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Research Impact Statement: Streambank legacy sediments constitute a significant fraction of suspended sediment-bound nutrient exports and must be considered in watershed models, regulatory assessments, and management practices.

While stream restorations are increasingly being adopted to mitigate sediment and nutrient inputs and to meet water quality regulatory targets, less information is available on the drivers behind the design, implementation, effectiveness, and cost of restorations. We address these issues for a $4.2 million stream restoration for legacy sediments implemented for a rural Piedmont stream in Maryland, USA. A total of 1668 m of stream was restored in three phases, which included the partial removal of legacy sediments, the grading of streambanks, floodplain creation, channel reshaping with meanders and pool-riffle forms, the raising of the stream bed, and the planting of riparian vegetation. The sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus concentrations and fluxes were monitored before- and during the restoration phases. The sites selected for restoration had legacy sediments vulnerable to erosion and were on state-owned land. The restoration design was based on the need to maintain mature riparian trees and preserve existing sensitive wetland habitats. Water quality monitoring indicated that the sediment and nutrient fluxes increased during the restoration phase and were attributed to disturbance associated with construction activities and increased runoff. We also recommend that soil health needs to be included as an integral component to enhance the effectiveness and resilience of stream restorations.

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Streambank legacy sediments can contribute substantial amounts of sediments to Mid-Atlantic waterways. However, there is uncertainty about the sediment-bound P inputs and the fate of legacy sediment P in surface waters. We compared legacy sediment P concentrations against other streambank sediments and upland soils and evaluated a variety of P indices to determine if legacy sediments are a source or sink of P to surface waters. Legacy sediments were collected from 15 streambanks in the mid-Atlantic USA. Total P and M3P concentrations and % degree of phosphorus saturation (DPS) values for legacy sediments were lower than those for upland soils. % DPS values for legacy sediments were below the water quality threshold for P leaching. Phosphorus sorption index (PSI) values for legacy sediments indicated a large capacity for P sorption. On the other hand, equilibrium phosphorus concentration (EPC0) for legacy sediments suggested that they could be a source or a sink depending on stream water P concentrations. Anoxic conditions resulted in a greater release of P from legacy sediments compared to oxic conditions. These results suggest that legacy sediment P behavior could be highly variable and watershed models will need to account for this variability to reliably quantify the source-sink behavior of legacy sediments in surface waters.

To mitigate harmful cyanobacterial blooms (HCBs), toxic algicides have been used, but alternative methods of HCB prevention are needed. Our goal was to test the prophylactic addition of glucose to inhibit HCB development, using Microcystis and the toxin microcystin as the HCB model. Water samples were collected weekly, from 4 June to 2 July, from Harsha Lake in southwestern Ohio during the 2021 algal bloom season. From each weekly sample, a 25 mL aliquot was frozen for a 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. Then, 200 mL of Harsha Lake water was added to each of the three culture flasks, and glucose was added to create concentrations of 0 mM (control), 1.39 mM, or 13.9 mM glucose, respectively. The microcystin concentration in each flask was measured after 1 and 2 weeks of incubation. The results showed an 80 to 90% reduction in microcystin concentrations in glucose-treated water compared to the control. At the end of the second week of incubation, a 25 mL sample was also obtained from each of the culture flasks for molecular analysis, including a 16S rRNA gene sequencing and qPCR-based quantification of Microcystis target genes. Based on these analyses, the glucose-treated water contained significantly lower Microcystis and microcystin producing gene (mcy) copy numbers than the control. The 16S rRNA sequencing analysis also revealed that Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria were initially the most abundant bacterial phyla in the Harsha Lake water, but as the summer progressed, Cyanobacteria became the dominant phyla. However, in the glucose-treated water, the Cyanobacteria decreased and the Proteobacteria increased in weekly abundance compared to the control. This glucose-induced proteobacterial increase in abundance was driven primarily by increases in two distinct families of Proteobacteria: Devosiaceae and Rhizobiaceae. In conclusion, the prophylactic addition of glucose to Harsha Lake water samples reduced Cyanobacteria’s relative abundance, Microcystis numbers and microcystin concentrations and increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria compared to the control.

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Cyanobacteria and cyanotoxin producing cyanobacterial blooms are a trending focus of current research. Many studies focus on bloom events in lentic environments such as lakes or ponds. Comparatively few studies have explored lotic environments and fewer still have examined the cyanobacterial communities and potential cyanotoxin producers during ambient, non-bloom conditions. Here we used a metagenomics-based approach to profile non-bloom microbial communities and cyanobacteria in 12 major U.S. rivers at multiple time points during the summer months of 2019. Our data show that U.S. rivers possess microbial communities that are taxonomically rich, yet largely consistent across geographic location and time. Within these communities, cyanobacteria often comprise significant portions and frequently include multiple species with known cyanotoxin producing strains. We further characterized these potential cyanotoxin producing taxa by deep sequencing amplicons of the microcystin E (mcyE) gene. We found that rivers containing the highest levels of potential cyanotoxin producing cyanobacteria consistently possess taxa with the genetic potential for cyanotoxin production and that, among these taxa, the predominant genus of origin for the mcyE gene is Microcystis. Combined, these data provide a unique perspective on cyanobacteria and potential cyanotoxin producing taxa that exist in large rivers across the U.S. and can be used to better understand the ambient conditions that may precede bloom events in lotic freshwater ecosystems.