Towards an integrated view on microbial CH4, N2O and N2 cycles in brackish coastal marsh soils: a comparative analysis of two sites

Mikk Espenberg; Kristin Pille; Bin  Yang; Martin Maddison; Mohamed Abdalla; Pete Smith; Xiuzhen Li; Ping-Lung  Chan; Ülo Mander

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170641

Towards an integrated view on microbial CH4, N2O and N2 cycles in brackish coastal marsh soils: a comparative analysis of two sites

Mikk Espenberg^* (Corresponding Author), Kristin Pille, Bin Yang, Martin Maddison, Mohamed Abdalla, Pete Smith, Xiuzhen Li, Ping-Lung Chan, Ülo Mander

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Coastal ecosystems, facing threats from global change and human activities like excessive nutrients, undergo alterations impacting their function and appearance. This study explores the intertwined microbial cycles of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), encompassing methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and nitrogen gas (N2) fluxes, to determine nutrient transformation processes between the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum in the coastal ecosystems with brackish water. Water salinity negatively impacted denitrification, bacterial nitrification, N fixation, and n-DAMO processes, but did not significantly affect archaeal nitrification, COMAMMOX, DNRA, and ANAMMOX processes in the N cycle. Plant species age and biomass influenced CH4 and N2O emissions. The
highest CH4 emissions were from old Spartina and mixed Spartina and Scirpus sites, while
Phragmites sites emitted the most N2O. Nitrification and incomplete denitrification mainly governed N2O emissions depending on the environmental conditions and plants. The higher genetic potential of ANAMMOX reduced excessive N by converting it to N2 in the sites with higher average temperatures. The presence of plants led to a decrease in the N fixers’ abundance. Plant biomass negatively affected methanogenetic mcrA genes. Microbes involved in n-DAMO processes helped mitigate CH4 emissions. Over 93% of the total climate forcing came from CH4 emissions, except for the Chinese bare site where the climate forcing was negative, and for.
Phragmites sites, where almost 60% of the climate forcing came from N2O emissions. Our findings indicate that nutrient cycles, CH4, and N2O fluxes in soils are context-dependent and influenced by environmental factors and vegetation. This underscores the need for empirical analysis of both C and N cycles at various levels (soil-plant-atmosphere) to understand how habitats or plants affect nutrient cycles and greenhouse gas emissions.

Original language	English
Article number	170641
Number of pages	12
Journal	Science of the Total Environment
Volume	918
Early online date	9 Feb 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170641
Publication status	Published - 25 Mar 2024

Funding

Funding The research was supported by the Ministry of Education and Research of Estonia (grants IUT2-16, PRG-352, PRG-2032 and MOBERC-20), the EU through the European Regional Development Fund (Centres of Excellence EcolChange), SuperG (funded under EU Horizon 2020 programme), the EU Horizon programme under grant agreement No 101079192 (MLTOM23003R) and the European Research Council (ERC) under grant agreement No 101096403 (MLTOM23415R); the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFE0133700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42141016), the Fundamental Research Funds 616 for the Central Universities, the State Key Lab of Estuarine and Coastal Research (SKLEC617 DWJS201802), the 111 Project (BP0820020), Ministry of Education, China, East China Normal University (“Ecology+” project and Scholarship Program for Graduate Students—Short-term overseas research scholarship).

Funders	Funder number
Ministry of Education and Research of Estonia	IUT2-16, PRG-352, PRG-2032, MOBERC-20
European Commission	No 101079192, MLTOM23003R
European Research Council	101096403, MLTOM23415R
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China	2016YFE0133700
The National Natural Science Foundation of China	42141016
State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research	SKLEC617 DWJS201802

Keywords

carbon cycle
nitrogen cycle
coastal ecosystems
nitrous oxide
methane
greenhouse gases

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Espenberg_etal_STE_Towards_An_Integrated_VoR
© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/).
Final published version, 2.49 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Towards an integrated view on microbial CH4, N2O and N2 cycles in brackish coastal marsh soils: a comparative analysis of two sites ",

abstract = "Coastal ecosystems, facing threats from global change and human activities like excessive nutrients, undergo alterations impacting their function and appearance. This study explores the intertwined microbial cycles of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), encompassing methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and nitrogen gas (N2) fluxes, to determine nutrient transformation processes between the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum in the coastal ecosystems with brackish water. Water salinity negatively impacted denitrification, bacterial nitrification, N fixation, and n-DAMO processes, but did not significantly affect archaeal nitrification, COMAMMOX, DNRA, and ANAMMOX processes in the N cycle. Plant species age and biomass influenced CH4 and N2O emissions. Thehighest CH4 emissions were from old Spartina and mixed Spartina and Scirpus sites, whilePhragmites sites emitted the most N2O. Nitrification and incomplete denitrification mainly governed N2O emissions depending on the environmental conditions and plants. The higher genetic potential of ANAMMOX reduced excessive N by converting it to N2 in the sites with higher average temperatures. The presence of plants led to a decrease in the N fixers{\textquoteright} abundance. Plant biomass negatively affected methanogenetic mcrA genes. Microbes involved in n-DAMO processes helped mitigate CH4 emissions. Over 93% of the total climate forcing came from CH4 emissions, except for the Chinese bare site where the climate forcing was negative, and for.Phragmites sites, where almost 60% of the climate forcing came from N2O emissions. Our findings indicate that nutrient cycles, CH4, and N2O fluxes in soils are context-dependent and influenced by environmental factors and vegetation. This underscores the need for empirical analysis of both C and N cycles at various levels (soil-plant-atmosphere) to understand how habitats or plants affect nutrient cycles and greenhouse gas emissions.",

keywords = "carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, coastal ecosystems, nitrous oxide, methane, greenhouse gases",

author = "Mikk Espenberg and Kristin Pille and Bin Yang and Martin Maddison and Mohamed Abdalla and Pete Smith and Xiuzhen Li and Ping-Lung Chan and {\"U}lo Mander",

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language = "English",

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T1 - Towards an integrated view on microbial CH4, N2O and N2 cycles in brackish coastal marsh soils

T2 - a comparative analysis of two sites

AU - Espenberg, Mikk

AU - Pille, Kristin

AU - Yang, Bin

AU - Maddison, Martin

AU - Abdalla, Mohamed

AU - Smith, Pete

AU - Li, Xiuzhen

AU - Chan, Ping-Lung

AU - Mander, Ülo

PY - 2024/3/25

Y1 - 2024/3/25

N2 - Coastal ecosystems, facing threats from global change and human activities like excessive nutrients, undergo alterations impacting their function and appearance. This study explores the intertwined microbial cycles of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), encompassing methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and nitrogen gas (N2) fluxes, to determine nutrient transformation processes between the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum in the coastal ecosystems with brackish water. Water salinity negatively impacted denitrification, bacterial nitrification, N fixation, and n-DAMO processes, but did not significantly affect archaeal nitrification, COMAMMOX, DNRA, and ANAMMOX processes in the N cycle. Plant species age and biomass influenced CH4 and N2O emissions. Thehighest CH4 emissions were from old Spartina and mixed Spartina and Scirpus sites, whilePhragmites sites emitted the most N2O. Nitrification and incomplete denitrification mainly governed N2O emissions depending on the environmental conditions and plants. The higher genetic potential of ANAMMOX reduced excessive N by converting it to N2 in the sites with higher average temperatures. The presence of plants led to a decrease in the N fixers’ abundance. Plant biomass negatively affected methanogenetic mcrA genes. Microbes involved in n-DAMO processes helped mitigate CH4 emissions. Over 93% of the total climate forcing came from CH4 emissions, except for the Chinese bare site where the climate forcing was negative, and for.Phragmites sites, where almost 60% of the climate forcing came from N2O emissions. Our findings indicate that nutrient cycles, CH4, and N2O fluxes in soils are context-dependent and influenced by environmental factors and vegetation. This underscores the need for empirical analysis of both C and N cycles at various levels (soil-plant-atmosphere) to understand how habitats or plants affect nutrient cycles and greenhouse gas emissions.

AB - Coastal ecosystems, facing threats from global change and human activities like excessive nutrients, undergo alterations impacting their function and appearance. This study explores the intertwined microbial cycles of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), encompassing methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and nitrogen gas (N2) fluxes, to determine nutrient transformation processes between the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum in the coastal ecosystems with brackish water. Water salinity negatively impacted denitrification, bacterial nitrification, N fixation, and n-DAMO processes, but did not significantly affect archaeal nitrification, COMAMMOX, DNRA, and ANAMMOX processes in the N cycle. Plant species age and biomass influenced CH4 and N2O emissions. Thehighest CH4 emissions were from old Spartina and mixed Spartina and Scirpus sites, whilePhragmites sites emitted the most N2O. Nitrification and incomplete denitrification mainly governed N2O emissions depending on the environmental conditions and plants. The higher genetic potential of ANAMMOX reduced excessive N by converting it to N2 in the sites with higher average temperatures. The presence of plants led to a decrease in the N fixers’ abundance. Plant biomass negatively affected methanogenetic mcrA genes. Microbes involved in n-DAMO processes helped mitigate CH4 emissions. Over 93% of the total climate forcing came from CH4 emissions, except for the Chinese bare site where the climate forcing was negative, and for.Phragmites sites, where almost 60% of the climate forcing came from N2O emissions. Our findings indicate that nutrient cycles, CH4, and N2O fluxes in soils are context-dependent and influenced by environmental factors and vegetation. This underscores the need for empirical analysis of both C and N cycles at various levels (soil-plant-atmosphere) to understand how habitats or plants affect nutrient cycles and greenhouse gas emissions.

KW - carbon cycle

KW - nitrogen cycle

KW - coastal ecosystems

KW - nitrous oxide

KW - methane

KW - greenhouse gases

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DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170641

M3 - Article

C2 - 38325442

SN - 0048-9697

VL - 918

JO - Science of the Total Environment

JF - Science of the Total Environment

M1 - 170641

ER -

Towards an integrated view on microbial CH4, N2O and N2 cycles in brackish coastal marsh soils: a comparative analysis of two sites

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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