The Evolution of Stream Dissolved Organic Matter Composition Following Glacier Retreat in Coastal Watersheds of Southeast Alaska

The Evolution of Stream Dissolved Organic Matter Composition Following Glacier Retreat in Coastal Watersheds of Southeast Alaska | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article The Evolution of Stream Dissolved Organic Matter Composition Following Glacier Retreat in Coastal Watersheds of Southeast Alaska Amy Dehner Holt, Jason Fellman, Eran Hood, Anne M Kellerman, Peter Raymond, and 3 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-237529/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 6 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Climate change is melting glaciers and altering watershed biogeochemistry across the globe, particularly in regions dominated by mountain glaciers, such as southeast Alaska. Glacier dominated watersheds exhibit distinct dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics compared to forested and vegetated watersheds. However, there is a paucity of information on how stream DOM composition changes as glaciers retreat and terrestrial ecosystem succession ensues. Importantly, it is unclear over what timescales these transformations occur. Here, we used bulk, isotopic and ultrahigh resolution molecular-level techniques to assess how streamwater DOM composition evolves in response to glacier retreat and subsequent terrestrial ecosystem succession. For this, water samples were collected from eleven streams across a chronosequence spanning a temporal gradient 0 to ~1,400 years since glacier retreat in coastal, southeast Alaska. During the first ~200 years since glacier retreat, stream DOM showed marked and consistent changes in bulk, isotopic, and molecular-level composition. In particular, there was a decreased abundance of ancient, energy-rich (e.g., elevated aliphatic contribution), low aromaticity (e.g., low SUVA 254 and AI mod ) DOM and an increased abundance of soil and vegetation derived aromatic DOM (e.g., more depleted d 13 C, elevated condensed aromatic and polyphenolic contribution) that had a modern radiocarbon age. After ~200 years of ecosystem development, DOM composition was comparable to that observed for other temperate and arctic forested watersheds without permafrost influence. These results underscore the timelines on which glacier retreat may have substantial impacts on watershed biogeochemistry and coastal ecosystems that receive DOM subsidies from these rapidly changing landscapes. Biogeography Geochemistry Environmental Policy Marine and Freshwater Ecology deglaciation dissolved organic carbon FT-ICR MS carbon isotopes succession Glacier Bay Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Full Text Due to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. However, the manuscript can be downloaded and accessed as a PDF. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Minor revisions 30 Mar, 2021 Reviews received at journal 19 Feb, 2021 Editor assigned by journal 16 Feb, 2021 Editor invited by journal 16 Feb, 2021 Reviewers invited by journal 16 Feb, 2021 First submitted to journal 12 Feb, 2021 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-237529","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":12324195,"identity":"3fcd9f52-28bf-4441-9a02-ad2a713828f0","order_by":0,"name":"Amy Dehner Holt","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA00lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYFCCHIYDH9hsgAzGByAuYwMRWhgPzmBLAzKYDYjWwnyYh+0wCVr423MPHOYpOx9tcICZ+TMPg43shgMEtEiceZdwcM6527kbDjCzSfMwpBkT1MJwI8fgwNs2kBb+Y8w8DIcTCWqRB2nhbTsHsgXksP+EtRgAtRzkbTsA0sIAdNgBwloMz7wxODjjXHLuzMPMbJJzDJKNZxLSInc8x/jDhzK73L7jzcwf3lTYyfYR0gIHCofB7iRWOQjIN5CiehSMglEwCkYUAAAwPEuFseJjEAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7091-9416","institution":"Florida State University","correspondingAuthor":true,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Amy","middleName":"Dehner","lastName":"Holt","suffix":""},{"id":12324196,"identity":"358a8999-bafe-43cf-9206-6debd146a920","order_by":1,"name":"Jason Fellman","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Alaska Southeast","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jason","middleName":"","lastName":"Fellman","suffix":""},{"id":12324197,"identity":"ab9e1a34-adfe-4303-b884-a66bb125a4d2","order_by":2,"name":"Eran Hood","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Alaska Southeast","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Eran","middleName":"","lastName":"Hood","suffix":""},{"id":12324198,"identity":"cf5a761c-b970-4aea-8e64-11ac3daeffa1","order_by":3,"name":"Anne M Kellerman","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Florida State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Anne","middleName":"M","lastName":"Kellerman","suffix":""},{"id":12324199,"identity":"db107c3c-e4cf-4b7d-b492-de23644f17f9","order_by":4,"name":"Peter Raymond","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Yale University","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Peter","middleName":"","lastName":"Raymond","suffix":""},{"id":12324200,"identity":"122da1f3-bd25-4f87-abfc-f37b91b5669d","order_by":5,"name":"Aron Stubbins","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Northeastern University","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Aron","middleName":"","lastName":"Stubbins","suffix":""},{"id":12324201,"identity":"d78d2cad-a9dc-41be-8b6d-7f76378dc1dc","order_by":6,"name":"Thorsten Dittmar","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Institute of Chemistry and Biology of Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Thorsten","middleName":"","lastName":"Dittmar","suffix":""},{"id":12324202,"identity":"98e9cad0-b3e2-4631-b937-68c9ac215631","order_by":7,"name":"Robert G.M Spencer","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Florida State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"submittingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Robert","middleName":"G.M","lastName":"Spencer","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2021-02-12 16:29:40","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-237529/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-237529/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":6277475,"identity":"848c81d4-4663-40bb-804d-c5b5b02edb84","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-02-23 21:31:49","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":2418587,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Location of 2013 sample locations in southeast Alaska. (a) Herbert Glacier outflow (GO0), (b) early succession (50 - 100 years) streams (ES50-100) and (c) late succession (\u003e100- 210 years) streams and old growth forest stream (1393 years) in Glacier Bay (LS100-210 and OGF1393, respectively). Map data: glacier cover from Global Land Ice Measurements (GLIMS; http://www.glims.org) and hydrology, land boundaries and hypsometry from Alaskan Department of Natural Resources (http://www.asgdc.state.ak.us). Note: The designations employed and the presentation of the material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Research Square concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area o bbnhjr of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This map has been provided by the authors.\n","description":"","filename":"Fig1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-237529/v1/59545986c30f3d53e0fb98d2.png"},{"id":6277766,"identity":"3ce27497-94f4-453e-ac01-46f8508af01b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-02-23 21:34:49","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":15564,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"(a) 18O and (b) DOC concentration catagorised by stream age. Dots represent individual datapoints. Herbert Glacier outflow (GO0) and Carolus River old growth forest (OGF1393) streams are a n of one. Early and late succession streams are abrievated to ES50-100 and LS100-210, respectively.","description":"","filename":"Fig2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-237529/v1/2f34e535cbd76e4242a1f640.png"},{"id":6277769,"identity":"dc74e6f2-d590-45ec-8829-ce96babe29dc","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-02-23 21:34:49","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":30276,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"(a) δ13C-DOC, (b) Δ14C-DOC, (c) Fluorescence Index (FI) and (d) SUVA254 catagorised by stream age. Glacier outflow (GO0) and old growth forest (OGF1393) streams are a n of one. Early and late succession streams are abrievated to ES50-100 and LS100-210, respectively. Dots represent individual datapoints.","description":"","filename":"Fig3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-237529/v1/b4f300c4978412ddeb9b5689.png"},{"id":6277767,"identity":"390acbae-1185-4b5c-8132-6acca7634db9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-02-23 21:34:49","extension":"png","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":35082,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Relative abundance (RA) weighted average mass, AImod and NOSC (a-c), together with compound class scores (d-f) seperated by stream age category. Glacier outflow (GO0) and old growth forest (OGF1393) streams are a n of one. Early and late succession streams are abrievated to ES50-100 and LS100-210, respectively. Dots represent individual datapoints.","description":"","filename":"Fig4.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-237529/v1/7f30c241579f9da08e667c2b.png"},{"id":6278018,"identity":"d5f10ac2-62dc-4da5-8fcb-a9dbf093855b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-02-23 21:37:49","extension":"png","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":123829,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"(a \u0026 b) PC analysis for streams based on environmental, bulk-DOC, optical and FT-ICR MS parameters. (b) shading represents stream age, note separation along PC1 by stream age. Stream names are abbreviated (see Figure 1 for full name): GO (Herbert Glacier outflow, 0 years), ES 1 – 4 (stream age \u003e 50 – 100 years, early succession), LS 1 – 5 (stream age \u003e 100 – 210 years, late succession) and OGF Carolus River (1393 years). (c) Asymptotic regression for stream position on PC1 axis with stream age, grey shading represents the 95 % confidence interval of the asymptotic regression parameters.","description":"","filename":"Fig5.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-237529/v1/f6e9b235c3d2c3f4300f8dea.png"},{"id":6277480,"identity":"db3c0045-1308-4aee-b52d-7026a6067c45","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-02-23 21:31:50","extension":"png","order_by":6,"title":"Figure 6","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":71159,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"van Krevelen diagrams showing the association between individual molecular formulae and stream age. Only formulae with significant correlations (p-value \u003c 0.05) are plotted. (a) Colouring indicates strength of spearman correlation, where positive (red) represent formulae that increase in relative abundance with stream age, blue is the inverse. (b \u0026 c) Molecular compounds are separated by direction of spearman correlation (positive and negative are b and c, respectively). Dashed lines delineate the approximate location of different compounds groups.","description":"","filename":"Fig6.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-237529/v1/07f320a1a0da2cd205e8db79.png"},{"id":13670359,"identity":"14d0033a-5c34-4a37-a70a-a125985fb9b5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-09-17 11:05:00","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":3146434,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-237529/v1/f7a02854-801a-4916-b19d-261b1b397aca.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"","formattedTitle":"The Evolution of Stream Dissolved Organic Matter Composition Following Glacier Retreat in Coastal Watersheds of Southeast Alaska","fulltext":[{"header":"Full Text","content":"\u003cp\u003eDue to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. 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Glacier dominated watersheds exhibit distinct dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics compared to forested and vegetated watersheds. However, there is a paucity of information on how stream DOM composition changes as glaciers retreat and terrestrial ecosystem succession ensues. Importantly, it is unclear over what timescales these transformations occur. Here, we used bulk, isotopic and ultrahigh resolution molecular-level techniques to assess how streamwater DOM composition evolves in response to glacier retreat and subsequent terrestrial ecosystem succession. For this, water samples were collected from eleven streams across a chronosequence spanning a temporal gradient 0 to ~1,400 years since glacier retreat in coastal, southeast Alaska. During the first ~200 years since glacier retreat, stream DOM showed marked and consistent changes in bulk, isotopic, and molecular-level composition. In particular, there was a decreased abundance of ancient, energy-rich (e.g., elevated aliphatic contribution), low aromaticity (e.g., low SUVA 254 and AI mod ) DOM and an increased abundance of soil and vegetation derived aromatic DOM (e.g., more depleted d 13 C, elevated condensed aromatic and polyphenolic contribution) that had a modern radiocarbon age. After ~200 years of ecosystem development, DOM composition was comparable to that observed for other temperate and arctic forested watersheds without permafrost influence. These results underscore the timelines on which glacier retreat may have substantial impacts on watershed biogeochemistry and coastal ecosystems that receive DOM subsidies from these rapidly changing landscapes.","manuscriptTitle":"The Evolution of Stream Dissolved Organic Matter Composition Following Glacier Retreat in Coastal Watersheds of Southeast Alaska","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2021-02-23 21:31:47","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-237529/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Minor revisions","date":"2021-03-30T04:26:35+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2021-02-20T00:00:00+00:00","index":0,"fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2021-02-17T00:00:00+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvited","content":"Biogeochemistry","date":"2021-02-17T00:00:00+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2021-02-17T00:00:00+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Biogeochemistry","date":"2021-02-12T11:29:39+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"biogeochemistry","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"biog","sideBox":"Learn more about [Biogeochemistry](https://www.springer.com/journal/10533)","snPcode":"10533","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/10533/3","title":"Biogeochemistry","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"fe548143-d8e0-4fcc-9d26-d707dd3a8dea","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 23rd, 2021","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":2493124,"name":"Biogeography"},{"id":2493125,"name":"Geochemistry"},{"id":2493126,"name":"Environmental Policy"},{"id":2493127,"name":"Marine and Freshwater Ecology"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2021-05-23T03:39:23+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2021-02-23 21:31:47","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-237529","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-237529","identity":"rs-237529","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"WrCJVZZCHTDjtuVLN7oU0","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}