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Florida Watershed

Florida Watershed

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Nikhil Tuteja
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27 views4 pages

Florida Watershed

Florida Watershed

Uploaded by

Nikhil Tuteja
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TUESDAY:

The main input of sulfur comes from the erosion of the mountains, or
in the lower wetlands, from the ocean. (70-80 years ago)
One of the reasons why you have the continuous productivity
in the salt marshes is the continuous supply of sulfur
Sulfur dioxide produced acid rain
Trout were dying off in Shenandoah National Park couldnt
figure it out
o Individual fish are often very intolerant of individual
things ex tarpin are very sensitive to pesticides, but it
is hard to kill with force
o Sulfur was acidifying the streams and solidifying
aluminum trout are sensitive to aluminum toxicity
Nearly every environmental law that we have was passed
around 1972 during the Nixon regime:
o Sulfur enhanced a lot of the other cycles as well
As we get into more reduced conditions, we get manganese and iron
that start out in their oxidized form, and then continue to be reduced.
Iron and aluminum oxides, silicates, are in their oxidized form
and are relatively insoluble
As the environment around them becomes more reducing
(more sulfides), but iron and aluminum get into their reduced
states
They are soluble in their reduced states, and then once you
start to reduce these, you make other compounds able to be
reduced and thats when you get a problem
More oxidized versions of compounds are generally less toxic
than their reduced forms
o Carbon, Nitrogen, and Sulfur are all reduced in our
bodies, but in large amounts can be toxic
o Ex: ammonia is toxic in the environment the solubility
of them rises and you are able to get very high levels
(similar to vitamins)
Nitrogen Cycle:
Nitrate and nitrite bacteria are two different groups, so an organism
will normally have an enzyme that allows them to utilize one or the
other
Nitrate: oxidized, and not particularly toxic to a lot of animals
o All nitrate forms are soluble, and tends to leach out
very rapidly when soils get saturated (oxidized)
We tend to have a lot more in the ammonium form tends to
bind to a lot of different other things
o Can bind to a lot of inorganic things and can be loosely
bound to organic matter
Drawn Graph: (1) put phytoplankton in an enclosed jar
Put it in the dark
The particulate N declines (phytoplankton) reduced to a set
point, which is just the bacteria left
Ammonium Nitrite Nitrate (oxidize with time)
Drawn Graph: (2) Light turned on
Light stimulated growth of the phytoplankton
The remaining phytoplankton utilized the nitrogen and they
reversed roles
When the light was turned off, the cycle started again with
ammonium nitrite nitrate
Organic Nitrogen comes down from the upper layers of water,
becomes incorporated into the aerobic sediment (as sediments get
finer, this gets smaller), and then it begins to decay.
At this point, it goes into ammonium at the start
In fresh water, you tend have stuff decomposing in an
oxidized environment tends to end up quickly in the form of
nitrate where it can wash off the sediments
In the case of aquatic systems, a lot of the nitrogen is
retained as ammonium, and it tends to move up
o In the aerobic sediment ammonium is taken from
organic nitrogen in the aerobic sediment and from the
anaerobic sediment diffusing upward
o Chesapeake Bay: so productive because of the rapid
circulation, and the ability of the ammonium to be
converted to nitrogen gas and reduce the excess
harmlessly into the water column.
These three zones were in a particular stable
balance, but now cultural eutrophication has
overwhelmed the capacity of the natural system.
If you get the aerobic sediment to be too low,
then nitrogen will pile up in the system and the
nitrogen gas will not be released.
At the aerobic/anaerobic interface, nitrate can be used by
other bacteria and undergo denitrification and be converted
into nitrogen gas
If you have the reducing zone taking over the aerobic zone,
then you have a lot of ammonium released into the water
column directly (too much organic matter can cause the
increase in the anaerobic sediment reducing zone)
The loss of the denitrification process will not cause
acidification in seawater due to the carbonate buffer
Instead, it tends to fuel noxious bloom algae a lot of them
tend to be toxic or distasteful to the organisms that might
consume them it just produces an opportunity for
opportunistic species to take advantage of the excess
nutrients, and outcompetes desirable species (potential food
sources for heterotrophs) (macroalgae, green algae, etc
bulk of edible algae are brown and some reds)
Partitioning of the global inventories of nitrogen in the aquatic system:
2.3 x 10^7 95.2 % of Nitrogen gas, 4.8% combined

47.9% is organic, 52.1% inorganic (1.1 x 10^6)

99.9% is dead organic matter, 0.09% living biomass

44% plants, 56% animals


*In terrestrial systems, they lack a multilayered system so
they go to a certain point in the decomposition process but
then they cant go any further. Thats why their organic vs.
inorganic matter is so disparate (inorganic is 99% and organic
is 1%)
Sulfur Cycle:
It functions in similar ways to the nitrogen cycle
Chemo and phototrophic oxidation: critters that can utilize each
compound at different steps along with its available energy
At any point, it can go back to the loop
Critters need more nitrogen than sulfur, so there is not as high of a
demand for sulfur tends to be needed more for decomposition in
marine environments
In freshwater, sulfur is the limiting nutrient that stops
decomposition
Dissimilative reduction using it for energy (same as we would eat the
oreo cookie to get energy)
Assimilative reduction the pathway by which they take sulfate and
pull it into their tissues. They use it to assimilate the sulfur compound
into an amino compound (often with a thiol compound)
This is what makes the marine environment so productive
Nitrate oxygens in nitrate are used for oxidizing, but the nitrogen is
used as a building block

Table 5.5 assume they have the same c-input


Aerobic respiration is much more in salt marsh than in lake
sediment
o Lake sediment what aerobic respiration that occurred
went on in the photic zone
Nitrate reduction the same roughly
Fermentation-Sulfate Reduction: salt marsh far outdid that of
the lake sediment (freshwater) 432:61
Methanogenesis: main pathway of carbon removal in
freshwater and lake sediment areas!
Salt Marsh roughly twice of what was going on in the
freshwater. It was that sulfate reduction pathway that allows
the reactions to go to completion
Dead Zone in Gulf of Mexico: by coriolis, a lot of the sediments are
being carried away from the Mississippi into the Gulf
Used to be a productive shrimp farm, but they are carried
away.
Ctenophores*

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