Bioavailability of dissolved organic nitrogen and carbon from nine rivers in the eastern United States

Abstract

AME Aquatic Microbial Ecology Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials AME 43:277-287 (2006) - doi:10.3354/ame043277 Bioavailability of dissolved organic nitrogen and carbon from nine rivers in the eastern United States Tracy N. Wiegner1,5,*, Sybil P. Seitzinger2, Patricia M. Glibert3, Deborah A. Bronk4,6 1Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, and 2NOAA CMER Program, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8521, USA 3Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, PO Box 755, Cambridge, Maryland 21613, USA 4Department of Marine Sciences, University of Georgia, 220 Marine Sciences Building, Athens, Georgia 30602-3636, USA 5Present address: Marine Science Department, University of Hawaii at Hilo, 200 W. Kawili Street, Hilo, Hawaii 96720, USA 6Present address: College of William and Mary/VIMS, Department of Physical Sciences, Route 1208, Greate Road, Gloucester Point, Virginia 23062, USA *Email: wiegner@hawaii.edu ABSTRACT: Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and carbon (DOC) often dominate the dissolved nitrogen and organic carbon fluxes from rivers, yet they are not considered to affect coastal water quality because of their assumed refractory nature. The objective of this study was to quantify DON and DOC bioavailability to bacteria in 9 rivers on the east coast of the United States during a 6 d dark bioassay experiment. Water was collected from the freshwater portion of a forest stream in New Jersey (Forest 17a), and from the Bass (New Jersey), Delaware (New Jersey), Hudson (New York), Altamaha (Georgia), Savannah (Georgia), Pocomoke (Maryland), Choptank (Maryland), and Peconic (New York) Rivers during base-flow conditions. DON concentrations ranged from 1 to 35 µM and comprised 8 to 94% of the total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) in these rivers. Bioassay results indicate that 23% (±4) of the DON (2 ± 1 µM) was bioavailable in all the rivers except the Bass and Pocomoke, where no DON consumption was measured. Of the TDN consumed by bacteria, DON comprised 43% (±6), demonstrating that DON is an important nitrogen source for bacteria. In contrast, only 4% (±1) of DOC (12 ± 3 µM), was bioavailable in the 9 rivers. Percent-wise, 8 times more DON was consumed relative to DOC in 6 of the rivers, demonstrating that DON cycles faster than DOC. Overall, our study demonstrates that DON is an important part of the TDN pool that needs to be incorporated into coastal nitrogen loading budgets because it is bioavailable on the order of days. KEY WORDS: Bacteria · Bioavailability · DON · DOC · Rivers Full text in pdf format PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AME Vol. 43, No. 3. Online publication date: July 19, 2006 Print ISSN: 0948-3055; Online ISSN: 1616-1564 Copyright © 2006 Inter-Research.