Poster Details
DEVELOPING STANDARD COLLECTION PROCEDURES FOR INTACT SEDIMENT CORE INCUBATIONS IN CONTINUOUS FLOW EXPERIMENTS
Intact sediment cores are thought to provide robust estimates of ambient nutrient cycling in aquatic systems. However, anomalies are often observed between core replicates designed to represent consistent field conditions. Inconsistencies may be initiated during core collection and transport, where holding time and temperature may vary. My objective is to systematically examine how core transport temperature and holding time alters estimates of dissolved nutrient (N and P) retention and gas (N2, O2, and CH4) flux. Cores collected from a local wetland will be randomly assigned a temperature (ambient or on ice) and holding time (1, 6, 12, or 24 hours) until laboratory incubation at ambient field temperature. Paired inflow and outflow water samples will be collected from each core at regular intervals for 3 days and analyzed for dissolved nutrient or gas concentrations. Lower storage temperatures should slow microbial activity, requiring a longer acclimation time for consistent measurements. Longer holding times should allow continued microbial activity, resulting in different initial incubation biogeochemical conditions. Results from this work will improve understanding of anomalous and inconsistent data observed in flow-through core incubations and inform standardized core collection protocols in aquatic systems.
Robert Brown (Primary Presenter/Author), Tennessee Tech University, brownrs1991@gmail.com;
Justin Murdock (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Tennessee Technological University, jnmurdock@tntech.edu;
Jordan Evans (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Tennessee Technological University, jlevans@tntech.edu;