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Fluvial transport of carbon along the river-to-ocean continuum and its potential impacts on a brackish water food web in the Iwaki River watershed, northern Japan

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  • Trends in isotope ecology
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Ecological Research

Abstract

Riverine transport of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) from land to the ocean is an important carbon flux that influences the carbon budget at the watershed scale. However, the dynamics of DIC in an entire river network has remained unknown, especially in mountainous Japanese watersheds. We examined the effects of watershed land use and geology on the transports of inorganic carbon as well as weathered silica (Si) and calcium (Ca) in the Iwaki River system where agricultural and residential areas have developed in the middle and lower parts of the watershed. The concentration and stable carbon isotope ratios (δ13C) of DIC showed the longitudinal increase of 13C-depleted inorganic carbon along the river. As a result, most streams and rivers were supersaturated in dissolved CO2 that will eventually be emitted to the atmosphere. The possible origin of 13C-depleted carbon is CO2 derived from the decomposition of organic matter in agricultural and urban landscapes, as well as from in-stream respiration. In addition, agricultural and urban areas, respectively, exported the large amount of dissolved Si and Ca to the rivers, suggesting that CO2 increased by respiration accelerates the chemical weathering of silicate and carbonate materials in soils, river sediments, and/or urban infrastructure. Furthermore, riverine bicarbonate flux is likely to enter shell carbonates of Corbicula japonica, an aragonitic bivalve, in the downstream brackish lake (Lake Jusan). These results revealed that the flux of DIC from the human-dominated watersheds is a key to understanding the carbon dynamics and food-web structure along the land-to-river-to-ocean continuum.

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Acknowledgments

We thank M. Sasaki, N. Azuma, H. Watanabe, M. Yoshimura, D. Naito, Y. Horikawa, M. Itoh, and the Aomori Office of River and National Highway for their support to our study. The stable isotope analysis was conducted using Cooperative Research Facilities (Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer) at the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University. The study was fulfilled as a part of the tasks of the Iwaki River Research Group, and was supported financially by the Foundation for Riverfront Improvement and Restoration and partly by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (D-1002) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan to JU.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Yamanashi, Kofu, 400-8511, Japan

    Tomoya Iwata

  2. Graduate School of Life Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8578, Japan

    Takao Suzuki, Hiroyuki Togashi & Jotaro Urabe

  3. Faculty of Education, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki, 036-8560, Japan

    Naoto Koiwa

  4. Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0809, Japan

    Hideaki Shibata

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  1. Tomoya Iwata
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Correspondence to Tomoya Iwata.

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Iwata, T., Suzuki, T., Togashi, H. et al. Fluvial transport of carbon along the river-to-ocean continuum and its potential impacts on a brackish water food web in the Iwaki River watershed, northern Japan. Ecol Res 28, 703–716 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-013-1047-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-013-1047-8

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