419: Marine Methane Microbe Multiplication

BacterioFiles is back! This episode: Measuring how quickly marine
methane-consuming microbes become active when new methane enters
an area!


Download Episode (9.0 MB, 13.0 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Torque teno midi virus 6

Takeaways
Oceans and the organisms living in them have a large effect on
the planet, in terms of climate and gases they absorb from or
release into the atmosphere. They are a source of much of a
potent greenhouse gas, methane, but microbes living in ocean
sediments also consume large amounts of methane. These anaerobic
methanotrophic archaea generate energy for themselves by
transforming methane and sulfate into carbonate and
sulfide.

In this study, however, methane-consuming microbes were only
found active at sites of methane seepage. Even in sites where
methane had previously been present, only few of these microbes
were present and active. After enriching samples of these
sediments for up to 8 months, still the only activity that was
seen was from actively methane-consuming communities. So once
dispersed, such communities seem slow to regenerate as the
locations of methane seepage shift.

Journal Paper:
Klasek S, Torres ME, Bartlett DH, Tyler M, Hong W-L, Colwell F.
2020. Microbial communities from Arctic marine sediments respond
slowly to methane addition during ex situ enrichments. Environ
Microbiol 22:1829–1846.


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