wAbstract
@Riparian wetlands are subject to nitrogen enrichment from upgradient
agricultural and urban land uses and also from flooding by nitrogen-enriched
surface waters. The effects of this N enrichment on wetland soil
biogeochemistry may be mediated by both the presence of plants
and the presence of redox-active compounds, specifically iron
oxides in the soil. Despite the extensive research on wetland
N cycling, the relative importance of these two factors on nitrogen
is poorly known, especially for forested wetlands. This study
evaluates the responses of the N and the Fe cycles to N enrichment
in a riparian forested wetland, contrasting vegetated field plots
with plots where the vegetation was removed to test the role of
plants. Furthermore, in vitro anaerobic incubations of the experimental
soils were performed to track Fe chemical changes over time under
anoxic or flooded conditions, Wetland soils treated with N in
form of urea, as expected, had significantly higher amounts inorganic
nitrogen. In the soils where vegetation was also removed, in addition
to inorganic nitrogen pool, increase in organic nitrogen pool
was also observed. The results demonstrate the role of vegetation
in limiting the effects excess urea has on different soil nitrogen
pools. Results from anaerobic incubation of the experimental soils
demonstrated the effects of N enrichment on the wetland Fe cycle.
The effects of excess nitrogen and the role of vegetation on the
Fe cycle in riparian wetland soil became more evident during anaerobic
incubation experiments. At the end of the field experiment, Fe
concentrations in the soils under the treatments were not significantly
different from the control soils at the 5“ confidence level. however,
during the anaerobic incubation experiment of soils collected
at the end of the experiment from these plots, the N-enriched
soils and the unvegetated soils maintained significantly elevated
concentrations of reducible Fe(III) for the initial 2-week period
of incubation, and the soils collected from the plots with both
the treatments had the highest Fe(III) concentrations. After 20
days of incubation, however, the Fe(III) concentrations decreased
to the similar concentrations in all the incubated soils. The
study clarifies the roles vegetation play in mediating the effects
of N enrichment and also demonstrates that N enrichment does affect
wetland redox cycle, which has strong implications on ecosystem
services such as water quality improvement.
Keywords: Nitrogen; Iron; Riparian; Wetland; Soil; Vegetationx
1. Introduction
2. Materials and methods
@2.1. Site characteristics
@2.2. Field experiment
@2.3. Incubation experiment
3. Statistical analyses
4. Results
@4.1. Field results and discussion
@4.2. Incubation results and discussion
5. Conclusions
References