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Effect of temperature on submerged macrophyte litter decomposition within sediments from a large shallow and subtropical freshwater lake

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Abstract

In shallow aquatic systems, the majority of organic matter mineralization occurs in the sediments. Several factors including temperature control mineralization rates, however, the underlying causes of the effects are not well understood in subtropical lakes. In this study, we determined the influence of temperature on organic matter degradation by taking sediments from four sites in a subtropical large shallow freshwater lake, and monitoring organic matter composition and enzymes in microcosm experiments at five temperatures from 5 to 40°C. Following a three-month incubation, it was found that the mineralization of submerged plants in sediments was strongly influenced by temperature. Removal efficiency of total organic carbon in sediments ranged from 4.3 to 22.6% at 5°C, and reached 46.7–55.5% at 40°C. In addition, the removal efficiency of organic matter and the relative recalcitrant carbon decomposition depended on sediment type. For sediments in the site located in the lake center, recalcitrant and labile carbon decomposition had equivalent responses to the different temperatures. For sediments with dominance of submerged macrophytes, the humic acids were low even at high temperature. Thus, the annual deposition of plant litter in sediments favored organic carbon decomposition rather than humification.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank anonymous reviewers and the associate editor Dr Mariana Meerhoff for their valuable comments, and Prof Lee R Krumholz in University of Oklahoma, USA, for help in language modification for the manuscript,. This work was supported by grants from Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-EW-314), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51079139 and 40971279).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China

    Na Song, Zai-Sheng Yan, Hai-Yuan Cai & He-Long Jiang

  2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Na Song

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  1. Na Song
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  2. Zai-Sheng Yan
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  3. Hai-Yuan Cai
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Correspondence to He-Long Jiang.

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Handling editor: Mariana Meerhoff

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Song, N., Yan, ZS., Cai, HY. et al. Effect of temperature on submerged macrophyte litter decomposition within sediments from a large shallow and subtropical freshwater lake. Hydrobiologia 714, 131–144 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-013-1529-2

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