Trajectories of Sediment-Water Interactions in Reservoirs as a Result of Temperature and Oxygen Conditions

Abstract

Temperate lakes/reservoirs are warming; this can influence the benthic release of nutrients. They undergo seasonal changes resulting in an array of temperature and oxygen conditions; oxic-low, oxic-high, anoxic-low, and anoxic-high temperature. We sought to understand the interaction of temperature and oxygen conditions on benthic solutes exchange through a two-factorial sediment core incubation experiment by varying either temperature or oxygen conditions of sediment cores from an oligotrophic and eutrophic reservoir. Temperature and oxygen conditions are both important for nutrient release; however, they influence solutes differently; differences in the fluxes of the treatments were explained more by temperature for P, DOC and N, while for Fe, Mn and SO42−, differences were explained more by oxygen conditions. The combination of strongly reducing conditions (due to anoxia) and high temperature (20 °C) led to a significant increase in nutrients concentrations in the overlying water. Under these conditions, SRP flux was 0.04 and 0.5 mmol m−2 d−1; ammonium was 0.9 and 5.6 mmol m−2 d−1 for the oligotrophic and eutrophic reservoir, respectively. We observed a synergistic interaction between temperature and oxygen conditions which resulted in release of solutes from sediments. An increase in nutrients release under increasing temperatures is more likely and so are algal blooms.