Metrics for Evaluating Inundation Impacts on the Decomposer Communities in a Southern California Coastal Salt Marsh
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WETLANDS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Metrics for Evaluating Inundation Impacts on the Decomposer Communities in a Southern California Coastal Salt Marsh Nathan McLain 1 & Lorenzo Camargo 1 & Christine R. Whitcraft 1 & Jesse G. Dillon 1 Received: 30 March 2020 / Accepted: 12 August 2020 # Society of Wetland Scientists 2020
Abstract Southern California coastal wetlands are heavily impacted by urbanization and are under increased inundation stress due to sea level rise (SLR). This study evaluated the impacts of inundation on decomposition rates and sediment decomposer communities (invertebrates, fungi, and bacteria) by manipulating inundation using a marsh organ. Under increased inundation, invertebrate diversity decreased, and plant litter decomposition was reduced by excluding fungi and invertebrates from substrates using litter bags, indicating that all three decomposer guilds are important. This study showed significant impacts of increased inundation on bacterial, fungal and invertebrate community structure and diversity, yet only modest effects on sulfate reduction and decomposition rates, suggesting a degree of resilience or functional redundancy in the decomposer community. While the marsh organ successfully simulated increased inundation, it also created experimental ‘bottle effects’ that may have obscured inundation treatment effects and altered communities from the natural marsh. In our study, invertebrates were most sensitive to inundation, while bacteria appeared to be more resistant. This has implications for how decomposition and associated biogeochemical and ecological processes might change in the face of increased inundation due to SLR and suggests that marsh organs may be less suitable for investigating microbial communities compared with plants. Keywords Salt marshes . Decomposers . Sea level rise . Sulfate-reducing bacteria; marsh organ
Introduction Salt marshes are highly productive habitats that provide key ecosystem functions including energy export to coastal food webs, nutrient cycling, and long-term carbon storage (Minello et al. 2003; Mitsch and Gosselink 2007; Morris et al. 2013; Nelson et al. 2013) Decomposition and carbon remineralization rates interact with each of these ecosystem functions and are themselves determined by abiotic parameters (e.g. inundation, salinity, and available oxygen), vegetation and the decomposer assemblage (White et al. 1978; Howarth and Teal 1979; Hemminga and Buth 1991; Peterson 1999; Mueller et al. 2016). Marsh decomposer communities include diverse groups of invertebrates, fungi Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-020-01361-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Jesse G. Dillon [email protected] 1
Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, 1250 Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90840, USA
and bacteria that often work synergistically to breakdown complex carbon substrates such as lignocellulose under both aerobic and anaerobic condition
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