Wetland Microbial Community Response to Restoration

Abstract:

Wetland restoration has been proposed as a potential long-term carbon storage solution, with a goal of engineering geochemical dynamics to accelerate peat accretion and encourage greenhouse gas (GHG) sequestration. However, wetland microbial community composition and metabolic rates are poorly understood and their predicted response to wetland restoration is a veritable unknown. In an effort to better understand the underlying factors that shape the balance of carbon flux in wetland soils, we targeted the microbial communities along a salinity gradient ranging from freshwater tidal marshes to hypersaline ponds in the San Francisco Bay-Delta region. Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing and shotgun metagenomics, coupled with greenhouse gas measurements, we sampled sixteen sites capturing a range in salinity and restoration status. Seawater delivers sulfate to wetland ecosystems, encouraging sulfate reduction and discouraging methane production. As expected, we observed the highest rates of methane production in the freshwater wetlands. Recently restored wetlands had significantly higher rates of methane production compared to their historic counterparts that could be attributed to variations in trace metal and organic carbon content in younger wetlands. In contrast, our sequencing results revealed an almost immediate return of the indigenous microbial communities following seasonal flooding and full tidal restoration in saline and hypersaline wetlands and managed ponds. Notably, we found elevated methane production rates in hypersaline ponds, the result of methylotrophic methane production confirmed by sequence data and lab incubations. Our study links belowground microbial communities and their aboveground greenhouse gas production and highlights the inherent complexity in predicting wetland microbial response in the face of both natural and unnatural disturbances.