Riverine coupling of biogeochemical cycles between land, oceans, and atmosphere
Date
2011-02Author
Aufdenkampe, Anthony K.
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Mayorga, Emilio
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Raymond, Peter A.
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Melack, John M.
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Doney, Scott C.
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Alin, Simone R.
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Aalto, Rolf E.
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Yoo, Kyungsoo
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https://hdl.handle.net/1912/4670As published
https://doi.org/10.1890/100014DOI
10.1890/100014Abstract
Streams, rivers, lakes, and other inland waters are important agents in the coupling of biogeochemical cycles between continents, atmosphere, and oceans. The depiction of these roles in global-scale assessments of carbon (C) and other bioactive elements remains limited, yet recent findings suggest that C discharged to the oceans is only a fraction of that entering rivers from terrestrial ecosystems via soil respiration, leaching, chemical weathering, and physical erosion. Most of this C influx is returned to the atmosphere from inland waters as carbon dioxide (CO2) or buried in sedimentary deposits within impoundments, lakes, floodplains, and other wetlands. Carbon and mineral cycles are coupled by both erosion–deposition processes and chemical weathering, with the latter producing dissolved inorganic C and carbonate buffering capacity that strongly modulate downstream pH, biological production of calcium-carbonate shells, and CO2 outgassing in rivers, estuaries, and coastal zones. Human activities substantially affect all of these processes.
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Author Posting. © Ecological Society of America, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of Ecological Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 9 (2011): 53–60, doi:10.1890/100014.