and nutritional value of particulate organic matter in temperate headwater streams

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Abstract

Suspended particulate organic matter (POM) in headwater streams is an important source of food and energy to stream food webs. In order to determine the effects of watershed land use on the sources and characteristics of POM, we compared the lipid composition of POM (fatty acid, aliphatic alcohol and sterol) from streams influenced by different types of watershed land use. Eight first-order streams discharging to the York River Estuary (Virginia, USA) were sampled during baseflow conditions bi-monthly from February to November 2009, including streams draining forest-dominated, pasture-dominated, cropland-dominated, and urban land-dominated watersheds. Allochthonous vs. autochthonous lipids showed that POM in most of these streams was dominated by allochthonous sources (59.5 ± 14.2 vs. 39.6 ± 14.5 % for aliphatic alcohols and 52.9 ± 11.5 vs. 34.1 ± 10.3 % for sterols). The relative abundance of allochthonous vs. autochthonous lipid inputs to POM varied as a function of land use type. POM in streams draining forest-dominated watersheds contained a higher proportion of allochthonous lipids and a lower proportion of autochthonous lipids than the streams influenced by human land use. The contribution of bacterial fatty acids differed significantly among sampling times (P = 0.003), but not among land use types (P = 0.547). Stepwise linear regression model selected nitrate and temperature as the best predictors of variation in bacterial inputs to POM. Proxies used to assess the nutritional value of POM potentially available to stream consumers included C:N ratios, and the concentrations of total long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid, arachidonic acid, and cholesterol. None of these nutritional proxies differed among sampling months (P ≥ 0.171), but the proxies showed that the nutritional value of POM in forest streams was lower than in urban streams. Collectively, these findings suggest that human land use in upstream watersheds alters the source composition and nutritional value of stream POM, which not only impacts food quality for stream biota, but also potentially changes the characteristics of OM reaching downstream ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

We thank E. Ferer, E. Keesee, C. Pondell, S. Salisbury and S. Schillawski for help with field and laboratory work. T. Russell and S. Hamilton provided invaluable instruction on ArcGIS analysis. The paper is contribution 3352 of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary. This work was supported by a Mellon Foundation Grant to the College of William and Mary and by the National Science Foundation (grants OCE0962277, EAR1003529, and DEB 0542645 to E.A.C. and grants DEB0234533, OCE0327423, and EAR0403949 to J.E.B.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alabama, 201 7th Ave, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35485, USA

    Yue Han Lu

  2. Department of Physical Sciences, Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, Gloucester Point, VA, 23062, USA

    Elizabeth A. Canuel

  3. Aquatic Biogeochemistry Laboratory, Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    James E. Bauer

  4. Department of Biology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 23187, USA

    R. M. Chambers

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  1. Yue Han Lu
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  2. Elizabeth A. Canuel
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  3. James E. Bauer
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  4. R. M. Chambers
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Correspondence to Yue Han Lu.

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Y. H. Lu performed field and laboratory work to acquire the data and wrote the main paper. All authors commented on the manuscript of all stages, and contributed substantially to conception and design of the study, and discussion of the results.

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Lu, Y.H., Canuel, E.A., Bauer, J.E. et al. Effects of watershed land use on sources and nutritional value of particulate organic matter in temperate headwater streams. Aquat Sci 76, 419–436 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-014-0344-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-014-0344-9

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