2nd UF Water Institute Symposium Abstract

   
Submitter's Name Alexander Cheesman
Session Name Poster Session: Hydrologic, Biogeochemical and Ecological Processes 2
Category Hydrologic, biogeochemical and ecological processes
Poster Number 208
 
Author(s) Alexander Cheesman,  Soil and Water Science Department, Univ. of Florida
  K. Ramesh Reddy,  Soil and water Science Department, Univ. of Florida
  Benjamin Turner, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama
   
  Phosphorus Composition in Wetland Substrates
   
  Anthropogenic eutrophication threatens the ecological functioning of many inland waterways and wetland systems. Yet at the same time, wetlands offer a potential solution acting as a means of sequestering and storing excess nutrients at the landscape level. The ability of wetlands to sequester and stabilize excess nutrients, is dependant upon the specific forms produced as a result of biogenic processes. Organic compounds, are suspected as being a major component of the sequestered phosphorus within natural and artificial wetlands, but processes regulating the forms and stability in the environment are not well understood. We applied 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to investigate the forms of phosphorus found across a large geographical and hydrogeomorphic range of wetland types. This information provided incite; not only into the role of organic phosphorus within wetlands, but into the influence of vegetation and biogeochemical parameters on the chemical forms present. This information provides a basis for more detailed studies on the role of biological processes in determining the forms and cycling of organic phosphorus found within aquatic systems.