TY - JOUR
T1 - Warming drives dissolved organic carbon export from pristine alpine soils
AU - Pearson, Andrew R.
AU - Fox, Bethany
AU - Hellstrom, John
AU - Vandergoes, Marcus J.
AU - Breitenbach, Sebastian F.M.
AU - Drysdale, Russell
AU - Höpker, Sebastian N.
AU - Wood, Christopher T.
AU - Schiller, Martin
AU - Hartland, Adam
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Steven Newcombe (University of Waikato) for assistance in cutting and polishing the speleothem slabs. We would also like to thank Travis Cross for fieldwork support. Thanks to Ignacio A.\u00A0Jara\u00A0(Universidad de Tarapac\u00E1) for providing data from Adelaide Tarn. Thanks to Steph Mangan (NIWA) for assistance producing Figs.\u00A01, 3 and 4. Thanks to James Rolfe and John Nicolson (Godwin Laboratory, University of Cambridge) for undertaking \u03B418O and \u03B413C analysis. Thanks to Carsten Meyer-Jacob (Universit\u00E9 du Qu\u00E9bec en Abitibi-T\u00E9miscamingue) for PLSR modelling of FTIRS-TOC data. Thanks to Brittany Marie Ward (University of Waikato) for assistance in preparing geochemical proxy data. This study was made possible by Marsden Fund Grant UOW1403. This project was additionally supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) through the \u2018Global Change through Time\u2019 programme (Strategic Science Investment Fund, contract C05X1702); a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship award to A.H. (RDF-UOW1601); and by the New Zealand Government\u2019s Strategic Science Investment Fund (SSIF) made available to A.R.P. from the ESR project \u2018Groundwater in a warming world: Assessing resilience, threats, and implications\u2019. M.S. acknowledges support from the Villum Fonden (00025333) and the Carlsberg Foundation (CF18_1105).
Funding Information:
We would like to thank Steven Newcombe (University of Waikato) for assistance in cutting and polishing the speleothem slabs. We would also like to thank Travis Cross for fieldwork support. Thanks to Ignacio A. Jara (Universidad de Tarapac\u00E1) for providing data from Adelaide Tarn. Thanks to Steph Mangan (NIWA) for assistance producing Figs. , and . Thanks to James Rolfe and John Nicolson (Godwin Laboratory, University of Cambridge) for undertaking \u03B4O and \u03B4C analysis. Thanks to Carsten Meyer-Jacob (Universit\u00E9 du Qu\u00E9bec en Abitibi-T\u00E9miscamingue) for PLSR modelling of FTIRS-TOC data. Thanks to Brittany Marie Ward (University of Waikato) for assistance in preparing geochemical proxy data. This study was made possible by Marsden Fund Grant UOW1403. This project was additionally supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) through the \u2018Global Change through Time\u2019 programme (Strategic Science Investment Fund, contract C05X1702); a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship award to A.H. (RDF-UOW1601); and by the New Zealand Government\u2019s Strategic Science Investment Fund (SSIF) made available to A.R.P. from the ESR project \u2018Groundwater in a warming world: Assessing resilience, threats, and implications\u2019. M.S. acknowledges support from the Villum Fonden (00025333) and the Carlsberg Foundation (CF18_1105).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/12/1
Y1 - 2024/12/1
N2 - Despite decades of research, the influence of climate on the export of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soil remains poorly constrained, adding uncertainty to global carbon models. The limited temporal range of contemporary monitoring data, ongoing climate reorganisation and confounding anthropogenic activities muddy the waters further. Here, we reconstruct DOC leaching over the last ~14,000 years using alpine environmental archives (two speleothems and one lake sediment core) across 4° of latitude from Te Waipounamu/South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. We selected broadly comparable palaeoenvironmental archives in mountainous catchments, free of anthropogenically-induced landscape changes prior to ~1200 C.E. We show that warmer temperatures resulted in increased allochthonous DOC export through the Holocene, most notably during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO), which was some 1.5–2.5 °C warmer than the late pre-industrial period—then decreased during the cooler mid-Holocene. We propose that temperature exerted the key control on the observed doubling to tripling of soil DOC export during the HCO, presumably via temperature-mediated changes in vegetative soil C inputs and microbial degradation rates. Future warming may accelerate DOC export from mountainous catchments, with implications for the global carbon cycle and water quality.
AB - Despite decades of research, the influence of climate on the export of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soil remains poorly constrained, adding uncertainty to global carbon models. The limited temporal range of contemporary monitoring data, ongoing climate reorganisation and confounding anthropogenic activities muddy the waters further. Here, we reconstruct DOC leaching over the last ~14,000 years using alpine environmental archives (two speleothems and one lake sediment core) across 4° of latitude from Te Waipounamu/South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. We selected broadly comparable palaeoenvironmental archives in mountainous catchments, free of anthropogenically-induced landscape changes prior to ~1200 C.E. We show that warmer temperatures resulted in increased allochthonous DOC export through the Holocene, most notably during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO), which was some 1.5–2.5 °C warmer than the late pre-industrial period—then decreased during the cooler mid-Holocene. We propose that temperature exerted the key control on the observed doubling to tripling of soil DOC export during the HCO, presumably via temperature-mediated changes in vegetative soil C inputs and microbial degradation rates. Future warming may accelerate DOC export from mountainous catchments, with implications for the global carbon cycle and water quality.
KW - dissolved organic carbon (DOC)
KW - climate
KW - soil
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85191306007&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-024-47706-6
DO - 10.1038/s41467-024-47706-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 38664386
VL - 15
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 3522
ER -