Finding Nature’s Hidden Threshold for Saltiness in the Space Where Forests Meet Streams

Michelle Evans-White.

Riparian zones, the areas where forests and streams meet, are intimately connected. Yet a holistic understanding about these zones is lacking because such work requires a combination of aquatic and terrestrial sciences.

That is soon to change with the help of a nearly $1 million National Science Foundation grant led by scientists in Arkansas and Virginia. Their work will explore how salt impacts the movement of resources like carbon in riparian zones.

Natalie Clay, an associate professor of entomology and plant pathology with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, has joined forces with Michelle Evans-White, U of A Biological Sciences Department chair and professor, and Sally Entrekin, professor of aquatic entomology at Virginia Tech, on a three-year fact-finding mission to study salt’s impact on processes and organisms in riparian zones. The experiment station is the research arm of the U of A System Division of Agriculture. Clay teaches courses through the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the U of A.

Natalie Clay.

Salts are minerals that can either be essential nutrients or contaminants, depending on the amount and location. For forests far from the coast or saline rivers, salt is lacking and welcomed in moderation by lifeforms that need it to live. In freshwater aquatic systems, however, scientists have documented unwelcome salinization. So, what about that place where they meet — the riparian zone?

“Aquatic scientists have been approaching salt from a totally different perspective than terrestrial systems, and yet these two systems are connected,” Clay said. “They’re usually studied in silos. Terrestrial people often don’t talk to aquatic people, and aquatic people often don’t talk to terrestrial people, and the result is a lack of understanding of these systems as a whole.”

“Understanding these terrestrial-aquatic linkages are key in moving forward to understand the pathway and consequences for biodiversity and food webs that are being impacted by global salinization,” Entrekin added.

The National Science Foundation is providing $948,291 to the three researchers for the project. Not only are they merging two fields of science, but they’re bringing the next generation of scientists with them.

Crowdsourced data, some of which will be collected by K-12 students and teachers across the nation, will bolster the study’s data points and expose youths to a major science project quantifying riparian zone chemistry.

The crowdsourcing will be done with Pennsylvania-based Stroud Water Research Center. Tara Muenz, Stroud Center assistant director of education and Leaf Pack Network coordinator, is leading the recruitment of individuals from volunteer stream monitoring partners like Virginia Stream Team, Izaak Walton League’s Save-Our-Streams program, SciStarter.org, Stroud Center’s Leaf Pack International Network and other professional networks.

A changing world

Globally, salinization is an issue that scientists are keeping close tabs on in both terrestrial soil and freshwater systems because it can change water quality and plant productivity.

Freshwater salinization is often preceded by terrestrial salinization from human activities like urbanization, agricultural practices and road salting. However, predicting how salinization alters carbon cycling across riparian-stream boundaries is not yet possible, Clay noted. The National Science Foundation-backed research will help quantify how salinization alters carbon cycling across terrestrial-aquatic boundaries.

Carbon cycling is the process in which carbon atoms, the building blocks of all life on Earth, continually travel from the atmosphere into the ground and then back into the atmosphere. While the amount of carbon on Earth does not change, the location of those carbon atoms is constantly in flux.

“Salt is rare in terrestrial systems, unless you live on the coast, so adding a little bit causes this flurry of activity in all kinds of organisms,” Clay said. “We see animals showing sodium-seeking behavior, so in terrestrial systems, it’s usually in shortfall.”

Threshold for saltiness

Clay and her fellow researchers on this project predict that natural processes like decomposition and ecosystem respiration in the riparian zone will react positively to salinization to a certain point since sodium is a biologically essential nutrient. After that optimal threshold is met, however, the ecosystem is expected to decline as salt becomes a stressor at sub-lethal levels and a toxicant at higher levels.

Finding the threshold will define the fundamental principles of how aquatic and terrestrial systems respond to increased salinization across a salinization gradient, Clay explained. 

Entrekin said identifying these thresholds will also help predict changes to aquatic insect diversity and their contribution to both the aquatic and terrestrial food webs.

“Our approach will combine and compare a salt manipulation in novel experimental riparian-stream mesocosms in the U of A Biology Experimental Greenhouse with a field gradient study to provide a better understanding of the effects of salinization on these coupled systems,” Evans-White said.

A mesocosm is a recreation of a system as close to nature as possible, but with the ability to be manipulated. If the field and mesocosm results are comparable, Clay said the mesocosm can become a useful future tool to gain a better understanding of terrestrial-aquatic linkages across a diversity of factors.

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on X at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.

About the Division of Agriculture: The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system. The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses. The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. 

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.