TY - JOUR TI - Climate Variability Drives Watersheds Along a Transporter-Transformer Continuum AU - Fazekas, Hannah M. AU - McDowell, William H. AU - Shanley, James B. AU - Wymore, Adam S. T2 - Geophysical Research Letters AB - We examined how climate variability affects the mobilization of material from six watersheds. We analyzed one to seven years of high-frequency sensor data from a temperate ecosystem and a tropical rainforest. We applied a windowed analysis to correlate concentration-discharge (C-Q) behavior with climate anomalies, providing insight into how hydrological and biogeochemical processes change in response to climate variability. Positive precipitation anomalies homogenized the C-Q responses for dissolved organic matter, nitrate, specific conductance and turbidity, indicating that hydrological processes dominate the C-Q signal and watersheds act as “conveyor belts” of material. In contrast, drier and warmer conditions led to C-Q behavior associated with variation in solute concentration, suggesting that biogeochemical processes are a primary control on solute export and their response to flow. Results indicate that climate variability can move watersheds along a continuum from transporter-to-transformer of biologically active solutes and responses can potentially vary by biome. DA - 2021/// PY - 2021 DO - 10.1029/2021GL094050 DP - Wiley Online Library VL - 48 IS - 21 SP - e2021GL094050 LA - en SN - 1944-8007 UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2021GL094050 Y2 - 2021/11/23/12:14:16 KW - climate variability KW - concentration-discharge KW - high-frequency sensor KW - solutes KW - streams KW - transformer-transporter ER -