Novel use of soil moisture samplers for studies on anaerobic ammonium fluxes across lake sediment-water interfaces

Small soil suction samplers have been used for several years to sample soil solution for chemical analysis in laboratory and glasshouse experiments. They are very cheap, effective and convenient. Here we describe for the first time their use in studies on sediment porewater. Bulk sediment from West Lake, a shallow hypereutrophic lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, was placed in laboratory microcosms and incubated in the dark at 25 degrees C for 182 days to evaluate the feasibility of using the samplers to extract sediment porewater and to estimate NH4+ flux across the sediment-water interface under anaerobic conditions. The results show that the samplers were capable of sequentially extracting sediment porewater, 15 ml of which could be readily extracted for analysis within 30-45 min by vacuum applied using a plastic syringe. The NH4+ flux under laboratory conditions was characterized by a fast phase during the initial 18 days of incubation followed by a slower linear phase, with average release rates of 11.6 and 3.6 mg N m(-2) d(-1), respectively.