Annual Cycling of Dissolved Organic Matter in an Alpine Stream
Abstract
Boulder Creek, an alpine stream in the Colorado Front Range, runs through glacially-scoured landscapes and various alpine ecosystems from its headwaters at around 12,500 ft to the city of Boulder at around 6,000 ft. The flow in the lower potions of the creek is controlled by Barker Reservoir. As part of the Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory, water samples were collected from several sites along Boulder Creek at regular time intervals since May 2008. The concentration and quality of the Dissolved Organic Matter (DOM) in these samples was analyzed to understand the response to seasonal changes and variations in flow rates. Filtered samples were fractionated to isolate the humic material and both whole water and fulvic acid fractions were analyzed for dissolved organic carbon concentration as well as with fluorescence and UV-VIS spectroscopy. DOM concentration reached a maximum just before peak stream flow, likely due to dilution from the reservoir release. Near the end of summer, as flow slowed down and the dilution impact was minimized, the concentration began to rise again. In addition, the fluorescence index (FI), which can represent variations in DOM source, indicated a much higher microbial source during early snowmelt, likely due to microbial communities growing beneath the ice in the reservoir and lack of terrestrial runoff during the winter. The FI showed a slowly increasing terrestrial input throughout the summer as snowmelt and runoff from the watershed entered the stream. During late summer and fall the FI shifted back to a predominately microbial signal, indicative of less runoff and a greater percentage of DOM created in situ. In addition to stream measurements, surface soil samples along several transects were collected from a section of the watershed, as well as deeper samples from soil pits on both north-facing and south-facing slopes. DOM from these samples was leached with potassium sulfate and analyzed using the same techniques as the stream samples to compare the characteristics of the terrestrial organic matter available to be leached from the watershed with that of the DOM in the stream.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFMEP53C0631G
- Keywords:
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- 0470 BIOGEOSCIENCES / Nutrients and nutrient cycling;
- 1806 HYDROLOGY / Chemistry of fresh water;
- 1879 HYDROLOGY / Watershed