ECOSYSTEMS ECOLOGY - MASS BALANCE REPORT

Nitrate Addition in a Midwestern Forest Stream

Jordan Hoppes

I. I NTRODUCTION

COSYSTEM function directly impacts ecosystem structure. In my selected ecosystems case, nitrogen is considered. Nitrogen is a limiting factor for all life. Nitrogen is
needed for the construction of nitrogenous bases and amino
acids. Many of the most basic functions of all living things
demand nitrogen. Say an organism preferred to assimilate
nitrate rather than ammonium and they were thrust into an
ecosystem with high ammonium concentrations yet very low
nitrification rates. That organism would not survive very long.
Say that organism was a keystone species that, as a consequence of everyday living, shaped the ecosystem around it.
The ecosystem with low nitrification rates would not be shaped
in a certain way by that ecosystem engineer, and thus certain
niches would not exist there. The absence of those niches
would probably lead to a fairly noticeable change in both the
abiotic and biotic features of the ecosystem, and that change is
entirely a result of the low nitrification rate. To understand the
way ecosystems are ultimately shaped by chemical features
like nitrification rates, ecologists construct mass balances to
track how chemical compounds move through an ecosystems
biota. In this way we can catch a glimpse of how these
compounds shape the ecosystem by determining where those
compounds go, and in what concentrations. Ultimately, mass
balances serve an incredibly important role. They are fairly
simple models, and can be used as a baseline for future
modeling (Jarre-Teichmann, 1998). Sometimes it is difficult
to picture trophic dynamics, or the where certain elements are
going in an ecosystem. With a mass balance, all of that is
laid out in an accessible format, and is available for reference
during further modeling.
II. E COSYSTEM D ESCRIPTION
The ecosystem Ive described in this mass balance includes
the following sinks: sedimentary organic nitrogen (which is
composed of both fine particulate organic matter and coarse
particulate organic matter) dissolved nitrate and ammonium,
primary producers, and consumers. I only included primary
consumers such as grazers and shredders, and some secondary
consumers like invertebrate predators. I did not include higher
consumers such as fish or piscivorous animals because I
hypothesize (rationally, I think) that they have far less impact
on the ultimate health of the ecosystem. The fluxes I included
are ammonium and nitrate inputs and exports (equal to one
another), desorption and sorption (also equal to one another),
nitrification, assimilation of nitrate and ammonium by primary
producers, assimilation of nitrogen by consumers, consumer
excretion, primary producer decomposition, nitrification, and
denitrification. I do not think I neglected any important fluxes.

In a broader sense the ecosystem is a forest stream in

the midwestern United States. The stream is an average of
4 meters in depth (an arbitrary number I came upon). The
stream receives fairly regular input of allochthonous material
from the riparian zone, and has a well-developed, stable food
web. Adjacent to the stream and the forest it runs through are
agricultural fields from which the perturbation will ultimately
come.
III. D ESCRIPTION OF P ERTURBATION
My chosen perturbation is nitrate addition from agricultural
runoff. I added 39887.4 mgN/m2 to increase the dissolved
nitrate concentration to 40,000 mgN/m2 . Upon first glance
this might seem extreme, but it is not. Nitrate concentrations
in American watersheds are measured at anywhere between
less than 1 mg/L and 100 mg/L (Rouse, 1999). I settled
for 10 mg/L, on the low end of the spectrum. I modeled as
if that concentration of dissolved nitrate was maintained for
one hundred days. I calculated the percent difference between
the post-perturbation dissolved nitrate and pre-perturbation
dissolved nitrate, and applied that percentage to the fluxes
originating from dissolved nitrate, assuming they would increase proportionally to the increase in dissolved nitrate (i.e.
assuming there is no upper limit to those fluxes.) Then, I
multiplied those post-perturbation fluxes by 100 to determine
how much nitrate those fluxes would transport to the next
sink over 100 days, and added it to the pre-perturbation
concentration in the sink those fluxes were delivering their
nitrogen to (Ill refer to these as secondary sinks). After that,
things become a bit more interesting. If you do the same thing
with those secondary sinks, the fluxes will be ten orders of
magnitude too large. Since the flux is a rate per day, not per
hundred days, it is necessary to convert the percentage increase
in the secondary sinks to a percentage increase per day,
rather than per 100 days. Essentially, divide the percentage
increase over 100 days by 100. I applied that daily percentage
increase to the fluxes originating from the secondary sink, and
recreated the process I used for the secondary sink and its
fluxes throughout the rest of the mass balance. In that way
I estimated how much the perturbation would grow both the
flux and sink concentrations.
IV. R ESULTS
The most lucid way to consider the results of my
post-perturbation model [Appendix Item 2] (since the
concentrations associated with the sinks are cumulative after
100 days of assimilation) is to compare the numbers to
a pre-perturbation model in which the sink concentrations

ECOSYSTEMS ECOLOGY - MASS BALANCE REPORT

have been expressed as similarly cumulative concentrations

[Appendix Item 3], rather than the baseline mass balance
[Appendix Item 1].

Increases in cumulative concentrations in consumers seems

extreme when considered apart from the pre-perturbation
cumulative numbers, but when compared to the cumulative
pre-perturbation numbers the changes are far more reasonable.
In fact, the sink which is seemingly most affected in the
cumulative post-perturbation model (sedimentary organic N
- with an increase of 12723.9 mgN/m2 from the baseline
concentration) seems much less dramatically altered when
you consider its deviation from the much more comparable
cumulative pre-perturbation model (an increase of 3790.9
mgN/m2 ). It remains a more considerable change than
the one seen in consumer concentrations, though. The most
significant change is found in primary producers (6603.5
mgN/m2 ).
V. C ONCLUSION , COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT, AND
RELEVANCE

Primary producers were most affected by the perturbation.

Intellectually, that makes sense. Primary producers are
receiving the nitrate directly from the source, dissolved nitrate
in the water. Consumer assimilation of that additional nitrate
is hindered by a number of factors like population size,
satiety, etc. In the same way, the amount of nitrate going to
sediment organic nitrogen is hampered by decomposition and
excretion rates. Only primary producers are directly receiving
nitrate from the water, unfettered by some intermediate sink.
It makes sense that they would be the most changed by the
perturbation. The effect of nitrate loading on invertebrates
is demonstrated in Ferreira and Gulis 2006 experiment on
nitrate addition and litter decomposition rates and associated
fungi. They showed that while adding nitrate affected fungi
and litter decomposition in general, invertebrate abundance
remained unchanged (Ferreira, Gulis, 2006). If the invertebrate
population remained unchanged, that seems to support the
very small increase in consumer nitrate concentrations in my
mass balance. The amount of food material the invertebrates
are consuming wont change much because their population
is not changing. So, while grazers and scrapers might be
assimilating more nitrogen because their food items are
more nitrogen rich, resulting in a small increase in nitrogen
concentrations, they are not experiencing any population
increase that might cause them to begin consuming more,
thereby dramatically increasing the nitrate concentration in

the consumer sink.

It has been demonstrated that primary producers respond
nearly equally to nitrogen and phosphorous addition (though
slightly more to phosphorous), and both stimulate growth.
Combined nitrogen and phosphorous enrichment shows
a growth response far greater than either nitrogen or
phosphorous independently (Elser, et. al., 2007). This seems
to somewhat support my mass balance. Primary producers
are affected by nitrogen because it is a limiting factor for
them. Each existing producer wants to consume nitrogen, and
the growth increase brought about by nitrogen addition only
increases the demand for nitrogen even more. This would
result in a hefty increase in nitrogen concentration in primary
producers after nitrate loading.
My findings are relevant because they shed light on where
nitrate primarily goes when it enters an stream ecosystem.
Excess nitrate primarily sinks into primary producers. In a
stream like mine, with fairly high accrual, theres a significant
worry about high biomass events as a result of nitrate loading
(Biggs, 2000). High biomass events in a stream like this could
result in consequences like hypoxia, eutrophication, and faunal
die-offs. The source of the biomass in high biomass events:
primary producers. The mass balance I have presented here
clearly shows that nitrate addition increases nitrogen concentrations in primary producers, and its been demonstrated that
nitrate addition leads to increases in primary producer growth.
Increases in primary producer growth leads to high biomass
events. High biomass events result in unhealthy streams with
the problems I listed above. If we want healthy streams, we
must limit the amount of nitrate we put into them. The current
nitrate concentrations in our streams are not what I would
comfortably call limited.
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ECOSYSTEMS ECOLOGY - MASS BALANCE REPORT

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