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Oxic Methane Cycling: New Evidence for Methane Formation in Oxic Lake Water

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Biogenesis of Hydrocarbons

Part of the book series: Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology ((HHLM))

Abstract

In contrast to common belief, the potent greenhouse gas methane can be produced and emitted from oxygenated water bodies. This has been shown for both marine and freshwater systems over the last decades and has been named “the methane paradox.” The concentration of methane in anoxic sediments is orders of magnitude higher than in the oxic water layers; nevertheless, in most cases, methane from the sediment is oxidized by methanotrophic Bacteria and Archaea near the sediment. In contrast, the methane-rich oxic surface waters are in direct contact with the atmosphere and can be a significant source of atmospheric methane. Several biotic and abiotic mechanisms have been proposed to explain the “methane paradox.” These include the formation of microenvironments suitable for classical anaerobic methanogenesis as well as novel pathways. Among the latter demethylation of methylphosphonates has been proposed as an important pathway in both marine and freshwater systems. We used the meso-oligotrophic Lake Stechlin in northeastern Germany as a model system for methane-emitting freshwater lakes. We showed that oxic methane production was seasonal, occurring mostly in spring and summer. A mass balance of the methane budget suggests minimal methane input from the littoral zone to the oxic pelagic waters and that in situ biological production was the main source of methane in the oxic epi- and metalimnion. Using metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses, we showed that Archaea in general as well as key methanogenesis genes were entirely absent from the epi- and metalimnion of the lake. Using incubation experiments, we showed that demethylation of methylphosphonates was a potential mechanism for methane formation in oxic Lake Stechlin water, but it likely was not the most significant process based on gene counts. Addition of trimethylamine, a known precursor to methane in anoxic environments, to lake water also resulted in oxic methane formation. A survey of gene databases revealed that most genes for methanogenesis were present in Bacteria from the lake, suggesting that analogs or paralogs of missing genes may still be identified. We propose that oxic methane formation in Lake Stechlin and other aquatic systems is a result of multiple sequential and parallel pathways.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Neuglobsow lake lab team for providing O2 and temperature profiler data measured from July 2014 to November 2015. MBI, DI, and HPG were supported by the DFG Aquameth project (GR1540/21-1).

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Author notes

  1. $Mina Bizic-Ionescu and Danny Ionescu are equally contributed.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Limnology, Leibniz Institute of freshwater ecology and inland fisheries (IGB), Stechlin, Germany

    Mina Bižić-Ionescu, Danny Ionescu & Hans-Peter Grossart

  2. Department of Biosciences, Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Marco Günthel & Kam W. Tang

  3. Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany

    Hans-Peter Grossart

Authors
  1. Mina Bižić-Ionescu
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  2. Danny Ionescu
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  3. Marco Günthel
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  4. Kam W. Tang
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  5. Hans-Peter Grossart
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Correspondence to Mina Bižić-Ionescu or Hans-Peter Grossart .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Alfons J. M. Stams

  2. Laboratory of Microbiology, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Diana Z. Sousa

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Bižić-Ionescu, M., Ionescu, D., Günthel, M., Tang, K.W., Grossart, HP. (2019). Oxic Methane Cycling: New Evidence for Methane Formation in Oxic Lake Water. In: Stams, A., Sousa, D. (eds) Biogenesis of Hydrocarbons. Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78108-2_10

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