Nutrients release and greenhouse gas emission during decomposition of Myriophyllum aquaticum in a sediment-water system

Aquatic macrophytes play a significant role in nutrients removal in constructed wetlands, yet nutrients could be re-released due to plant debris decomposition. In this study, Myriophyllum aquaticum was used as a model plant debris and three debris biomass levels of 3 g, 9 g dry biomass, and 20 g fresh biomass (D3, D9, and F20, respectively) were used to simulate 120-d plant debris decomposition in a sediment-water system. The biomass first-order decomposition rate constants of D3, D9, and F20 treatments were 0.0058, 0.0117, and 0.0201 d−1, respectively with no significant difference of decomposition rate among three mass groups (p > 0.05). Plant debris decomposition decreased nitrate and total nitrogen concentrations but increased ammonium, organic nitrogen, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in overlying water. The parallel factor analysis confirms that three components of DOC in overlying water changed over decomposition time. Emission fluxes of methane and nitrous oxide in the plant debris treatments were several to thousands of times higher than the control group within the initial 0–45 d, which was mainly attributed to DOC released from the plant debris. Plant debris decomposition can affect the gas emission fluxes for relatively shorter time (30–60 d) than water quality (>120 d). The 16S rRNA, nirK, nirS and hazA gene abundance increased in the early stage for plant debris treatments, and then decreased to the end of 120-d incubation time while ammonia monooxygenase α-subunit A gene abundance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea and bacteria had no large variations during the entire decay time compared with no plant debris treatment. The results demonstrate that decomposition of M. aquaticum debris could affect greenhouse gas emission fluxes and microbial gene abundance in the sediment-water system besides overlying water quality.