Atmospheric methane consumption by Maine forest soils was inhibited by additions of environmentally relevant levels of aluminum. Aluminum chloride was more inhibitory than nitrate or sulfate salts, but its effect was comparable to that of a chelated form of aluminum. Inhibition could be explained in part by the lower soil pH values which resulted from aluminum addition. However, significantly greater inhibition by aluminum than by mineral acids at equivalent soil pH values indicated that inhibition also resulted from direct effects of aluminum per se. The extent of inhibition by exogenous aluminum increased with increasing methane concentration for soils incubated in vitro. At methane concentrations of >10 ppm, inhibition could be observed when aluminum chloride was added at concentrations as low as 10 nmol g (fresh weight) of soil
؊1. These results suggest that widespread acidification of soils and aluminum mobilization due to acid precipitation may exacerbate inhibition of atmospheric methane consumption due to changes in other parameters and increase the contribution of methane to global warming.A number of factors adversely affect atmospheric methane consumption by soils. Ammonium is one of the most important of these (6,8,13,14,20,30,31,37,49), but other factors include water stress (47), terpenes (3), salts (1,21,27,32), and land use (22,23,25,28). Soil pH has also been documented as a potentially important limiting factor, with both acidic (pH Ͻ4) and alkaline (pH Ͼ7) regimes inhibiting activity (2, 12, 22; J. Benstead and G. M. King, unpublished results). Although some evidence supports a role in methane consumption for acid-tolerant or moderately acidophilic methanotrophs in peats (12), the acid-tolerant peat isolates described to date have not been shown to consume atmospheric methane, and acid-tolerant methanotrophs have not been documented for soils.In contrast to the impact of pH in peats, the effects of pH on methanotrophic activity in acidic soils may be compounded by solubilization of aluminosilicates, which constitute a major fraction of the mineral horizons where atmospheric methane consumption occurs most actively. Although the chemistry of aluminum is well understood (36) and its toxic effects on multicellular organisms are known in some detail (15,17,(34)(35)(36)52), the response of microbes to aluminum is not well documented (42).Several studies have examined the effects of aluminum on cyanobacteria and fungi and documented a range of responses (10,(41)(42)(43). Physiological studies with bacteria have emphasized well-known strains, such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus megaterium, and Pseudomonas fluorescens (4,11,19,42,44). A broader range of studies have focused on rhizobia and documented toxicity in cultures and in bacteriumlegume symbioses (7,8,18,24,26,33,38,39,43,50,51). However, the effects of aluminum on microbes or microbial processes in a more general ecological context have not been adequately assessed.Nonetheless, dissolved aluminum concentrations can reach ...