Comparative study of carbonic anhydrase activity in waters among different geological eco-environments of Yangtze River basin and its ecological significance
Sila Onesmus Nzung''a , Weizhi Pan , Taiming Shen , Wei Li , Xiaoqun Qin , Chenwei Wang , Liankai Zhang , Longjiang Yu
DOI:10.1016/j.jes.2017.05.027
Received December 13, 2016,Revised January 01, 1900, Accepted May 16, 2017, Available online May 25, 2017
Volume 30,2018,Pages 173-181
This study provides the presence of carbonic anhydrase (CA) activity in waters of the Yangtze River basin, China, as well as the correlation of CA activity with HCO3- concentration and CO2 sink flux. Different degrees of CA activity could be detected in almost all of the water samples from different geological eco-environments in all four seasons. The CA activity of water samples from karst areas was significantly higher than from non-karst areas (PP3- concentration (r = 0.672, P2 sink flux (r = 0.602, P = 0.076) in karst areas. This suggests that CA in waters might have a promoting effect on carbon sinks for atmospheric CO2 in karst river basins. In conditions of similar geological type, higher CA activity was generally detected in water samples taken from areas that exhibited better eco-environments, implying that the CA activity index of waters could be used as an indicator for monitoring ecological environments and protection of river basins. These findings suggest that the role of CA in waters in the karst carbon sink potential of river basins is worthy of further in-depth studies.
