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Enhanced mineralization of sedimentary organic carbon induced by excess carbon from phytoplankton in a eutrophic plateau lake

  • Sediments, Sec 2 • Physical and Biogeochemical Processes • Research Article
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Abstract

Purpose

Large additions of organic carbon (OC) have been introduced into the carbon cycle of lakes from algae during the process of lake eutrophication. The impact of eutrophication on OC burial and CO2 fixing has been widely studied; however, there is still a gap regarding the impact of excess OC from algae on sedimentary OC mineralization. In this study, we aim to fill this gap by analyzing in situ measurements.

Materials and methods

Three pairs of sediment cores collected from a plateau lake (Dianchi Lake) in 2006 and 2014 were used to estimate the accumulation loss rate (ALR) of OC (and thus the total mineralization rate) in the sediment. n-Alkanes, measured from the same sedimentary cores, were used to identify the source of OC. An OC mineralization experiment in a laboratory was used to confirm the enhanced effect of excess phytoplankton carbon on ALR and reveal the potential influence of microorganisms.

Results and discussion

The results indicate that the sedimentary core (core 3), with high excess OC from algae (located in an algal bloom area), possessed a higher ALR (85.66%) and a higher attenuation coefficient (0.078), indicating the low burial efficiency and short mineralization duration of OC. Sedimentary core 1, controlled by terrestrial OC, had a relatively lower ALR (64.60%) and lower attenuation coefficient (0.029), indicating a high burial efficiency and long period of OC mineralization. The mineralization of OC in core 2 was impacted by terrestrial and endogenous OC, with an ALR of 72.00% and attenuation coefficient of 0.064, which is between that of cores 1 and 3. Excess OC from algae corresponded to an increase in ALR by 32.60% when comparing core 1 to core 3. The increased ALR and attenuation coefficient could be caused by excess OC from algae.

Conclusions

Sedimentary OC mineralization indicates that the ALR with dominantly allochthonous OC (64.60%) is much lower than that controlled by autochthonous OC (85.66%). Excess OC from phytoplankton increases the mineralization of OC: not only via increased ALR but also increased mineralization speed. The laboratory experiment on the mixture of algae and sediment suggested that excess phytoplankton OC increased the emission of CO2 by 20–70% (mineralization rate).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Nick Kleeman for the language editing. I also express my appreciation to two reviewers for their useful comments.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41773097, 41673108, and 41571324), a project funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, the Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds, Natural Science Research Project of Anhui Higher Education (KJ2014A280).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Changchun Huang, Tao Huang, Axing Zhu & Hao Yang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Changchun Huang

  3. Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment (Nanjing Normal University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Changchun Huang & Axing Zhu

  4. School of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Changchun Huang, Zhili Chen, Yan Gao, Yang Luo, Tao Huang & Hao Yang

  5. Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Axing Zhu

  6. School of environment and tourism, West Anhui University, Lu’an, 237000, China

    Benjun Yang

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  1. Changchun Huang
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  2. Zhili Chen
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  3. Yan Gao
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Correspondence to Changchun Huang.

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Huang, C., Chen, Z., Gao, Y. et al. Enhanced mineralization of sedimentary organic carbon induced by excess carbon from phytoplankton in a eutrophic plateau lake. J Soils Sediments 19, 2613–2623 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-019-02261-2

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