Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Project Information
• Funding

Bulk soil and elemental properties of marsh and infilled pond soils within Plum Island Ecosystems - LTER. Bulk soil properties of the soils are complemented with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and ramped pyrolysis oxidation measurements of the soils. Data were collected during 2014-2015.

Soil cores were collected from three sites within the Plum Island Ecosystems - Long Term Ecological Research (PIE-LTER) domain (MA, USA; 42.74° N, -70.85° W). A core liner was fitted with a gasketed piston and placed on the sediment surface and pushed down into the marsh subsurface, ensuring that the soil column did not compact during collection.

The sites had similar elevations (1.41 - 1.51 m North American Vertical Datum of 1988 [NAVD88]) and salt marsh grass communities, dominated by Spartina patens, S. alterniflora, and Distichlis spicata. Permanently inundated ponds within each site had comparable depths (0.24 - 0.30 m) but varied in size (643 - 7,149 m²) and age (40 - 53 years) (Spivak et al., 2017; Spivak et al., 2018).

Soil cores were split lengthwise and sectioned into 1, 2, or 5 cm sections, with higher resolution in the top 30 cm. Soil water content (%) and bulk density (g/cm³) were determined gravimetrically after drying to constant mass (60°C). Samples were sieved (1 mm) to remove root material and homogenized with a Retsch Mixer Mill 200. 

The thermal reactivity of SOC was characterized through ramped pyrolysis oxidation (RPO). Homogenized soil samples (~6 mg) were exposed to a constant flow of ultra-high purity oxygen and helium gas mixture within a reactor, where temperatures ramped to 1000°C at a constant rate (20°C per min) (Rosenheim et al., 2008). The evolved carbon dioxide (CO2) was measured by a flow-through infrared gas analyzer and thermograms were constructed by plotting gas concentrations over time. Thermograms were normalized to the expected milligram of carbon evolved per gram of dry soil sample (mg C / g soil). Samples were not acidified as inorganic carbon content was 0.02% - 0.04% of TOC. Analyses were conducted at the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility (NOSAMS, Woods Hole, MA). We further analyzed the δ13C and Fm composition of CO2 evolved from marsh and pond soils at one representative site.

Data were processed using the Ramped pyrox python package (Hemingway, Rothman, Rosengard, & Galy, 2017).

BCO-DMO Processing:
- replaced NaN with nd as the missing data identifier;
- renamed fields to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions (no spaces or special characters).

Extracted from the NSF award abstract:
This project will address how rates of benthic microalgal production respond to eutrophication and geomorphological changes in human-impacted tidal creeks. Excess nutrient loading increases benthic algal biomass and likely stimulates production rates but the magnitude of nutrient and geomorphological effects on rates of production is unknown. Will changes in benthic algal productivity affect algal-bacterial coupling? Furthermore, how is algal-bacterial coupling affected by geomorphological changes, which may be exacerbated by excess nutrient loading but can also occur in pristine marshes?

This project will take advantage of the infrastructure of the TIDE project, a long-term saltmarsh eutrophication experiment at the Plum Island Ecosystem - Long Term Ecological Research site in Northeastern Massachusetts. Specifically, the PIs will measure benthic metabolism and examine algal- bacterial coupling in fertilized and ambient nutrient tidal creeks in the first field season. The following field season, they will compare sediment metabolism and carbon dynamics on slumped tidal creek walls (i.e. areas where low marsh has collapsed into the tidal creek) to that on the bottom of tidal creeks. In both years, gross and net production will be determined using an innovative triple oxygen isotope technique and traditional dissolved oxygen and inorganic carbon flux measurements. Comparisons between these methods will be useful in informing studies of sediment metabolism. Lipid biomarkers will be used to characterize the sources of organic matter to creek sediments, and stable isotope analysis of bacterial specific biomarkers to identify the sources of organic carbon utilized by sediment bacteria. The biomarkers will reveal whether sediment bacteria use organic matter substrates, such as benthic microalgal carbon, selectively or in proportion to availability. Overall, results from the proposed study will provide important information about how sediment carbon dynamics in shallow tidal creeks respond to long term eutrophication. Furthermore, findings will enhance understanding of the role of tidal creeks in coastal biogeochemistry.