Baohua Xie

Stimulation of long-term ammonium nitrogen deposition on methanogenesis by Methanocellaceae in a coastal wetland

Atmospheric nitrogen deposition caused by human activities has been receiving much attention. Here, after long-term simulated ammonium and nitrate nitrogen deposition (NH4Cl, KNO3, and NH4NO3) in the Yellow River Delta (YRD), a sensitive coastal wetland ecosystem typified by a distinct wet and dry season, methane fluxes were measured, by adopting a closed static chamber technique. The results showed that deposition of ammonium nitrogen accelerated methane emissions all year round. Ammonium nitrogen deposition transformed the YRD from a methane sink into a source during the dry season. Methanocellaceae is the only methanogen with increased abundance after the application of NH4Cl and NH4NO3, which promoted methane emissions, during the wet season. The findings suggested that Methanocellaceae may facilitate methane emissions in response to increased ammonium nitrogen deposition. Other methanogens might have profited from ammonium supplementation, such as Methanosarcinaceae. Deposition of nitrate nitrogen did not affect methane flux significantly. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to show that Methanocellaceae may be responsible for methane production in coastal wetland system. This study highlights the significant effect of ammonium nitrogen and slight effect of nitrate nitrogen on methane emission in the YRD and it will be helpful to understand the microbial mechanism responding to increased nitrogen deposition in the sensitive coastal wetland ecosystem.

Field-scale simulation of methane emissions from coastal wetlands in China using an improved version of CH4MODwetland

Coastal wetlands are important CH4 sources to the atmosphere. Coastal wetlands account for ~10% of the total area of natural wetlands in China, but the size of this potential CH4 source remains highly uncertain. We introduced the influence of salinity on CH4 production and CH4 diffusion into a biogeophysical model named CH4MODwetland so that it can be used in coastal wetlands. The improved model can generally simulate seasonal CH4 variations from tidal marshes dominated by Phragmites and Scirpus. However, the model underestimated winter CH4 fluxes from tidal marshes in the Yellow River Delta and YanCheng Estuary. It also failed to capture the accurate timing of the CH4 peaks in YanCheng Estuary and ChongMing Island in 2012. The improved model could generally simulate the difference between the annual mean CH4 fluxes from mangrove sites in GuangZhou and HaiKou city under different salinity and water table depth conditions, although fluxes were systematically underestimated in the mangrove site of HaiKou city. Using the improved model, the seasonal CH4 emissions simulated across all of the coastal wetlands ranged from 0.1 to 44.90gm(-2), with an average value of 7.89gm(-2), which is in good agreement with the observed values. The improved model significantly decreased the RMSE and RMD from 424% to 14% and 314% to -2%, respectively, and improved the EF from -18.30 to 0.99. Model sensitivity analysis showed that CH4 emissions were most sensitive to Pox in the tidal marshes and salinity in the mangroves. The results show that previous studies may have overestimated CH4 emissions on a regional or global scale by neglecting the influence of salinity. In general, the CH4MODwetland model can simulate seasonal CH4 emissions from different types of coastal wetlands under various conditions. Further improvements of CH4MODwetland should include the specific characteristics of CH4 processes in mangroves to decrease the uncertainty in estimating regional or global CH4 emissions from natural wetlands.

Importance of vegetation classes in modeling CH4 emissions from boreal and subarctic wetlands in Finland.

Boreal/arctic wetlands are dominated by diverse plant species, which vary in their contribution to CH4 production, oxidation and transport processes. Earlier studies have often lumped the processes all together, which may induce large uncertainties into the results. We present a novel model, which includes three vegetation classes and can be used to simulate CH4 emissions from boreal and arctic treeless wetlands. The model is based on an earlier biogeophysical model, CH4MODwetland. We grouped the vegetation as graminoids, shrubs and Sphagnum and recalibrated the vegetation parameters according to their different CH4 production, oxidation and transport capacities. Then, we used eddy-covariance-based CH4 flux observations from a boreal (Siikaneva) and a subarctic fen (Lompolojänkkä) in Finland to validate the model. The results showed that the recalibrated model could generally simulate the seasonal patterns of the Finnish wetlands with different plant communities. The comparison between the simulated and measured daily CH4 fluxes resulted in a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.82 with a slope of 1.0 and an intercept of -0.1mgm-2h-1 for the Siikaneva site (n=2249, p<0.001) and an R2 of 0.82 with a slope of 1.0 and an intercept of 0.0mgm-2h-1 for the Lompolojänkkä site (n=1826, p<0.001). Compared with the original model, the recalibrated model in this study significantly improved the model efficiency (EF), from -5.5 to 0.8 at the Siikaneva site and from -0.4 to 0.8 at the Lompolojänkkä site. The simulated annual CH4 emissions ranged from 7 to 24gm-2yr-1, which was consistent with the observations (7-22gm-2yr-1). However, there are some discrepancies between the simulated and observed daily CH4 fluxes for the Siikaneva site (RMSE=50.0%) and the Lompolojänkkä site (RMSE=47.9%). Model sensitivity analysis showed that increasing the proportion of the graminoids would significantly increase the CH4 emission levels. Our study demonstrated that the parameterization of the different vegetation processes was important in estimating long-term wetland CH4 emissions.

Soil Phosphorus Forms and Profile Distributions in the Tidal River Network Region in the Yellow River Delta Estuary

Modified Hedley fraction method was used to study the forms and profile distribution in the tidal river network region subjected to rapid deposition and hydrologic disturbance in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) estuary, eastern China. The results showed that the total P (Pt) ranged from 612.1 to 657.8 mg kg−1. Dilute HCl extractable inorganic P (Pi) was the predominant form in all profiles, both as absolute values and as a percentage of total extracted Pi. The NaOH extractable organic P (Po) was the predominant form of total extracted Po, while Bicarb-Pi and C.HCl-Po were the lowest fractions of total extracted Pi and Po in all the P forms. The Resin-P concentrations were high in the top soil layer and decreased with depth. The Pearson correlation matrix indicated that Resin-P, Bicarb-Pi, NaOH-Pi, and C.HCl-Pi were strongly positively correlated with salinity, TOC, Ca, Al, and Fe but negatively correlated with pH. The significant correlation of any studied form of organic P (Bicarb-Po, NaOH-Po, and C.HCl-Po) with geochemical properties were not observed in the study. Duncan multiple-range test indicated that the P forms and distribution heterogeneity in the profiles could be attributed to the influences of vegetation cover and hydrologic disturbance.

N2O Emissions from an Apple Orchard in the Coastal Area of Bohai Bay, China

Using static chambers and gas chromatography, nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes from an apple orchard soil in the Bohai Bay region of China were measured from February 2010 to February 2011. In this study, two nitrogen (N) fertilizer treatments were designed—without (CK) or with (SN) synthetic N fertilizers (800 kg N ha−1). The annual cumulative N2O emissions from CK and SN were 34.6 ± 3.0 (mean ± standard error) and 44.3 ± 6.0 kg N2O–N ha−1, respectively. Such high emissions resulted from the intensive N fertilization in the experimental and previous years. The direct emission factor (EFd) of N2O induced by the applied synthetic N fertilizers was 1.2%. The EFd is within the range of previous studies carried out in other croplands, which suggests that it is reasonable to estimate regional N2O emissions from apple orchards using the EFd obtained in other croplands. In addition, significant positive correlations existed between N2O fluxes and soil temperatures or soil dissolved organic carbon contents.