2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference

March 13 - 15, 2022

6/06/2017 | 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM | UNRAVELLING BENTHIC AND PELAGIC DECOMPOSITION PATHWAYS IN SHALLOW WETLANDS | 301B

UNRAVELLING BENTHIC AND PELAGIC DECOMPOSITION PATHWAYS IN SHALLOW WETLANDS

Dead organic matter fuels shallow wetland food webs by serving as food source for microbes and invertebrates. Large amounts of plants decompose in a standing-dead position in the pelagic layer before the shoot material collapses to the benthic layer. The respective microbial and invertebrate community functioning in each layer is largely unknown. We hypothesized that shallow wetlands have different pelagic and benthic decomposition pathways due to an oxic-anoxic interface between the layers. We tested this hypothesis in 15 Dutch peat ditches (depth 50-70cm) between May and July 2016. We measured dissolved oxygen continuously, captured invertebrates, determined the functional bacterial community, and measured microbial and invertebrate decomposition rates using standard substrate DECOTABs. The results show that the relative contribution of microbial decomposition is high in the anoxic benthic layer (67% microbes vs. 33% invertebrates), whereas the invertebrate consumption is high in the oxic pelagic layer (26% microbes vs. 74% invertebrates). Hence, it can be concluded that the oxic-anoxic interface provokes a clear difference between benthic and pelagic ecosystem functioning, which has important implications for the monitoring and management of shallow wetlands.

C31 Organic Matter Processing
C08 Urban Ecology
C09 Wetland Ecology

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Presenters/Authors

Gea van der Lee (), Wageningen Environmental Research, gea.vanderlee@wur.nl;