Suspended organic matter stocks of Welsh upland rivers in response to organic matter addition (2012-2013)

Each stream was divided into an upstream control zone and a downstream experimental zone. Samples of suspended organic matter were collected by filtering water. Deciduous leaves were added directly to the stream and by fixing 'Onion bags' of leaves the stream bed and bank. Samples were collected on six occasions, December (3-10/12/2012) January (3-16/01/2013), February (4-7/02/2013), March (11-14/03/2013), April (3-8/04/2013) and May (22-26/05/2013) in all the streams in both the upstream reference zones and downstream experimental zones. Upon collection,Suspended Organic Matter (SOM) samples were refrigerated at 4 degrees celsius, returned to the laboratory and frozen within 24 hours. Frozen SOM samples were then freeze-dried at -20 degrees Celsius for 48 to 72 hours and weighed to the nearest 0.0001gramme. Freeze-dried SOM samples were ground, homogenised and subsampled (3mg ±0.3mg) for analysis of elemental (C, N) and stable isotopic (delta-13C, delta-15N) composition on a mass spectrometer (University of California Davis Stable Isotope Facility). All SOM samples were corrected for inorganic content by combusting a subset (%) of samples from each site at 550 degrees Celsius for 5 hours and applying an ash-free conversion factor. Results were recorded in an Excel spreadsheet. Data was exported to a comma separated value files for ingestion into the Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC).

This dataset is included in the following collections

The DURESS project - Diversity of Upland Rivers for Ecosystem Service Sustainability