PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #35: Decomposition and Soil Respiration.
Thursday, August 9, 2001. Presentation from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM. Exhibition Hall
14
Methane biogeochemistry and molecular analysis of Methanogens in two northern peatlands, New York State.
Yavitt, Joseph1, Basiliko, Nate2, Dees, Peter1, Merkel, Susan1, 1 2
ABSTRACT- Although northern peatland ecosystems are known sources of atmospheric methane, and peat samples incubated in vitro show methanogenesis, very few, if any, methanogens have been isolated from peat soil. This limits our ability to predict future trends in methane emissions from these systems. We examined methane dynamics and the diversity of methanogens by analyzing 16s rRNA gene clone libraries created with Archaea-specific primers using peat from two contrasting sites. Both sites were in central New York State located 30 km apart. One was a peat bog that had very high rates of methane emission to the atmosphere, and the other was a forested peatland with inherently low rates of methane emission. Methanogens were detected by PCR amplification of DNA extracted from five replicate peat samples per site. The site with active methane production yielded 19 methanogen species, whereas the other site yielded 7 species, of which only one was common among sites. Rarefaction analysis indicated that we sampled adequately. Our results indicate that northern peatlands harbor a very diverse community of methanogens , and the high diversity might account for the high variability that characterizes methane dynamics.
KEY WORDS: methane, peat soil, molecular diversity