https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25983-9">
 

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Northern post-glacial lakes are significant, increasing sources of atmospheric carbon through ebullition (bubbling) of microbially-produced methane (CH4) from sediments. Ebullitive CH4 flux correlates strongly with temperature, reflecting that solar radiation drives emissions. However, here we show that the slope of the temperature-CH4 flux relationship differs spatially across two post-glacial lakes in Sweden. We compared these CH4 emission patterns with sediment microbial (metagenomic and amplicon), isotopic, and geochemical data. The temperature-associated increase in CH4 emissions was greater in lake middles—where methanogens were more abundant—than edges, and sediment communities were distinct between edges and middles. Microbial abundances, including those of CH4-cycling microorganisms and syntrophs, were predictive of porewater CH4 concentrations. Results suggest that deeper lake regions, which currently emit less CH4 than shallower edges, could add substantially to CH4 emissions in a warmer Arctic and that CH4 emission predictions may be improved by accounting for spatial variations in sediment microbiota.

Department

Earth Sciences

Publication Date

10-21-2021

Journal Title

Nature Communications

Publisher

Springer Nature

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25983-9

Document Type

Article

Comments

This is an article published by Springer Nature in Nature Communications in 2021, available online: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25983-9

Share

COinS