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The contribution of sediment desiccation and rewetting process to eutrophication in the presence and absence of emergent macrophytes

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Abstract

The purpose of current study was to investigate the effects of sediment desiccation on nutrient dynamics and eutrophication in wetlands during the presence or absence of wiry and sturdy rooted emergent macrophytes, based on the hypothesis that sediment desiccation negatively correlated with plants nutrient uptake abilities and positively with nutrients fluxes at sediment-water interface. Growth of four emergent macrophytes, including two wiry rooted plants, i.e., Alocasia cucullata and Aglaonema commutatum, and two sturdy rooted plants, i.e., Cannabis indica and Acorus calamus, were grown and investigated in dried-rewetted sediments (DS) and constantly wet sediments (WS), respectively, for 6 months. The findings revealed that sediment drying and rewetting process significantly decreased the diffusion of overlying nutrient into sediment and the particle size density, porosity, and nutrients’ repository ability in DS treatments, while the sediment bulk density and mineralization of organic macronutrients increased. Compared to WS treatments, the DS treatments impaired plant growth, root biomass, shoot biomass, and stimulated higher fluxes of ammonium nitrogen (\( {\mathbf{NH}}_{\mathbf{4}}^{+} \)–N, 0.042−0.081 mg m – 2 d – 1) and phosphate (P\( {\mathbf{O}}_{\mathbf{4}}^{\mathbf{3}\hbox{--}}\hbox{--} \mathbf{P}, \) 0.009−0.030 mg m–2 d–1) at sediment-water interface upon rewetting. The higher internal release of macronutrients and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from DS led to the higher chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations (34.47−21.28 to 41.76−33.36 μg L–1) in their water column than in the water column of WS. The wiry rooted plants with higher root biomass displayed lower internal release of \( {\mathbf{NH}}_{\mathbf{4}}^{+} \)–N, PO43–P and DOC and water column Chl-a concentrations than the sturdy rooted plants in two sediment types. Root biomass of plants correlated positively with TN (63−87%) and TP (56−78%) removal percentages from WS and DS. These results demonstrated that sediment desiccation process reduced plant growth and enhanced internal loading of nutrients and consequently accelerated eutrophication in these wetlands.

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Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51839011 and 51861125201) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20191098).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, People’s Republic of China

    Farasat Ali, Leilei Bai, Zheng Hao, Chunliu Wang, Linqi Tian & Helong Jiang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Farasat Ali, Zheng Hao, Chunliu Wang & Linqi Tian

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  1. Farasat Ali
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Contributions

F.A.: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, validation, data curation, formal analysis, visualization, writing original draft. L.B.: conceptualization, investigation, formal analysis, writing original draft. Z.H.: methodology, validation, writing review and editing. C.W.: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, validation, data curation, formal analysis. L.T.: investigation, validation, data curation, formal analysis. H.J.: funding acquisition, conceptualization, investigation, writing review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Farasat Ali or Helong Jiang.

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Ali, F., Bai, L., Hao, Z. et al. The contribution of sediment desiccation and rewetting process to eutrophication in the presence and absence of emergent macrophytes. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 7254–7270 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16131-3

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