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Soil water content, carbon, and nitrogen determine the abundances of methanogens, methanotrophs, and methane emission in the Zoige alpine wetland

  • Soils, Sec 2 • Global Change, Environ Risk Assess, Sustainable Land Use • Research Article
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Alpine wetland ecosystems can contribute large amounts of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere; however, their emissions vary with environmental conditions. Microbial activity is known to drive CH4 emissions, but how environmental conditions determine microbial activity is still uncertain. Here, we seek to quantify the variability of the CH4 flux, to detect the effects of CH4-related microbes on CH4 emissions, and to study the dependency of these effects on environmental conditions.

Materials and methods

We measured the CH4 flux, environmental conditions, and CH4-related microbial communities (mcrA and pmoA gene abundances for methanogens and methanotrophs, respectively) under three hydrological conditions (submerged, soil–water interface, and emerged) from seven sampling sites in the Zoige alpine wetland, China.

Results and discussion

The CH4 flux varied greatly from 0 to 41 mg m−2 h−1 in the Zoige alpine wetland. The methanogenic and methanotrophic abundances both showed positive correlations with CH4 flux, while CH4 flux increased linearly with the increase of soil water content (SWC) when SWC was above 60%. CH4 flux and methanogenic and methanotrophic abundances maintained the high levels when soil C:N ratio was in the range of 11–24 and decreased exponentially with the increase of soil DOC:TN ratio in Zoige alpine wetland, which might result from its influence on nutrient supply for microbial decomposition process.

Conclusion

The results provided new insight into the effects of CH4-related microbes on CH4 emission and its response to different environmental conditions and helped us to comprehend the risks of high CH4 emissions from alpine wetlands under climatic change and anthropogenic disturbance.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41877421 and 31770511).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Wantong Zhang & Zhengyi Hu

  2. Institute of Wetland Research, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing Key Laboratory of Wetland Services and Restoration, Beijing, 100091, China

    Wantong Zhang, Xiaoming Kang, Enze Kang, Xiaodong Zhang, Liang Yan, Yong Li, Zhongqing Yan, Kerou Zhang & Jinzhi Wang

  3. Sichuan Zoige Wetland Ecosystem Research Station, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Aba 624500, Beijing, China

    Xiaoming Kang, Enze Kang, Xiaodong Zhang, Liang Yan, Yong Li, Zhongqing Yan, Kerou Zhang & Jinzhi Wang

  4. Department of Bioscience and Arctic Research Centre (ARC), Aarhus University, Vejlsøvej 25, 8600, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Wantong Zhang, Joachim Audet & Thomas A. Davidson

Authors
  1. Wantong Zhang
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  2. Xiaoming Kang
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  11. Jinzhi Wang
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Contributions

Wantong Zhang: conceptualization, data curation, software, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing, validation, formal analysis. Xiaoming Kang: investigation, project administration. Enze Kang: investigation. Joachim Audet: data curation, supervision, writing — review and editing. Thomas A. Davidson: supervision, data curation, writing — review and editing. Xiaodong Zhang: investigation, project administration. Liang Yan: investigation. Yong Li: investigation. Zhongqing Yan: investigation. Kerou Zhang: investigation. Jinzhi Wang: investigation, conceptualization, project administration, writing — review and editing. Zhengyi Hu: conceptualization, supervision, writing — review and editing.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jinzhi Wang or Zhengyi Hu.

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Zhang, W., Kang, X., Kang, E. et al. Soil water content, carbon, and nitrogen determine the abundances of methanogens, methanotrophs, and methane emission in the Zoige alpine wetland. J Soils Sediments 22, 470–481 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-021-03043-5

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