Investigating the impacts of solid phase extraction on dissolved organic matter optical signatures and the pairing with high-resolution mass spectrometry data across a freshwater stream network

Advancing our understanding of dissolved organic matter (DOM) chemistry in aquatic systems necessitates the integration of data streams from multiple analytical platforms. Some measurements require pretreatment with solid phase extraction (SPE), while others are performed directly on whole water samples. Evidence has suggested that SPE will be biased against select DOM fractions, leading to concerns over the ability to establish data linkages across platforms with variable needs for SPE pretreatment, such as those from optical measurements and those that provide high-resolution molecular information. Here, we directly addressed this concern by assessing the impact of SPE on DOM optical properties through excitation–emission matrices with parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) for 47 samples across a stream network within a single watershed reflective of variable DOM sources. PARAFAC data was further paired with molecular information obtained by Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS). A comparison of PARAFAC models first revealed no systematic qualitative differences in major components between whole water DOM and DOM isolated by SPE (SPE-DOM); however, quantitative biases against select components were observed. Further linkages with FTICR-MS data revealed that the molecular fingerprint associated with each PARAFAC component was consistent between the whole water DOM and SPE-DOM. Our results suggest that bulk scale linkages across these analytical platforms could be inferred irrespective of the observed quantitative biases resulting from SPE for samples within this example watershed. This work represents a key step toward the systematic evaluation of linkages between optical and high-resolution mass spectrometry datasets in freshwater lotic environments.