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Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs

While most global productivity is driven by modern photosynthesis, river ecosystems are supplied by locally fixed and imported carbon that spans a range of ages. Alluvial aquifers of gravel-bedded river floodplains present a conundrum: despite no possibility for photosynthesis in groundwater and ext...

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Autores principales: DelVecchia, Amanda G., Stanford, Jack A., Xu, Xiaomei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5117835/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27824032
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13163
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author DelVecchia, Amanda G.
Stanford, Jack A.
Xu, Xiaomei
author_facet DelVecchia, Amanda G.
Stanford, Jack A.
Xu, Xiaomei
author_sort DelVecchia, Amanda G.
collection PubMed
description While most global productivity is driven by modern photosynthesis, river ecosystems are supplied by locally fixed and imported carbon that spans a range of ages. Alluvial aquifers of gravel-bedded river floodplains present a conundrum: despite no possibility for photosynthesis in groundwater and extreme paucity of labile organic carbon, they support diverse and abundant large-bodied consumers (stoneflies, Insecta: Plecoptera). Here we show that up to a majority of the biomass carbon composition of these top consumers in four floodplain aquifers of Montana and Washington is methane-derived. The methane carbon ranges in age from modern to up to >50,000 years old and is mostly derived from biogenic sources, although a thermogenic contribution could not be excluded. We document one of the most expansive ecosystems to contain site-wide macroinvertebrate biomass comprised of methane-derived carbon and thereby advance contemporary understanding of basal resources supporting riverine productivity.
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spelling pubmed-51178352016-12-02 Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs DelVecchia, Amanda G. Stanford, Jack A. Xu, Xiaomei Nat Commun Article While most global productivity is driven by modern photosynthesis, river ecosystems are supplied by locally fixed and imported carbon that spans a range of ages. Alluvial aquifers of gravel-bedded river floodplains present a conundrum: despite no possibility for photosynthesis in groundwater and extreme paucity of labile organic carbon, they support diverse and abundant large-bodied consumers (stoneflies, Insecta: Plecoptera). Here we show that up to a majority of the biomass carbon composition of these top consumers in four floodplain aquifers of Montana and Washington is methane-derived. The methane carbon ranges in age from modern to up to >50,000 years old and is mostly derived from biogenic sources, although a thermogenic contribution could not be excluded. We document one of the most expansive ecosystems to contain site-wide macroinvertebrate biomass comprised of methane-derived carbon and thereby advance contemporary understanding of basal resources supporting riverine productivity. Nature Publishing Group 2016-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5117835/ /pubmed/27824032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13163 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
DelVecchia, Amanda G.
Stanford, Jack A.
Xu, Xiaomei
Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs
title Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs
title_full Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs
title_fullStr Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs
title_full_unstemmed Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs
title_short Ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs
title_sort ancient and methane-derived carbon subsidizes contemporary food webs
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5117835/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27824032
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13163
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