Gene-Based Modeling of Methane Oxidation in Coastal Sediments: Constraints on the Efficiency of the Microbial Methane Filter
Lenstra, Wytze K.; van Helmond, Niels A.G.M.; Martins, Paula Dalcin; Wallenius, Anna J.; Jetten, Mike S.M.; Slomp, Caroline P.
(2023) Environmental Science and Technology, volume 57, issue 34, pp. 12722 - 12731
(Article)
Abstract
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is produced in large quantities in marine sediments. Microbially mediated oxidation of methane in sediments, when in balance with methane production, prevents the release of methane to the overlying water. Here, we present a gene-based reactive transport model that includes both microbial and
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geochemical dynamics and use it to investigate whether the rate of growth of methane oxidizers in sediments impacts the efficiency of the microbial methane filter. We focus on iron- and methane-rich coastal sediments and, with the model, show that at our site, up to 10% of all methane removed is oxidized by iron and manganese oxides, with the remainder accounted for by oxygen and sulfate. We demonstrate that the slow growth rate of anaerobic methane-oxidizing microbes limits their ability to respond to transient perturbations, resulting in periodic benthic release of methane. Eutrophication and deoxygenation decrease the efficiency of the microbial methane filter further, thereby enhancing the role of coastal environments as a source of methane to the atmosphere.
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Keywords: cell-specific methane oxidation rates, gene-centric reactive transport modeling, greenhouse gas, microbial growth rates, microbial methane oxidation, sediment biogeochemistry, General Chemistry, Environmental Chemistry
ISSN: 0013-936X
Publisher: American Chemical Society
Note: Funding Information: We thank the captain and crew and for their assistance during sampling aboard R/V Botnica. We thank Henrik Larsson and Johan Wikner from Umeå Science Centre for support during fieldwork and labwork at the Umeå Marina Forskningscentrum. We thank Coen Mulder, John Visser, Thom Claessen, Arnold van Dijk, Santiago Gonzalez, Martijn Hermans, and Lilia Orozco Ramirez for their analytical assistance. This work was funded by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) NESSC Gravitation Grant 02001001 [CPS, MSMJ], SIAM Gravitation grant 024.002.001 [PDM, MSMJ], and ERC Marix grant 854088 [CPS, MSMJ]. PDM acknowledges support from NWO-Veni grant 212.040. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.
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