Abstract
The prototypical representatives of the Euryarchaeota—the methanogens—are oxygen sensitive and are thought to occur only in highly reduced, anoxic environments. However, we found methanogens of the genera Methanosarcina and Methanocella to be present in many types of upland soils (including dryland soils) sampled globally. These methanogens could be readily activated by incubating the soils as slurry under anoxic conditions, as seen by rapid methane production within a few weeks, without any additional carbon source. Analysis of the archaeal 16S ribosomal RNA gene community profile in the incubated samples through terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and quantification through quantitative PCR indicated dominance of Methanosarcina, whose gene copy numbers also correlated with methane production rates. Analysis of the δ13C of the methane further supported this, as the dominant methanogenic pathway was in most cases aceticlastic, which Methanocella cannot perform. Sequences of the key methanogenic enzyme methyl coenzyme M reductase retrieved from the soil samples before incubation confirmed that Methanosarcina and Methanocella are the dominant methanogens, though some sequences of Methanobrevibacter and Methanobacterium were also detected. The global occurrence of only two active methanogenic archaea supports the hypothesis that these are autochthonous members of the upland soil biome and are well adapted to their environment.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr Claudia Kammann of Giessen FACE Experiment for providing the samples from Giessen (Germany); Professor Andreas Brune for sampling in Australia and Professor JC Ensign for sampling in Utah. The Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, for allowing the use of their facilities; the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, Israel, for providing boarding services and administrative assistance; The Institute for Soil Science and Forest Nutrition (IBW) at the University of Göttingen, Germany, for determining the isotopic signature of the soil organic carbon; The Analytical Chemical Laboratory of the Philipps University, Marburg, for the CN analyses; and the Chair of the Physical Geography, Aachen, for analysis of the soil texture. RA was supported by a fellowship of the Max Planck Society.
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Angel, R., Claus, P. & Conrad, R. Methanogenic archaea are globally ubiquitous in aerated soils and become active under wet anoxic conditions. ISME J 6, 847–862 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2011.141
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2011.141
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