2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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6/08/2017  |   11:45 AM - 12:00 PM   |  Denitrification potential in a dynamic environment: influences of flow variation, vegetation, and geomorphology in waterways and riparian zones of an irrigated agricultural landscape   |  305B

Denitrification potential in a dynamic environment: influences of flow variation, vegetation, and geomorphology in waterways and riparian zones of an irrigated agricultural landscape

Denitrification, the microbial conversion of nitrate to nitrogen gases, can greatly influence whether lotic and riparian ecosystems act as sinks for agricultural nitrate pollution. Though agricultural waterways and riparian zones have been a focus of denitrification research for decades, almost none of this research has occurred in the irrigated agricultural settings of arid and semi-arid climates. This setting provides unique conditions that may advance our understanding of denitrification, including management-associated heterogeneity in flow conditions, vegetation, and geomorphology. We measured potential denitrification in riparian soils and channel sediments from 79 waterway reaches in the irrigated agricultural landscape of California’s Central Valley. We found strong associations of sediment denitrification potentials with flow conditions, which we hypothesize resulted from variation in microbial communities’ resilience to dry-wet cycles. Denitrification potentials in riparian soils, in contrast, did not appear affected by flow conditions, but instead were associated with organic matter, vegetation cover, and slope in the riparian zone. These results advance understanding of how denitrification responds to varying flow conditions in non-perennial lotic ecosystems. Our findings also demonstrate that denitrifier communities respond to waterway management, which can therefore be leveraged to address agricultural nitrate pollution.

  • C14 Hydroecology
  • C28 Land-Water Interfaces
  • C04 Microbial Ecology

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Presenters/Authors

Alex Webster (), University of California Davis, ajwebster@ucdavis.edu;


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Peter Groffman (), City University of New York, Peter.Groffman@asrc.cuny.edu ;


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Mary Cadenasso (), University of California, Davis, mlcadenasso@ucdavis.edu;


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