Diverse Cooccurring Metabolisms Support Sulfur and Methane Cycling in Wetland Surficial Sediments
| Author(s) | Bechtold, Emily K. | |
| Author(s) | Xin, Danhui | |
| Author(s) | Pacheco, Maricia | |
| Author(s) | Toner, Brandy M. | |
| Author(s) | Arnold, William A. | |
| Author(s) | Chin, Yu‐Ping | |
| Author(s) | Wilkins, Michael J. | |
| Date Accessioned | 2025-09-18T16:53:14Z | |
| Date Available | 2025-09-18T16:53:14Z | |
| Publication Date | 2025-09-05 | |
| Description | This article was originally published in Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences . The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1029/ 2024JG008478 © 2025. The Author(s).This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | |
| Abstract | The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America contains millions of small depressional wetlands with some of the highest methane (CH4) fluxes ever reported in terrestrial ecosystems. In saturated soils, two conventional paradigms are (a) methanogenesis is the final step in the redox ladder, occurring only after more thermodynamically favorable electron acceptors (e.g., sulfate) are reduced, and (b) CH4 is primarily produced by acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic pathways. However, previous work in PPR wetlands observed co‐occurrence of sulfate‐reduction and methanogenesis and the presence of diverse methanogenic substrates (i.e., methanol, DMS). This study investigated how methylotrophic methanogenesis—in addition to acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis—significantly contributes to CH4 flux in surface sediments and thus allows for the co‐occurrence of competing redox processes in PPR sediments. We addressed this aim through field studies in two distinct high CH4 emitting wetlands in the PPR complex, which coupled microbial community compositional and functional inferences with depth‐resolved electrochemistry measurements in surficial wetland sediments. This study revealed methylotrophic methanogens as the dominant group of methanogens in the presence of abundant organic sulfate esters, which are likely used for sulfate reduction. Resulting high sulfide concentrations likely caused sulfide toxicity in hydrogenotrophic and acetoclastic methanogens. Additionally, the use of non‐competitive substrates by many methylotrophic methanogens allows these metabolisms to bypass thermodynamic constraints and can explain co‐existence patterns of sulfate‐reduction and methanogenesis. This study demonstrates that the current models of methanogenesis in wetland ecosystems insufficiently represent carbon cycling in some of the highest CH4 emitting environments. | |
| Sponsor | Funding for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation (Projects2029645 (MP, BMT, WAA), 2029665(DX, YPC), 2029686 (EKB, MJW)) and by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) grant DE‐SC0023084 (EKB, MJW). A portion of the research described in this paper was performed using Beamline 06B1‐1(SXRMB) at the Canadian Light Source, a national research facility of the University of Saskatchewan, which is supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation(CFI), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC),the National Research Council (NRC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research(CIHR), the Government of Saskatchewan ,and the University of Saskatchewan. Thanks to beamline scientist Mohsen Shakouri for assisting in synchrotron data collection. A portion of this research used Beamline 7‐BM (QAS) of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No.DE‐SC0012704. Thanks to beamline scientists Lu Ma and Stephen Ehrlich for their support. The authors thank Matthew Solensky and Sheel Bansal from the USGS, Anthony Sigman‐Lowery(University of Delaware) and Cole Stenberg (UMN) for assistance with field sampling and helpful discussions | |
| Citation | Bechtold, E. K., Xin, D., Pacheco, M., Toner, B. M., Arnold, W. A., Chin, Y.‐P., & Wilkins, M. J. (2025). Diverse cooccurring metabolisms support sulfur and methane cycling in wetland surficial sediments. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 130, e2024JG008478. https://doi.org/10.1029/ 2024JG008478 | |
| ISSN | 2169-8961 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/36627 | |
| Language | en_US | |
| Publisher | Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences | |
| dc.rights | Attribution 4.0 International | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| Title | Diverse Cooccurring Metabolisms Support Sulfur and Methane Cycling in Wetland Surficial Sediments | |
| Type | Article |
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