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It is known that Sphagnum associated methanotrophy (SAM) changes in relation to the peatland water table (WT) level. After drought, rising WT is able to reactivate SAM. We aimed to reveal whether this reactivation is due to activation of indigenous methane (CH₄) oxidizing bacteria (MOB) already present in the mosses or to MOB present in water. This was tested through two approaches: in a transplantation experiment, Sphagna lacking SAM activity were transplanted into flark water next to Sphagna oxidizing CH₄. Already after 3 days, most of the transplants showed CH₄ oxidation activity. Microarray showed that the MOB community compositions of the transplants and the original active mosses had become more similar within 28 days thus indicating MOB movement through water between mosses. Methylocystis-related type II MOB dominated the community. In a following experiment, SAM inactive mosses were bathed overnight in non-sterile and sterile-filtered SAM active site flark water. Only mosses bathed with non-sterile flark water became SAM active, which was also shown by the pmoA copy number increase of over 60 times. Thus, it was evident that MOB present in the water can colonize Sphagnum mosses. This colonization could act as a resilience mechanism for peatland CH₄ dynamics by allowing the re-emergence of CH₄ oxidation activity in Sphagnum.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	plant-microbe interaction, peatland, pmoA, microarray, qPCR, ecosystem resilience
Research Division:	Environmental Sciences
Research Group:	Ecological applications
Research Field:	Ecosystem function
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Marine systems and management
Objective Field:	Assessment and management of benthic marine ecosystems
UTAS Author:	Bodrossy, L (Dr Levente Bodrossy)
ID Code:	116515
Year Published:	2012
Web of Science® Times Cited:	32
Deposited By:	Plant Science
Deposited On:	2017-05-11
Last Modified:	2017-09-26
Downloads:	135 View Download Statistics