Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 7, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13163
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Jessie M. Bierman professorship
Ask authors/readers for more resources
While most global productivity is driven by modern photosynthesis, river ecosystems are supplied by locally fixed and imported carbon that spans a range of ages. Alluvial aquifers of gravel-bedded river floodplains present a conundrum: despite no possibility for photosynthesis in groundwater and extreme paucity of labile organic carbon, they support diverse and abundant large-bodied consumers (stoneflies, Insecta: Plecoptera). Here we show that up to a majority of the biomass carbon composition of these top consumers in four floodplain aquifers of Montana and Washington is methane-derived. The methane carbon ranges in age from modern to up to >50,000 years old and is mostly derived from biogenic sources, although a thermogenic contribution could not be excluded. We document one of the most expansive ecosystems to contain site-wide macroinvertebrate biomass comprised of methane-derived carbon and thereby advance contemporary understanding of basal resources supporting riverine productivity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available