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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-2199</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Permafrost conditions in peatlands govern riverine flushing of dissolved organic carbon, methylmercury, and nutrients</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Mandour</surname>
<given-names>Fares</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8054-2994</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Greyeyes-Howell</surname>
<given-names>Jazmin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Shewan</surname>
<given-names>Renae</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Thompson</surname>
<given-names>Lauren</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Graham</surname>
<given-names>Irene</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Low</surname>
<given-names>Mike</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Munson</surname>
<given-names>Matthew</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0008-5531-0731</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Connon</surname>
<given-names>Ryan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cunada</surname>
<given-names>Christopher</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Emmerton</surname>
<given-names>Craig</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Olefeldt</surname>
<given-names>David</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5976-1475</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Lands Department, Kátł’odeeche First Nation, Hay River, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Dehcho Aboriginal Aquatic Resources and Oceans Management, Fort Simpson, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Lands Department, Dene Tha&apos; First Nation, Chateh, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Department of Environment and Climate Change, Government of Northwest Territories, Yellowknife, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Department of Environment and Climate Change, Government of Northwest Territories, Fort Smith, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, Government of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>12</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>30</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Fares Mandour et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2199/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2199/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2199/egusphere-2026-2199.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2199/egusphere-2026-2199.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Permafrost thaw and intensified droughts and floods threaten to alter the mobilization of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nutrients and methylmercury (MeHg) from boreal peatlands, with cascading impacts on aquatic ecosystem functions and traditional food sources. Here we monitored 27 peatland-dominated (&amp;gt;30 %) catchments in western Canada (150 to 52,000 km&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;) over a five-year period (2020 &amp;ndash; 2024) which captured extreme hydroclimatic conditions. These catchments spanned a climatic and permafrost gradient (mean annual temperature -0.2 to -2.8 &amp;deg;C), which provided a space-for-time framework to assess impacts of continued thaw and warming. Our results demonstrated that catchment climate, and thus permafrost conditions, strongly controlled the hydrological response of solute concentrations. Warmer catchments showed a pronounced flushing response where DOC and MeHg concentrations increased by 50 % and 80 %, respectively, as discharge increased from the 10th to 90th percentile. In contrast, colder catchments maintained a chemostatic response, where concentrations remained stable and low despite hydrological variability. Similar climate-hydrology interactions were found for total nitrogen, total phosphorous, and inorganic phosphorous, but not for inorganic nitrogen. It is likely that permafrost conditions in peatlands affect both the production of solutes and their hydrological connectivity to the stream network. The presence of permafrost in peatlands may act to both ensure connectivity during droughts but also preclude full connectivity during floods, yielding the observed patterns. Our findings suggest that ongoing peatland permafrost thaw will increase mobilization MeHg, DOC, and nutrients during high flow periods. This shift necessitates further monitoring to understand the long-term consequences for aquatic ecosystems and northern communities.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="30"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada</funding-source>
<award-id>11020242025Q21163</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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