References

BGD

Biogeosciences Discussions

BGD

1810-6285

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/bgd-7-7629-2010

Influence of niche differentiation on the abundance of methanogenic archaea and methane production potential in natural wetland ecosystems across China

Liu

¹ Ding

¹ Jia

¹ Cai

State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China

20 10 2010

7 5 7629 7655

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Methane (CH4) emissions from natural wetland ecosystems exhibit large spatial variability. To understand the underlying factors that induce differences in CH4 emissions from natural wetlands around China, we measured the CH4 production potential and the abundance of methanogenic archaea in vertical profile soils sampled from the Poyang wetland in the subtropical zone, the Hongze wetland in the warm temperate zone, the Sanjiang marsh in the cold temperate zone, and the Ruoergai peatland in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The top soil layer had the highest population of methanogens (1.07−8.29×109 cells g−1 soil) in all wetlands except the Ruoergai peatland and exhibited the maximum CH4 production potential measured at the mean in situ summer temperature. There is a significant logarithmic correlation between the abundance of methanogenic archaea and the soil organic carbon (R2=0.718, P<0.001, n=13) and between the abundance of methanogenic archaea and the total nitrogen concentrations (R2=0.758, P<0.001, n=13) in wetland soils. This indicates that the amount of soil organic carbon may affect the population of methanogens in wetland ecosystems. While the CH4 production potential is not significantly related to methanogen population (R2=0.011, P>0.05, n=13), it is related to the dissolved organic carbon concentration (R2=0.305, P=0.05, n=13). This suggests that the methanogen population is not an effective index for predicting the CH4 production in wetland ecosystems. The CH4 production rate of the top soil layer increases with increasing latitude, from 274 μg CH4 kg−1 soil d−1 in the Poyang wetland to 665 μg CH4 kg−1 soil d−1 in the Carex lasiocarpa marsh of the Sanjiang Plain. The CH4 production potential in the freshwater wetlands of Eastern China is affected by the supply of methanogenic substrates rather than by temperature, whereas the supply of substrates was mainly affected by the position and stability of the wetland water table. In contrast, low summer temperatures at high elevations in the Ruoergai peatland of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau result in the presence of dominant species of methanogens with low CH4 production potential rather than the reduction of the supply of methanogenic substrates, which in turn suppresses CH4 production.

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