Small rain events during drought alter sediment dissolved organic carbon leaching and respiration in intermittent stream sediments

With climate change, streams and rivers are at increased risk of droughts and flow intermittency. The full implications of these conditions for fluvial carbon (C) processing and stream-atmosphere CO2 emissions are not well understood. We performed a controlled drought experiment in outdoor hyporheic flumes. We simulated small rain events that increase sediment moisture content, but do not cause streamflow in order to investigate how these events affect streambed dissolved organic C dynamics, biofilm respiration and enzyme activity, and bacterial community composition. Flumes were subject to a non-flow phase of one month with small rain events with varying frequency (weekly, 3 x weekly, and no rain). Sediment was sampled at the surface and from the hyporheic zone at the end of the non-flow phase. We quantified microbial respiration of the dry sediments and sediment DOC leaching after simulated flow resumption. We found that, at the surface, more frequent rain events significantly increased microbial respiration from 12.6 +/- 0.25 mu g CO2 g(-1) DW h(-1) to 26.5 +/- 11.3 mu g CO2 g(-1) DW h(-1) between the control and 3 x weekly rain events. The average amount of DOC leached from surface sediments during flow resumption was reduced by 0.813 +/- 0.62 mg L-1 with more frequent rain events. More frequent rain events also resulted in the leaching of fresher DOM with increased tryptophan fluorescence and a higher BIX. This, along with higher glucosidase activity in the biofilms, indicates higher OC processing during the drought period with more frequent rain events. Small rain events also enhanced Shannon diversity of microbial communities, with a stronger presence of 'terrestrial-like' bacterial clades. We propose that rain events during drought, even those of small size, are highly relevant for fluvial organic C processing during the dry phase. Future research should explicitly consider small rain events when investigating C fluxes in intermittent streams to fully understand the C processing in these systems with climate change. We conclude that small rain events impact DOM dynamics during reflow and likely impact the cascading C processing in the downstream river network.

Automated summary

With climate change, streams and rivers are more susceptible to droughts and intermittent flow. This study demonstrates that even small rain events during droughts play a significant role in organic carbon processing in rivers, and may impact the downstream river network.