title: Compositional and functional stability of aerobic methane consuming communities in drained and rewetted peat meadows.
abstract: The restoration of peatlands is an important strategy to counteract subsidence and loss of biodiversity. However, responses of important microbial soil processes are poorly understood. We assessed functioning, diversity and spatial organization of methanotrophic communities in drained and rewetted peat meadows with different water table management and agricultural practice. Results show that the methanotrophic diversity was similar between drained and rewetted sites with a remarkable dominance of the genus Methylocystis. Enzyme kinetics depicted no major differences, indicating flexibility in the methane (CH4) concentrations that can be used by the methanotrophic community. Short-term flooding led to temporary elevated CH4 emission but to neither major changes in abundances of methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) nor major changes in CH4 consumption kinetics in drained agriculturally used peat meadows. Radiolabeling and autoradiographic imaging of intact soil cores revealed a markedly different spatial arrangement of the CH4 consuming zone in cores exposed to near-atmospheric and elevated CH4. The observed spatial patterns of CH4 consumption in drained peat meadows with and without short-term flooding highlighted the spatial complexity and responsiveness of the CH4 consuming zone upon environmental change. The methanotrophic microbial community is not generally altered and harbors MOB that can cover a large range of CH4 concentrations offered due to water-table fluctuations, effectively mitigating CH4 emissions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, 6708 PB, the Netherlands Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA saschak@uw.edu.
authors.forename: Sascha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Krause
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Pascal A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Niklaus
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, 6708 PB, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Badwan Morcillo
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, 6708 PB, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marion
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meima Franke
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, 6525 AJ, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lüke
authors.affiliation: Department of Biogeochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg 35043, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Reim
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, 6708 PB, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Paul L E
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Bodelier
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D044822:Biodiversity; D055868:Floods; D065948:Grassland; D008697:Methane / Q000378:metabolism; D008772:Methylococcaceae / Q000145:classification* / Q000378:metabolism; D042083:Methylocystaceae / Q000378:metabolism; D009426:Netherlands; D012987:Soil; D012988:Soil Microbiology
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D008697:Methane
keywords: 14C labelling; atmospheric CH4; peat land; pyrosequencing; restoration; spatial micro-distribution