Magnitude and influence of atmospheric phosphorus deposition on the southern Baltic Sea coast over 23 years: implications for coastal waters

Abstract

Background: There are various ways for nutrients to enter aquatic ecosystems causing eutrophication. Phosphorus deposition through precipitation can be one pathway, besides point sources, like rivers, and diffuse runoff from land. It is also important to evaluate recent trends and seasonal distribution patterns of phosphorus deposition, as important diffuse source. Therefore, a long-term dataset was analysed including 23 years of daily phosphate bulk depositional rates and 4.5 years of total phosphorus (TP) bulk depositional rates. The study area was at the coastline of the southern Baltic Sea, an area which shows severe eutrophication problems. Results:The median daily deposition of phosphate was 56 µg m −2 day −1 (1.8 µmol m −2 day −1 ) at 4222 rain events. The median annual sum of phosphate deposition was 16.7 kg km −2 a −1 , which is comparable to other European areas. The annual TP deposition depended strongly on methodological aspects, especially the sample volume. The median TP-depositional rates ranged between 19 and 70 kg km −2 a −1 depending on the calculated compensation for missing values, as not every rain event could be measured for TP. The highest TP-depositional rates were measured during summer (e.g. up to 9 kg TP km −2 in August 2016). There was no trend detectable for phosphate-and TP-depositional rates over the sampled period.Conclusions: Deposition of P is a considerable nutrient flux for coastal waterbodies. Median total annual deposition contributed 3 t (phosphate) to 10 t (TP) per year into the adjacent lagoon system, being therefore close to annual riverine inflows of 10 t phosphate and 20 t TP per year. However, the impact of precipitation is predicted to be higher in lagoon parts with fewer point sources for phosphorus, if equally distributed over the area of interest. which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Biological Soil Crust From Mesic Forests Promote a Specific Bacteria Community

“…In contrast to N, P cannot be fixed from the atmosphere, which makes it a hard-to-overcome limiting factor. Atmospheric deposition of P by dust or rain is limited ( Berthold et al, 2019 ), and its weathering from minerals is energy-consuming as many strategies require a sufficient C supply. The small inputs of atmospheric P may lead to an accumulation over time in the biocrusts because organic bound P as well as the available P pools undergo rapid transformation by the biocrust biota ( Baumann et al, 2017 ).…”

Seasonal Variation in Biomass and Production of the Macrophytobenthos in two Lagoons in the Southern Baltic Sea

“…In the early 1980ies, eutrophication caused a collapse of the macrophytobenthos in the entire DZBC which became dominated by the pelagic producers (Schiewer, 1998). Lagoons of the Baltic Sea receive nutrients from diffuse run-offs (Berthold et al, 2018b), atmospheric wet and dry deposition (Berthold et al, 2019) and from sediment (Bitschofsky, 2016;Berthold et al, 2018c). In 1990, new wastewater treatment plants reduced the discharge of P and N in the lagoons of the German Baltic Sea by over 89% (Nausch et al, 2011).…”

Correlation of the abundance of bacteria catalyzing phosphorus and nitrogen turnover in biological soil crusts of temperate forests of Germany

“…Less is known and only a few studies exist, which describe biocrusts as hotspots for nutrient turnover in temperate regions (Baumann et al 2019;Brankatschk et al 2013;Corbin and Thiet 2020;Gypser et al 2016;Schaub et al 2019;Schulz et al 2016;Szyja et al 2018), especially within well-developed ecosystems like forests (Baumann et al 2017;Glaser et al 2018;Williams et al 2016). Atmospheric P inputs by dry and wet deposition in forests contribute as well since forests are dust traps also for particles from irrigated, highly fertilized agricultural soils (Aciego et al 2017;Berthold et al 2019) and those might be entrapped in the polymeric matrix of biocrusts. However, the relative contribution to P pools strongly depends on the bulk soil P concentration (Aciego et al 2017).…”