Porewater exchange drives nutrient cycling and export in a mangrove-salt marsh ecotone

Coastal wetlands regulate nutrient fluxes from the continents to the oceans. Salt marshes are rapidly encroaching into mudflat area in mangrove wetlands, shaping a mangrove-salt marsh ecotone, with unknown implications to coastal biogeochemical cycles. Here, we hypothesized that nitrogen and phosphorus cycling varied in mangrove and salt marsh, having significant implication on coastal waters. We investigated a tidal creek with a marked mangrove-salt marsh gradient in China using high-frequency time-series sampling of dissolved nutrients and observations of porewater exchange rate across the sediment–water interface over a spring-neap tidal cycle. The nitrogen transformation rates and microbiological activities were also investigated to explain the variability in nitrogen concentrations. The mangrove had net groundwater outflow rates of 3.6–4.3 mm d while the salt marsh had net infiltration of surface water with rates of 0.5–2.9 mm d. Salt marsh had less capacity for ammonium (NH-N) production (mineralization and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium DNRA) than mangrove. Denitrification dominated nitrogen removal reaching 97% and 83% in mangrove and salt marsh, respectively. Microbe distributions were consistent with nitrogen transformations with larger nirS and nrfA abundances for denitrification and DNRA in the mangrove than salt marsh. The mangrove had a net export of NH-N but a net import of NO-N (sum of nitrate and nitrite) and dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) during the monitoring period. In contrast, the salt marsh had lower efflux of nutrient than influx leading to a net nutrient import during the monitoring period. Porewater released from the mangrove had a large DIN:DIP mole ratio (706 ± 236) due to high NH-N concentrations, while NH-N in the salt marsh were lower than in the mangrove. Overall, this study revealed that mangrove-salt marsh ecotone will push the native mangrove wetlands from being a source towards a sink of NH-N to coastal waters by decreasing porewater exchange, modifying the nutrients stoichiometry, and ultimately alleviating the potential of N-associated eutrophication in nearby coastal waters.