Abstract
Manipulating hydrologic conditions at the land-water interface is critical for managing wetland functions. Hydrologic manipulation to increase retention time of water is used to promote wetland conditions, enhance nitrogen (N) processing for reduced N export, and attract migratory bird populations. Human managed wetlands such as waterfowl impoundments are intended to attract waterfowl for tourism. The limited literature has shown that waterfowl impoundments export N during seasonally prescribed drawdowns; however, it is unknown how impoundment-specific characteristics and different types of impoundments influence N cycling transformations. We compared seasonal N cycling between and within moist-soil managed (MSM) and agricultural (Ag) waterfowl impoundment soils. Potential nitrification, denitrification, and N mineralization rates and soil physicochemical properties were analyzed. Potential nitrification and denitrification rates were higher in the Ag compared to MSM impoundment even when the MSM site is actively managed to promote wetland conditions year-round. Despite the higher soil organic carbon and soil moisture content at MSM compared to Ag site, the high extractable soil ammonium, low nitrate, and low nitrification rates at MSM are evidence of substrate limitation for denitrification but not nitrification. These results indicate that decoupling of nitrification and denitrification could explain the reduced N removal capacity in these managed wetlands.
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Data Availability
All data analyzed in this study and code for statistical analyses are publicly available at https://github.com/PeraltaLab/ Mattamuskeet_Hydrology.
Abbreviations
- Ag:
-
agricultural
- DM:
-
dry mass
- C:N ratio:
-
carbon to nitrogen ratio
- MSM:
-
moist-soil managed
- N:
-
nitrogen
- NH4+ :
-
ammonium
- NO3− :
-
nitrate
- ON:
-
organic nitrogen
- SAV:
-
submerged aquatic vegetation
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Acknowledgements
We thank Holly Whitmyer, Shawn Harbin, Morgan Randolph, Gina Bledsoe, Casey Eakins, and Luise Armstrong for laboratory and field assistance. We also thank M. McCoy, M. Piehler, and anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. We acknowledge the Soil Science Laboratory at North Carolina State University and the Environmental Research Laboratory at East Carolina University for laboratory analyses. We extend gratitude to the US Fish and Wildlife Service and a local farmer for opportunity to use land for field sampling. This work was supported by East Carolina University.
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BRH, JRE, and ALP conceived and designed the research; BH collected and analyzed the data; BH wrote the manuscript; all authors performed field work and edited the manuscript.
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Hinckley, B.R., Etheridge, J.R. & Peralta, A.L. Wetland Conditions Differentially Influence Nitrogen Processing within Waterfowl Impoundments. Wetlands 40, 1117–1131 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-019-01246-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-019-01246-8