Effect of Afforestation and Reforestation of Pastures on the Activity and Population Dynamics of Methanotrophic Bacteria

We investigated the effect of afforestation and reforestation of pastures on methane oxidation and the methanotrophic communities in soils from three different New Zealand sites. Methane oxidation was measured in soils from two pine (Pinus radiata) forests and one shrubland (mainly Kunzea ericoides...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Applied and Environmental Microbiology Vol. 73; no. 16; pp. 5153 - 5161
Main Authors:	Singh, Brajesh K, Tate, Kevin R, Kolipaka, Gokul, Hedley, Carolyn B, Macdonald, Catriona A, Millard, Peter, Murrell, J. Colin
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, DC American Society for Microbiology 01-08-2007
Subjects:	Bacteria Bacterial Proteins - genetics Bacterial Proteins - metabolism Biological and medical sciences Deforestation Ecosystem Fatty Acids - metabolism Forestry Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Genes Grasslands Methane Methane - metabolism Methylococcaceae - classification Methylococcaceae - genetics Methylococcaceae - metabolism Methylococcus capsulatus Microbial Ecology Microbiology Molecular Sequence Data New Zealand Oxidation Oxidation-Reduction Oxygenases - genetics Oxygenases - metabolism Phospholipids - metabolism Phylogeny Pinus radiata Plant Development Plants - metabolism Polymerase Chain Reaction Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length Sequence Analysis, DNA Soil - analysis Soil Microbiology Soils Vegetation New Zealand Bacteria Population dynamics Methanotrophy Afforestation Pasture
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Summary:	We investigated the effect of afforestation and reforestation of pastures on methane oxidation and the methanotrophic communities in soils from three different New Zealand sites. Methane oxidation was measured in soils from two pine (Pinus radiata) forests and one shrubland (mainly Kunzea ericoides var. ericoides) and three adjacent permanent pastures. The methane oxidation rate was consistently higher in the pine forest or shrubland soils than in the adjacent pasture soils. A combination of phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) and stable isotope probing (SIP) analyses of these soils revealed that different methanotrophic communities were active in soils under the different vegetations. The C₁₈ PLFAs (signature of type II methanotrophs) predominated under pine and shrublands, and C₁₆ PLFAs (type I methanotrophs) predominated under pastures. Analysis of the methanotrophs by molecular methods revealed further differences in methanotrophic community structure under the different vegetation types. Cloning and sequencing and terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the particulate methane oxygenase gene (pmoA) from different samples confirmed the PLFA-SIP results that methanotrophic bacteria related to type II methanotrophs were dominant in pine forest and shrubland, and type I methanotrophs (related to Methylococcus capsulatus) were dominant in all pasture soils. We report that afforestation and reforestation of pastures caused changes in methane oxidation by altering the community structure of methanotrophic bacteria in these soils.
Bibliography:	http://aem.asm.org/contents-by-date.0.shtml ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 Corresponding author. Mailing address: Macaulay Institute, Environmental Sciences, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, United Kingdom. Phone: 44-1224-498200. Fax: 44-1224-498207. E-mail: b.singh@macaulay.ac.uk
ISSN:	0099-2240 1098-5336
DOI:	10.1128/AEM.00620-07