A simplified approach to detect a significant carbon dioxide reduction by phytoplankton in lakes and rivers on a regiona
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CONCEPTS & SYNTHESIS
A simplified approach to detect a significant carbon dioxide reduction by phytoplankton in lakes and rivers on a regional and global scale Fabian Engel 1
&
Katrin Attermeyer 1,2
&
Gesa A. Weyhenmeyer 1
Received: 18 February 2020 / Revised: 26 May 2020 / Accepted: 11 June 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake by phytoplankton can significantly reduce the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in lakes and rivers, and thereby CO2 emissions. Presently, it is not known in which inland waters on Earth a significant pCO2 reduction by phytoplankton is likely. Since detailed, comparable carbon budgets are currently not available for most inland waters, we modified a proxy to assess the pCO2 reduction by phytoplankton, originally developed for boreal lakes, for application on a global scale. Using data from 61 rivers and 125 lakes distributed over five continents, we show that a significant pCO2 reduction by phytoplankton is widespread across the temperate and sub-/tropical region, but absent in the cold regions on Earth. More specifically, we found that a significant pCO2 reduction by phytoplankton might occur in 24% of the lakes in the temperate region, and 39% of the lakes in the sub-/tropical region. We also showed that such a reduction might occur in 21% of the rivers in the temperate region, and 5% of the rivers in the sub-/tropical region. Our results indicate that CO2 uptake by phytoplankton is a relevant flux in regional and global carbon budgets. This highlights the need for more accurate approaches to quantify CO2 uptake by primary producers in inland waters, particularly in the temperate and sub-/tropical region. Keywords Phytoplankton . Global carbon cycle . Inland waters . Total organic carbon . CO2 dynamics . Chlorophyll a
Introduction To explain and predict matter fluxes between the Earth system components, land, ocean, and atmosphere, and their connection to the climate system, a comprehensive understanding of biogeochemical processes in lakes and running waters is required (Ward et al. 2017). In recent years, attempts to map the characteristics of many of the 117 million lakes on Earth (e.g., Communicated by: Paula Roig Boixeda Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-020-01685-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Fabian Engel [email protected] 1
Department of Ecology and Genetics/Limnology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
2
Present address: WasserCluster Lunz – Biologische Station GmbH, Dr. Carl Kupelwieser Promenade 5, 3293 Lunz am See, Austria
Chen et al. 2015) and to quantify riverine carbon export from land to sea on a continental and global scale (e.g., Li et al. 2017) revealed regional differences in inland water carbon dynamics. Since carbon cycling in inland waters is spatially highly variable, a geographic perspective is necessary to understand the role of lakes and running waters as part of the Earth system (Seekell
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