Author:

Keywords:

dissolved inorganic carbon, organic-matter, aquatic ecosystems, methane oxidation, avicennia-marina, southeastern us, french-guiana, tidal creek, sand flat, estuary, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Physical Sciences, Ecology, Geosciences, Multidisciplinary, Environmental Sciences & Ecology, Geology, DISSOLVED INORGANIC CARBON, ORGANIC-MATTER, METHANE OXIDATION, ANIMAL BURROWS, TIDAL CREEK, DYNAMICS, TRANSPORT, NITROGEN, NUTRIENT, FORESTS, 04 Earth Sciences, 05 Environmental Sciences, 06 Biological Sciences, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences, 3103 Ecology, 3709 Physical geography and environmental geoscience, 4104 Environmental management

Abstract:

We sampled a tidal creek (Ras Dege, Tanzania) during a 24-h cycle to document the variations in a suite of creek water column characteristics and to determine the relative influence of tidal and biological driving forces. Since the creek has no upstream freshwater inputs, highest salinity was observed at low tide, due to evaporation effects and porewater seepage. Total suspended matter (TSM) and particulate organic carbon (POC) showed distinct maxima at periods of highest water flow, indicating that erosion of surface sediments and/or resuspension of bottom sediments were an important source of particulate material. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC), in contrast, varied in phase with water height and was highest at low tide. Stable isotope data of POC and DOC displayed large variations in both pools, and similarly followed the variations in water height. Although the variation of delta C-13(DOC) (-23.8 to -13.8 parts per thousand) was higher than that of delta C-13(POC) (-26.2 to -20.5 parts per thousand), due to the different endmember pool sizes, the delta C-13 signatures of both pools differed only slightly at low tide, but up to 9% at high tide. Thus, at low tide both DOC and POC originated from mangrove production. At high tide, however, the DOC pool had signatures consistent with a high contribution of seagrass-derived material, whereas the POC pool was dominated by marine phytoplankton. Daily variations in CH4, and partial pressure of CO2 (pCO(2)) were similarly governed by tidal influence and were up to 7- and 10-fold higher at low tide, which stresses the importance of exchange of porewater and diffusive fluxes to the water column. When assuming that the high dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) levels in the upper parts of the creek (i.e. at low tide) are due to inputs from mineralization, delta C-13 data on DIC indicate that the organic matter source for mineralization had a signature of -22.4 parts per thousand. Hence, imported POC and DOC from the marine environment contributes strongly to overall mineralization within the mangrove system. Our data demonstrate how biogeochemical processes in the intertidal zone appear to be prominent drivers of element concentrations and isotope signatures in the water column, and how pathways of dissolved and particulate matter transport are fundamentally different.