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Title: Microbial drivers of methane emissions from unrestored industrial salt ponds

Journal Article · · The ISME Journal
 [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [3]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, Costa Mesa, CA (United States)
  3. Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA (United States)

Wetlands are important carbon (C) sinks, yet many have been destroyed and converted to other uses over the past few centuries, including industrial salt making. A renewed focus on wetland ecosystem services (e.g., flood control, and habitat) has resulted in numerous restoration efforts whose effect on microbial communities is largely unexplored. We investigated the impact of restoration on microbial community composition, metabolic functional potential, and methane flux by analyzing sediment cores from two unrestored former industrial salt ponds, a restored former industrial salt pond, and a reference wetland. We observed elevated methane emissions from unrestored salt ponds compared to the restored and reference wetlands, which was positively correlated with salinity and sulfate across all samples. 16S rRNA gene amplicon and shotgun metagenomic data revealed that the restored salt pond harbored communities more phylogenetically and functionally similar to the reference wetland than to unrestored ponds. Archaeal methanogenesis genes were positively correlated with methane flux, as were genes encoding enzymes for bacterial methylphosphonate degradation, suggesting methane is generated both from bacterial methylphosphonate degradation and archaeal methanogenesis in these sites. These observations demonstrate that restoration effectively converted industrial salt pond microbial communities back to compositions more similar to reference wetlands and lowered salinities, sulfate concentrations, and methane emissions.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1893114
Journal Information:
The ISME Journal, Journal Name: The ISME Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 16; ISSN 1751-7362
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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