Nutrient dynamics

Abstract

Solutes are materials chemically dissolved in water. Their dynamics depend on transport in the water column, and on all the transfer processes linking the water column to the streambed, the streambanks, and the land. Solute dynamics are closely coupled with the physical movement of water, and the net flux is downhill. Studies of stream solutes can be viewed from two perspectives. To geochemists and geophysicists, the transport of materials from the land to the sea is of central interest: rivers are the “gutters down which flow the ruins of continents” (Leopold, Wolman and Miller, 1964). The primary concerns of biologists, not surprisingly, lie with those elements essential for life and whose supply potentially limits metabolic processes in streams. These are called nutrients, and their uptake, transformation, and eventual release are the principal topics studied by stream biologists.