Abundance and biogeography of methanogenic and methanotrophic microorganisms across European streams

Background: Globally, streams emit significant amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. However, little is known about the stream sediment microbial communities that control the net methane balance in these systems, and in particular about their distribution and composition at large spatial scales. This study investigated the diversity and abundance of methanogenic archaea and methane-oxidizing microorganisms across 16 European streams (from northern Spain to northern Sweden and from western Ireland to western Bulgaria) via 16S rRNA gene sequencing and qPCR. Furthermore, it examined environmental factors influencing both abundance and community composition and explored the link to measured potential methane production and oxidation rates of the respective sediments.

Results: Our results demonstrated that the methanogenic and methanotrophic microbiomes of the studied European streams were linked to both the temperature and degree of anthropogenic alteration. The microbiomes could be separated into two to three groups according to environmental factors at both stream and catchment scales. Main methanogenic taxa found within more anthropogenically-altered, warm, and oxygen-poor environments were either Methanospirillum spp. or members of the families Methanosarcinaceae and Methanobacteriaceae . Within such environments, methane oxidizing communities were strongly characterized by members of the family Methylobacteriaceae ( Meganema spp. and Microvirga spp.). Contrastingly, communities in colder environments rich in oxygen and with relatively little anthropogenic impact at the catchment scale were characterized by the methanogenic Methanosaetaceae , Methanocellaceae and Methanoregulaceae and the methanotrophic Methyloglobulus spp ., members of the CABC2E06 group (all Methylococcaceae ) and by various Candidatus Methanoperedens. Overall, diversity of methanogenic archaea increased with increasing water temperature. Methane oxidizing communities showed higher diversities in southern sampling sites and in streams with larger stream areas and widths. Potential methane production rates significantly increased with increasing abundance of methanogenic archaea, while potential methane oxidation rates did not show significant correlations with abundances of methane oxidizing bacteria, presumably due to the more diverse physiological capabilities of this group.

Conclusions: We present the first large scale overview of the large-scale microbial biogeography of two microbial groups driving the methane cycle dynamics within stream sediments and deduce the impact that future anthropogenic alterations may cause.