Piccolo Marisa C.

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Piccolo
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Marisa C.
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  • Preprint
    Runoff sources and land cover change in the Amazon : an end-member mixing analysis from small watersheds
    ( 2011-03) Neill, Christopher ; Chaves, Joaquin E. ; Biggs, Trent ; Deegan, Linda A. ; Elsenbeer, Helmut ; Figueiredo, Ricardo O. ; Germer, Sonja ; Johnson, Mark S. ; Lehmann, Johannes ; Markewitz, Daniel ; Piccolo, Marisa C.
    The flowpaths by which water moves from watersheds to streams has important consequences for the runoff dynamics and biogeochemistry of surface waters in the Amazon Basin. The clearing of Amazon forest to cattle pasture has the potential to change runoff sources to streams by shifting runoff to more surficial flow pathways. We applied end member mixing analysis (EMMA) to ten small watersheds throughout the Amazon in which solute composition of streamwater and groundwater, overland flow, soil solution, throughfall and rainwater were measured, largely as part of the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia. We found a range in the extent to which streamwater samples fell within the mixing space determined by potential flowpath end members, suggesting that some water sources to streams were not sampled. The contribution of overland flow as a source of stream flow was greater in pasture watersheds than in forest watersheds of comparable size. Increases in overland flow contribution to pasture streams ranged in some cases from 0% in forest to 27 to 28% in pasture and were broadly consistent with results from hydrometric sampling of Amazon forest and pasture watersheds that indicate 17- to 18-fold increase in the overland flow contribution to stream flow in pastures. In forest, overland flow was an important contribution to stream flow (45 to 57%) in ephemeral streams where flows were dominated by stormflow. Overland flow contribution to stream flow decreased in importance with increasing watershed area, from 21 to 57% in forest and 60 to 89% in pasture watersheds <10 ha to 0% in forest and 27 to 28% in pastures in watersheds >100 ha. Soil solution contributions to stream flow were similar across watershed area and groundwater inputs generally increased in proportion to decreases in overland flow. Application of EMMA across multiple watersheds indicated patterns across gradients of stream size and land cover that were consistent with patterns determined by detailed hydrometric sampling.
  • Article
    Nitrous oxide nitrification and denitrification 15N enrichment factors from Amazon forest soils
    (Ecological Society of America, 2006-12) Perez, Tibisay ; Garcia-Montiel, Diana ; Trumbore, Susan E. ; Tyler, Stanley ; de Camargo, Plinio ; Moreira, Marcelo ; Piccolo, Marisa C. ; Cerri, Carlos C.
    The isotopic signatures of 15N and 18O in N2O emitted from tropical soils vary both spatially and temporally, leading to large uncertainty in the overall tropical source signature and thereby limiting the utility of isotopes in constraining the global N2O budget. Determining the reasons for spatial and temporal variations in isotope signatures requires that we know the isotope enrichment factors for nitrification and denitrification, the two processes that produce N2O in soils. We have devised a method for measuring these enrichment factors using soil incubation experiments and report results from this method for three rain forest soils collected in the Brazilian Amazon: soil with differing sand and clay content from the Tapajos National Forest (TNF) near Santarém, Pará, and Nova Vida Farm, Rondônia. The 15N enrichment factors for nitrification and denitrification differ with soil texture and site: −111‰ ± 12‰ and −31‰ ± 11‰ for a clay-rich Oxisol (TNF), −102‰ ± 5‰ and −45‰ ± 5‰ for a sandier Ultisol (TNF), and −10.4‰ ± 3.5‰ (enrichment factor for denitrification) for another Ultisol (Nova Vida) soil, respectively. We also show that the isotopomer site preference (δ15Nα − δ15Nβ, where α indicates the central nitrogen atom and β the terminal nitrogen atom in N2O) may allow differentiation between processes of production and consumption of N2O and can potentially be used to determine the contributions of nitrification and denitrification. The site preferences for nitrification and denitrification from the TNF-Ultisol incubated soils are: 4.2‰ ± 8.4‰ and 31.6‰ ± 8.1‰, respectively. Thus, nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria populations under the conditions of our study exhibit significantly different 15N site preference fingerprints. Our data set strongly suggests that N2O isotopomers can be used in concert with traditional N2O stable isotope measurements as constraints to differentiate microbial N2O processes in soil and will contribute to interpretations of the isotopic site preference N2O values found in the free troposphere.