Methane biotransformation in the ocean and its effects on climate change: A review

Niu, Mingyang; Liang, Wenyue; Wang, Fengping

doi:10.1007/s11430-017-9299-4

Cited by 21 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 121 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Cold seeps are highly productive ecosystems dominated by profuse chemosynthetic microbes (Boetius and Wenzhofer, 2013;Joye, 2020). Apart from thermal maturation of organic matter at depth (Galimov, 1988), methane (CH 4 ) is also produced through degradation of organic matter in the subsurface sediment by methanogens; sulfate-reducing bacteria and anaerobic methanotrophic (ANME) archaea consume CH 4 in the sediments that is often anoxic and aerobic methanotrophic bacteria in the oxic water column oxidize CH 4 seeped from sediment (Niu et al, 2018). These processes facilitate the formation of carbonates and result in high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide and oxygen depletion (Li et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct Bottom-Water Bacterial Communities at Methane Seeps With Various Seepage Intensities in Haima, South China Sea

Dai

et al. 2021

Front. Mar. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Methane seeps are chemosynthetic ecosystems in the deep-sea environment. Microbial community structures have been extensively studied in the seepage-affected sediments and investigation in the water column above the seeping sites is still lacking. In this study, prokaryotic communities in the bottom water about 50 cm from the seabed at methane seeps with various seepage intensities in Haima, South China Sea were comparatively studied by using 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing. These sites were assigned based on their distinct methane content levels and seafloor landscapes as the non-seepage (NS) site, low-intensity seepage (LIS) site, and high-intensity seepage (HIS) site. The abundances of the dominant phyla Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria differed significantly between NS and the two seepage sites (p < 0.05). Alpha diversity differed among the three sites with the HIS site showing the lowest community diversity. Principal component analysis revealed highly divergent bacterial community structures at three sites. Many environmental variables including temperature, alkalinity, pH, methane, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and inorganic nutrients were measured. Redundancy analysis indicated that methane content is the key environmental factor driving bacterial community variation (p = 0.001). Linear discriminant analysis effect size analysis identified various differentially enriched genera at the LIS and HIS sites. Phylogenetic analysis revealed close phylogenetic relationship among the operational taxonomic units of these genera with known oil-degrading species, indicating oil seepage may occur at the Haima cold seeps. Co-occurrence networks indicated that the strength of microbial interactions was weakest at the HIS site. This study represents a comprehensive comparison of microbial profiles in the water column of cold seeps in the SCS, revealing that the seepage intensity has a strong impact on bacterial community dynamics.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct Bottom-Water Bacterial Communities at Methane Seeps With Various Seepage Intensities in Haima, South China Sea

Dai

et al. 2021

Front. Mar. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A few recent studies proposed cryptic methane cycling fueled by utilization of C1 methylated substrates in marine sulfate‐reducing sediments (Maltby et al ; Niu et al ; Xiao et al ; Zhuang et al ). However, details of this methane cycling as well as pathways and regulations of related C1 metabolism are not fully understood.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeochemistry, microbial activity, and diversity in surface and subsurface deep‐sea sediments of South China Sea

Zhuang

Liu

Liang

et al. 2019

Limnology & Oceanography

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Deep‐sea environments are the largest ecosystem of the global biosphere and constitute a crucial role in global biogeochemical cycles. We integrated biogeochemical and molecular ecological approaches to investigate microbial activity and diversity, with the goal of elucidating pathways and regulations of methane cycling and low molecular weight (LMW) compounds metabolism in different deep‐sea sediments of the South China Sea. We found that methanogenesis, anaerobic oxidation of methane, and sulfate reduction occurred concurrently with low rates in surface sediments of the Haima area (~ 50 cm push cores) and in subsurface sediments of the Shenhu area (~ 8 m piston core). In the presence of sulfate, methanogenesis was fueled by methylotrophic substrates, in agreement with thermodynamic calculations as well as the detection of the methylotrophic methanogenic genus Methanococcoides. Higher oxidation rates of LMW compounds than methanogenesis rates, suggested acetate, and to a lesser extent, methanol and methylamine, were predominantly utilized as an energy source by nonmethanogenic microorganisms (e.g., sulfate‐reducing bacteria). Diverse methanotrophic archaea (e.g., ANME‐1a/b and ANME‐2a/b) and sulfate‐reducing bacteria (e.g., Desulfarculaceae and Desulfobacteraceae) were observed and the abundance of mcrA and dsrA genes varied over depth and between sites. Dominant archaeal groups, such as Bathyarchaeota, Thermoplasmatale, Woesearchaeota, Lokiarchaeota, were consistently detected at both areas. Multivariate statistical analysis demonstrated sulfate was the most relevant environmental variable that correlated with the archaeal community composition. These results suggested that the presence of sulfate controlled methane cycling and LMW carbon metabolism pathways, and also affected the composition of the microbial community.

show abstract

“…Methanomassiliicoccales, which are predominant components of methanogens (Niu et al, 2018), are all presented in the database. For methanotrophs, predominant methanotrophic bacteria include α-Proteobacteria and γ-Proteobacteria.…”

Section: Methanobacteriales Methanosarcinales Methanomicrobiales Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

MCycDB: A curated database for comprehensively profiling methane cycling processes of environmental microbiomes

Zhou

et al. 2022

Molecular Ecology Resources

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Methane is a critical greenhouse gas with significant impacts on environmental and global change. However, CH4 cycling processes and coupling mechanisms with the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and metals in the environment remain elusive. To fill such knowledge gaps, we constructed a manually curated methane cycling database (MCycDB) for comprehensive and accurate analysis of methane cycling microbial communities. MCycDB contains 298 methane cycling gene families covering 10 methane metabolism pathways with 610,208 representative sequences, and associated reference sequences from the NCBI RefSeq database with 48 phyla and 2,197 genera, and five phyla and 100 genera for bacteria and archaea, respectively. Also, homologous groups from public orthology databases were identified and included in MCycDB to reduce false positive assignments. We applied MCycDB to profile methane cycling gene families and associated taxonomic groups from various environments. Gene families involved in methanogenesis were abundant in hot spring sediment and less abundant in freshwater, whereas the ones involved in aerobic oxidation of methane were abundant in permafrost and peatland. This study demonstrates that MCycDB is a useful tool for studying microbially‐driven methane cycling processes with high specificity, coverage and accuracy.

show abstract

Methane biotransformation in the ocean and its effects on climate change: A review

Cited by 21 publications

References 121 publications

Distinct Bottom-Water Bacterial Communities at Methane Seeps With Various Seepage Intensities in Haima, South China Sea

Distinct Bottom-Water Bacterial Communities at Methane Seeps With Various Seepage Intensities in Haima, South China Sea

Biogeochemistry, microbial activity, and diversity in surface and subsurface deep‐sea sediments of South China Sea

MCycDB: A curated database for comprehensively profiling methane cycling processes of environmental microbiomes

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About