Life Sciences Seminar: Combining Isotopic and Molecular Approaches to Understand Patterns of Methane Emissions Across High Latitude Peatlands
Life Science Seminar
Combining Isotopic and Molecular Approaches to Understand Patterns of Methane Emissions Across High Latitude Peatlands
Dr. Carrie McCalley
Associate Professor, GSoLS
Rochester Institute of Technology
Abstract
A fundamental challenge for improving predictions of our future climate is to develop an understanding of the magnitude and the controls on the variability in the sinks and sources of methane (CH4). High latitude ecosystems are a large yet poorly constrained source of CH4 to the atmosphere, have been identified as a contributor to recent global flux anomalies, and are undergoing rapid change. One solution for identifying drivers of changing atmospheric CH4 has been to use tropospheric observations of CH4 concentration and isotopic signature to attribute changes in atmospheric CH4 to specific sources and regions. However, a challenge to using isotopic data to partition CH4 sources from high latitudes is the uncertainty in the spatial and temporal variability of microbial production from these systems, which can result in substantial variability in the isotopic signature of emissions. Microbial production and consumption pathways produce isotopically distinct signatures, making isotopic data useful in determining the role of microbial communities in driving global CH4 emissions patterns. We characterized methane cycling microbial communities and associated CH4 isotope biogeochemistry from well-studied high-latitude peatlands across North America and Scandinavia, including sites with well documented habitat shifts associated with permafrost thaw and observed distinctive methane cycling microbial community features and isotopic signatures associated with key habitat types across high-latitude peatlands.
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