Stream metabolism sources a large fraction of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in two hydologically contrasting streams

In this study, we quantify the contribution of metabolic activity to CO2 emission in two headwater streams to shed new light on the role of inland waters in global carbon cycling. To do so, we partion CO2 emission between stream metabolism and lateral inputs, and compare these fluxes between two streams differing in the strength of groundwater inputs. The two streams were permanently flowing during the study period, but one was a perennial gaining stream, and the other was a non-perennial stream with seasonally and spatially varying losing reaches. Our main finding is that net ecosystem production contributes substantially to CO2 emission at the two sites. Our paper discusses the mechanims involved and the role of hydrological and environmental conditions on determining the contribution of stream metabolic activity to CO2 emissions in these headwater streams.
The provided data set includes subdaily stream water temperature, and concentrations and fluxes of CO2 and O2 at the two streams during the deployment period. We provide daily stream discharge and light inputs as well as all the daily values needed to reproduce figures, tables, and statistics included in the manuscript.
Finally, we provided the input data needed to run streamMetabolizer and estimate daily GPP, ER, and K600. Details on the procedures followed and model specifications canbe found in the Supplementary Materials of the paper.

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