Abstract
The major greenhouse gases in streams and rivers, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), can contribute significantly to regional greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets, and each appears to be responding to multiple drivers. Recent work suggests that tropical water bodies may be hot spots of GHG emissions due to high primary productivity in their watersheds, but tropical streams and rivers have historically been underrepresented in studies of GHG concentration and emissions. We use a five-year record of weekly water chemistry and dissolved gas data from eight tropical watersheds of varying lithology and redox conditions in the Luquillo Mountains of Puerto Rico to examine controls on GHG variability and estimate gas flux. Streams were frequently supersaturated in all three gases indicating that streams in this tropical landscape are sources of GHGs to the atmosphere. Concentrations of CO2 and N2O were associated with lateral inputs from the surrounding landscape, whereas CH4 concentrations correlated with in-stream oxygen availability and lithology. Our results underscore the importance of including tropical sites in global syntheses and budgets and the role of both in-stream biological and physical processes as well as landscape attributes that contribute to the export of gases to the fluvial network and atmosphere.
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Data availability
The datasets used for this study are available for public use: http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/04f8de6f4da848218521291934f06eba.
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Acknowledgements
The data included in this paper would not be available without the work of field technicians including Brian Yudkin, Katherine Pérez Rivera, Kyle Zollo-Venecek, Tatiana Barreto Vélez, Jimmy Casey, Aneliya Cox, Alexis Sims, and Meaghan Shaw, and we acknowledge and thank them for their contributions. Support for this research was provided by National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research 1831592, and National Science Foundation Critical Zone Observatory 1331841. Additional support was provided by the University of Puerto Rico and the USDA Forest Service International Institute of Tropical Forestry. Partial funding was provided by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. This is Scientific Contribution Number 2945. This work was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire-Stennis Project 1019522.
Funding
Support for this research was provided by National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research 1831592, and National Science Foundation Critical Zone Observatory 1331841. Partial funding was provided by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. This work was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture McIntire-Stennis Project 1019522.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data analysis was performed by AH and CLL with input from all authors. Flux calculations were performed by AH, JP, and CLL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by AH and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Herreid, A.M., Lloreda, C.L., Wymore, A.S. et al. Greenhouse gas dynamics in tropical montane streams of Puerto Rico and the role of watershed lithology. Biogeochemistry 162, 163–175 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-022-00995-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-022-00995-9