Direct and Indirect Drivers of Energy and Nutrient Availability in Freshwater Ecosystems Across Spatial Scales

Freshwater ecosystems reflect the landscapes in which they are embedded. The biogeochemistry of these systems is fundamentally linked to climate and watershed processes that control fluxes of water and the mobilization of energy and nutrients imprinting as variation in stream water chemistry. Disentangling these processes is difficult as they operate at multiple scales varying across space. We examined the relative importance of climate, soil, and watershed characteristics in mediating direct and indirect pathways that influence carbon and nitrogen availability in streams and rivers across spatial scales. Our data set comprised landscape and climatic variables and 37,995 chemistry measurements of carbon and nitrogen across 459 streams and rivers spanning the continental United States. Models explained a small fraction of carbon and nitrogen concentrations at the continental scale (25% and 6%, respectively) but 61% and 40%, respectively, at smaller spatial scales. Hydrometeorological processes were always important in mediating the availability of solutes but the mechanistic implications were variable across spatial scales. The influence of hydrometeorology on concentrations was often not direct, rather it was mediated by soil characteristics for carbon and watershed characteristics for nitrogen. For example, the seasonality of precipitation was often important in determining carbon concentrations through its influence on soil moisture at biogeoclimatic spatial scales, whereas it had a direct influence on concentrations at the continental scale. Our results suggest that hydrometeorological forcing remains the consistent driver of energy and nutrient concentrations but the mechanism influencing patterns varies across broad spatial scales.