Carbon Fluxes across Terrestrial and Aquatic Environments in Tropical Alpine Watersheds with Dr. Diego Riveros-Iregui. Diego received a B.S. in geosciences from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá in 1999, an M.S. in hydrogeology from the University of Minnesota in 2004, and a Ph.D. in watershed hydrology from Montana State University in 2008. He was a post-doctoral fellow at CU Boulder (2008-2010) and an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska (2010-2013) before relocating to UNC in 2013 where he runs the Carbonshed Lab.
A rapidly growing body of work suggests mountain streams emit surprisingly large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Studies in these environments are scarce and estimates of CO2 fluxes from aquatic environments are poorly constrained. High-altitude tropical grasslands, known as páramos, are characterized by high solar radiation, high precipitation, and low temperature. They also exhibit some of the highest ecosystem carbon stocks per unit area on Earth. In this presentation I summarize findings of surface CO2 fluxes from adjacent aquatic and terrestrial environments based on a suite of field observations. I address the role of hydrology in regulating the magnitude and fate of dissolved carbon in streams and examine the inherent spatial and temporal variability of these fluxes. These findings contribute toward our understanding of ecosystem carbon cycling in high-altitude, tropical, headwater catchments.