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- Title
Ecohydrologic feedbacks controlling sizes of cypress wetlands in a patterned karst landscape.
- Authors
Murray, A. Brad; Heffernan, James B.; Dong, Xiaoli
- Abstract
Many landforms on Earth are profoundly influenced by biota. In particular, biota play a significant role in creating karst biogeomorphology, through biogenic CO2 accelerating calcite weathering. In this study, we explore the ecohydrologic feedback mechanisms that have created isolated depressional wetlands on exposed limestone bedrock in South Florida – Big Cypress National Preserve –as a case study for karst biogeomorphic processes giving rise to regularly patterned landscapes. Specifically, we are interested in: (1) whether cypress depressions on the landscape have reached (or will reach) equilibrium size; (2) if so, what feedback mechanisms stabilize the size of depressions; and (3) what distal interactions among depressions give rise to the even distribution of depressions in the landscape. We hypothesize three feedback mechanisms controlling the evolution of depressions and build a numerical model to evaluate the relative importance of each mechanism. We show that a soil cover feedback (i.e. a smaller fraction of CO2 reaches the bedrock surface for weathering as soil cover thickens) is the major feedback stabilizing depressions, followed by a biomass feedback (i.e. inhibited biomass growth with deepening standing water and extended inundation period as depressions expand in volume). Strong local positive feedback between the volume of depressions and rate of volume expansion and distal negative feedback between depressions competing for water likely lead to the regular patterning at the landscape scale. The individual depressions, however, are not yet in steady state but would be in ~0.2–0.4 million years. This represents the first study to demonstrate the decoupling of landscape‐scale self‐organization and the self‐organization of its constituent agents. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. We explore the multiple ecohydrologic feedbacks that shape evenly‐spaced isolated depressional wetlands in a low‐relief South Florida landscape. Incipient depressions deepen as biogenic acid accelerates bedrock weathering. Soil thickness and vegetation inundation are the most important constraints on depression growth, but do not stabilize wetland size for 0.2–0.4 Myr. However, basin expansion rapidly inhibits weathering in adjacent uplands, which may explain the regular patterning of depressions. Local and distal feedbacks decouple landscape‐scale self‐organization from self‐organization of its constituent agents.
- Subjects
BIOGEOMORPHOLOGY; GEOMORPHOLOGY; CHEMICAL weathering; KARST; LANDFORMS; EVOLUTIONARY theories
- Publication
Earth Surface Processes & Landforms, 2019, Vol 44, Issue 5, p1178
- ISSN
0197-9337
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/esp.4564