Phosphorus export from a restored wetland ecosystem in response to natural and experimental hydrologic fluctuations

Wetland restoration is a commonly used approach to reduce nutrient loading to freshwater and coastal ecosystems, with many wetland restoration efforts occurring in former agricultural fields. Restored wetlands are expected to be effective at retaining or removing both nitrogen and phosphorus (P), yet restoring wetland hydrology to former agricultural fields can lead to the release of legacy fertilizer P. Here, we examined P cycling and export following rewetting of the Timberlake Restoration Project, a 440 ha restored riverine wetland complex in the coastal plain of North Carolina. We also compared P cycling within the restored wetland to two minimally disturbed nearby wetlands and an adjacent active agricultural field. In the restored wetland we observed increased soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) concentrations following initial flooding, consistent with our expectations that P bound to iron would be released under reducing conditions. SRP concentrations in spring were 2.5 times higher leaving the restored wetland than a forested wetland and an agricultural field. During two large-scale drawdown and rewetting experiments we decreased the water depth by 1 m in ∼10 ha of inundated wetland for 2 weeks, followed by reflooding. Rewetting following experimental drainage had no effect on SRP concentrations in winter, but SRP concentrations did increase when the experiment was repeated during summer. Our best estimates suggest that this restored wetland could release legacy fertilizer P for up to a decade following hydrologic restoration. The time lag between restoration and biogeochemical recovery should be incorporated into management strategies of restored wetlands. Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.

The Effects of Organic Matter Amendments and Migratory Waterfowl on Greenhouse Gas and Nutrient Dynamics in Managed Coastal Plain Wetlands

Wetland ecosystems provide many valuable ecosystem services, including carbon (C) storage and improvement of water quality. Yet, restored and managed wetlands are not frequently evaluated for their capacity to function in order to deliver on these values. Specific restoration or management practices designed to meet one set of criteria may yield unrecognized biogeochemical costs or co-benefits. The goal of this dissertation is to improve scientific understanding of how wetland restoration practices and waterfowl habitat management affect critical wetland biogeochemical processes related to greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient cycling. I met this goal through field and laboratory research experiments in which I tested for relationships between management factors and the biogeochemical responses of wetland soil, water, plants and trace gas emissions. Specifically, I quantified: (1) the effect of organic matter amendments on the carbon balance of a restored wetland; (2) the effectiveness of two static chamber designs in measuring methane (CH4) emissions from wetlands; (3) the impact of waterfowl herbivory on the oxygen-sensitive processes of methane emission and coupled nitrification-denitrification; and (4) nitrogen (N) exports caused by prescribed draw down of a waterfowl impoundment.

The potency of CH4 emissions from wetlands raises the concern that widespread restoration and/or creation of freshwater wetlands may present a radiative forcing hazard. Yet data on greenhouse gas emissions from restored wetlands are sparse and there has been little investigation into the greenhouse gas effects of amending wetland soils with organic matter, a recent practice used to improve function of mitigation wetlands in the Eastern United States. I measured trace gas emissions across an organic matter gradient at a restored wetland in the coastal plain of Virginia to test the hypothesis that added C substrate would increase the emission of CH4. I found soils heavily loaded with organic matter emitted significantly more carbon dioxide than those that have received little or no organic matter. CH4 emissions from the wetland were low compared to reference wetlands and contrary to my hypothesis, showed no relationship with the loading rate of added organic matter or total soil C. The addition of moderate amounts of organic matter (< 11.2 kg m-2) to the wetland did not greatly increase greenhouse gas emissions, while the addition of high amounts produced additional carbon dioxide, but not CH4.

I found that the static chambers I used for sampling CH4 in wetlands were highly sensitive to soil disturbance. Temporary compression around chambers during sampling inflated the initial chamber CH4 headspace concentration and/or lead to generation of nonlinear, unreliable flux estimates that had to be discarded. I tested an often-used rubber-gasket sealed static chamber against a water-filled-gutter seal chamber I designed that could be set up and sampled from a distance of 2 m with a remote rod sampling system to reduce soil disturbance. Compared to the conventional design, the remotely-sampled static chambers reduced the chance of detecting inflated initial CH4 concentrations from 66 to 6%, and nearly doubled the proportion of robust linear regressions from 45 to 86%. The new system I developed allows for more accurate and reliable CH4 sampling without costly boardwalk construction.

I explored the relationship between CH4 emissions and aquatic herbivores, which are recognized for imposing top-down control on the structure of wetland ecosystems. The biogeochemical consequences of herbivore-driven disruption of plant growth, and in turn, mediated oxygen transport into wetland sediments, were not previously known. Two growing seasons of herbivore exclusion experiments in a major waterfowl overwintering wetland in the Southeastern U.S. demonstrate that waterfowl herbivory had a strong impact on the oxygen-sensitive processes of CH4 emission and nitrification. Denudation by herbivorous birds increased cumulative CH4 flux by 233% (a mean of 63 g CH4 m-2 y-1) and inhibited coupled nitrification-denitrification, as indicated by nitrate availability and emissions of nitrous oxide. The recognition that large populations of aquatic herbivores may influence the capacity for wetlands to emit greenhouse gases and cycle nitrogen is particularly salient in the context of climate change and nutrient pollution mitigation goals. For example, our results suggest that annual emissions of 23 Gg of CH4 y-1 from ~55,000 ha of publicly owned waterfowl impoundments in the Southeastern U.S. could be tripled by overgrazing.

Hydrologically controlled moist-soil impoundment wetlands provide critical habitat for high densities of migratory bird populations, thus their potential to export nitrogen (N) to downstream waters may contribute to the eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems. To investigate the relative importance of N export from these built and managed habitats, I conducted a field study at an impoundment wetland that drains into hypereutrophic Lake Mattamuskeet. I found that prescribed hydrologic drawdowns of the impoundment exported roughly the same amount of N (14 to 22 kg ha-1) as adjacent fertilized agricultural fields (16 to 31 kg ha-1), and contributed approximately one-fifth of total N load (~45 Mg N y-1) to Lake Mattamuskeet. Ironically, the prescribed drawdown regime, designed to maximize waterfowl production in impoundments, may be exacerbating the degradation of habitat quality in the downstream lake. Few studies of wetland N dynamics have targeted impoundments managed to provide wildlife habitat, but a similar phenomenon may occur in some of the 36,000 ha of similarly-managed moist-soil impoundments on National Wildlife Refuges in the southeastern U.S. I suggest early drawdown as a potential method to mitigate impoundment N pollution and estimate it could reduce N export from our study impoundment by more than 70%.

In this dissertation research I found direct relationships between wetland restoration and impoundment management practices, and biogeochemical responses of greenhouse gas emission and nutrient cycling. Elevated soil C at a restored wetland increased CO2 losses even ten years after the organic matter was originally added and intensive herbivory impact on emergent aquatic vegetation resulted in a ~230% increase in CH4 emissions and impaired N cycling and removal. These findings have important implications for the basic understanding of the biogeochemical functioning of wetlands and practical importance for wetland restoration and impoundment management in the face of pressure to mitigate the environmental challenges of global warming and aquatic eutrophication.

Control of cyclin B1 localization through regulated binding of the nuclear export factor CRM1.

Activation of the Cyclin B/Cdc2 kinase complex triggers entry into mitosis in all eukaryotic cells. Cyclin B1 localization changes dramatically during the cell cycle, precipitously transiting from the cytoplasm to the nucleus at the beginning of mitosis. Presumably, this relocalization promotes the phosphorylation of nuclear targets critical for chromatin condensation and nuclear envelope breakdown. We show here that the previously characterized cytoplasmic retention sequence of Cyclin B1, responsible for its interphase cytoplasmic localization, is actually an autonomous nuclear export sequence, capable of directing nuclear export of a heterologous protein, and able to bind specifically to the recently identified export mediator, CRM1. We propose that the observed cytoplasmic localization of Cyclin B1 during interphase reflects the equilibrium between ongoing nuclear import and rapid CRM1-mediated export. In support of this hypothesis, we found that treatment of cells with leptomycin B, which disrupted Cyclin B1-CRM1 interactions, led to a marked nuclear accumulation of Cyclin B1. In mitosis, Cyclin B1 undergoes phosphorylation at several sites, a subset of which have been proposed to play a role in Cyclin B1 accumulation in the nucleus. Both CRM1 binding and the ability to direct nuclear export were affected by mutation of these phosphorylation sites; thus, we propose that Cyclin B1 phosphorylation at the G2/M transition prevents its interaction with CRM1, thereby reducing nuclear export and facilitating nuclear accumulation.

A range-wide experiment to investigate nutrient and soil moisture interactions in loblolly pine plantations

© 2015 by the authors.The future climate of the southeastern USA is predicted to be warmer, drier and more variable in rainfall, which may increase drought frequency and intensity. Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) is the most important commercial tree species in the world and is planted on ~11 million ha within its native range in the southeastern USA. A regional study was installed to evaluate effects of decreased rainfall and nutrient additions on loblolly pine plantation productivity and physiology. Four locations were established to capture the range-wide variability of soil and climate. Treatments were initiated in 2012 and consisted of a factorial combination of throughfall reduction (approximate 30% reduction) and fertilization (complete suite of nutrients). Tree and stand growth were measured at each site. Results after two growing seasons indicate a positive but variable response of fertilization on stand volume increment at all four sites and a negative effect of throughfall reduction at two sites. Data will be used to produce robust process model parameterizations useful for simulating loblolly pine growth and function under future, novel climate and management scenarios. The resulting improved models will provide support for developing management strategies to increase pine plantation productivity and carbon sequestration under a changing climate.

Different Mechanisms Confer Gradual Control and Memory at Nutrient- and Stress-Regulated Genes in Yeast.

Cells respond to environmental stimuli by fine-tuned regulation of gene expression. Here we investigated the dose-dependent modulation of gene expression at high temporal resolution in response to nutrient and stress signals in yeast. The GAL1 activity in cell populations is modulated in a well-defined range of galactose concentrations, correlating with a dynamic change of histone remodeling and RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) association. This behavior is the result of a heterogeneous induction delay caused by decreasing inducer concentrations across the population. Chromatin remodeling appears to be the basis for the dynamic GAL1 expression, because mutants with impaired histone dynamics show severely truncated dose-response profiles. In contrast, the GRE2 promoter operates like a rapid off/on switch in response to increasing osmotic stress, with almost constant expression rates and exclusively temporal regulation of histone remodeling and RNAPII occupancy. The Gal3 inducer and the Hog1 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase seem to determine the different dose-response strategies at the two promoters. Accordingly, GAL1 becomes highly sensitive and dose independent if previously stimulated because of residual Gal3 levels, whereas GRE2 expression diminishes upon repeated stimulation due to acquired stress resistance. Our analysis reveals important differences in the way dynamic signals create dose-sensitive gene expression outputs.