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Plant root exudates increase methane emissions through direct and indirect pathways

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Abstract

The largest natural source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere is wetlands, which produce 20% to 50% of total global emissions. Vascular plants play a key role regulating wetland CH4 emissions through multiple mechanisms. They often contain aerenchymatous tissues which act as a diffusive pathway for CH4 to travel from the anoxic soil to the atmosphere and for O2 to diffuse into the soil and enable methanotrophy. Plants also exude carbon from their roots which stimulates microbial activity and fuels methanogenesis. This study investigated these mechanisms in a laboratory experiment utilizing rootboxes containing either Carex aquatilis plants, silicone tubes that simulated aerenchymatous gas transfer, or only soil as a control. CH4 emissions were over 50 times greater from planted boxes than from control boxes or simulated plants, indicating that the physical transport pathway of aerenchyma was of little importance when not paired with other effects of plant biology. Plants were exposed to 13CO2 at two time-points and subsequent enrichment of root tissue, rhizosphere soil, and emitted CH4 was used in an isotope mixing model to determine the proportion of plant-derived versus soil-derived carbon supporting methanogenesis. Results showed that carbon exuded by plants was converted to CH4 but also that planted boxes emitted 28 times more soil-derived carbon than the other experimental treatments. At the end of the experiment, emissions of excess soil-derived carbon from planted boxes exceeded the emission of plant-derived carbon. This result signifies that plants and root exudates altered the soil chemical environment, increased microbial metabolism, and/or changed the microbial community such that microbial utilization of soil carbon was increased (e.g. microbial priming) and/or oxidation of soil-derived CH4 was decreased (e.g., by microbial competition for oxygen).

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jesse Turner, Megan Nims, Olivia Hargrave, Robert Ardissono and Marina Kochuten for laboratory assistance, Kathryn Cogurt for feedback and editing the manuscript, and Christopher Anderton for coordinating access to instruments at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research under Award Number DE-SC-0010338. A portion of this research was performed under the Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) Program and used resources at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (grid.436923.9), which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility sponsored by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research and operated under Contract No. DE-AC05-76RL01830. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists, Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program. The SCGSR Program is administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) for the DOE. ORISE is managed by ORAU under Contract Number DE-SC0014664. Students were additionally supported by the following Fellowships and Grants: UW College Of Engineering Dean’s Fellowship/Ford Motor Company Fellowship, UW CEE Valle Scholarship, UW Mary Gates Scholarship, and the Carleton College Kolenkow Reitz Fellowship.

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Correspondence to Rebecca B. Neumann.

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Responsible Editor: Melany Fisk.

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Waldo, N.B., Hunt, B.K., Fadely, E.C. et al. Plant root exudates increase methane emissions through direct and indirect pathways. Biogeochemistry 145, 213–234 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-019-00600-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-019-00600-6

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