Environmental changes affect the microbial release of hydrogen sulfide and methane from sediments at Boknis Eck (SW Baltic Sea)

Mirjam Perner*, Klaus Wallmann, Nicole Adam-Beyer, Helmke Hepach, Katja Laufer-Meiser, Stefanie Böhnke, Isabel Diercks, Hermann W. Bange, Daniela Indenbirken, Verena Nikeleit, Casey Bryce, Andreas Kappler, Anja Engel, Florian Scholz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities are modifying the oceanic environment rapidly and are causing ocean warming and deoxygenation, affecting biodiversity, productivity, and biogeochemical cycling. In coastal sediments, anaerobic organic matter degradation essentially fuels the production of hydrogen sulfide and methane. The release of these compounds from sediments is detrimental for the (local) environment and entails socio-economic consequences. Therefore, it is vital to understand which microbes catalyze the re-oxidation of these compounds under environmental dynamics, thereby mitigating their release to the water column. Here we use the seasonally dynamic Boknis Eck study site (SW Baltic Sea), where bottom waters annually fall hypoxic or anoxic after the summer months, to extrapolate how the microbial community and its activity reflects rising temperatures and deoxygenation. During October 2018, hallmarked by warmer bottom water and following a hypoxic event, modeled sulfide and methane production and consumption rates are higher than in March at lower temperatures and under fully oxic bottom water conditions. The microbial populations catalyzing sulfide and methane metabolisms are found in shallower sediment zones in October 2018 than in March 2019. DNA-and RNA profiling of sediments indicate a shift from primarily organotrophic to (autotrophic) sulfide oxidizing Bacteria, respectively. Previous studies using data collected over decades demonstrate rising temperatures, decreasing eutrophication, lower primary production and thus less fresh organic matter transported to the Boknis Eck sediments. Elevated temperatures are known to stimulate methanogenesis, anaerobic oxidation of methane, sulfate reduction and essentially microbial sulfide consumption, likely explaining the shift to a phylogenetically more diverse sulfide oxidizing community based on RNA.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1096062
JournalFrontiers in Microbiology
Volume13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The methane measurements were part of the BONUS INTEGRAL project which received funding from BONUS (Art 185), funded jointly by the EU, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Swedish Research Council Formas, Academy of Finland, the Polish National Centre for Research and Development, and the Estonian Research Council. Water column measurements of nano-and pico-plankton as well as TDAA and DOC were part of the project CREATE (grant no. 03F0910A) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Sediment geochemistry analyses were funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through Emmy Noether Project ICONOX to FS.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Perner, Wallmann, Adam-Beyer, Hepach, Laufer-Meiser, Böhnke, Diercks, Bange, Indenbirken, Nikeleit, Bryce, Kappler, Engel and Scholz.

Keywords

  • anaerobic oxidation of methane
  • hypoxia
  • marine sediments
  • microbial sulfide oxidation
  • sedimentary microbial community
  • sulfate reduction rates

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Environmental changes affect the microbial release of hydrogen sulfide and methane from sediments at Boknis Eck (SW Baltic Sea)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this