Organic matter mineralization by sediment bacteria was measured by the accumulation of DIC + CH$ sb4$ in the water overlying intact cores taken from littoral and profundal sediments of 9 lakes. The variability in areal carbon mineralization was much greater within lakes than among lakes, with the rate of organic matter mineralization in littoral sediments, on average, 3-fold higher than in the deeper sediments. / Sixty percent of the variation in summer carbon mineralization rates is explained by site depth, a surrogate variable which incorporates the effect of temperature and may also be reflecting organic matter quality and/or supply. Lake-specific variables become useful predictors of carbon mineralization only after the site depth is considered. / A comparison of the mineralization in sediments overlain by epilimnetic water to the whole lake sediment mineralization demonstrates the overwhelming importance of the littoral sediments in organic matter mineralization, with more than half (54-100%) of the mineralization in the sediments occurring in the littoral zone. However, the littoral sediments account for less than 20% of the gross respiration in the epilimnion. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.23996 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Den Heyer, Cornelia E. |
| Contributors | Kalpp, J. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Biology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001537847, proquestno: MM19805, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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