Shifting microbial communities sustain multiyear iron reduction and methanogenesis in ferruginous sediment incubations.

ABSTRACT: Reactive Fe(III) minerals can influence methane (CH₄ ) emissions by inhibiting microbial methanogenesis or by stimulating anaerobic CH₄ oxidation. The balance between Fe(III) reduction, methanogenesis, and CH₄ oxidation in ferruginous Archean and Paleoproterozoic oceans would have controlled CH₄ fluxes to the atmosphere, thereby regulating the capacity for CH₄ to warm the early Earth under the Faint Young Sun. We studied CH₄ and Fe cycling in anoxic incubations of ferruginous sediment from the ancient ocean analogue Lake Matano, Indonesia, over three successive transfers (500 days in total). Iron reduction, methanogenesis, CH₄ oxidation, and microbial taxonomy were monitored in treatments amended with ferrihydrite

SUBMITTER: Bray MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7780294 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature