Effect of grazing intensities on the activity and community structure of methane-oxidizing bacteria of grassland soil in Inner Mongolia

The effects of different grazing intensities on in situ methane flux and the structure and diversity of the methanotrophic community are measured in the typical grassland of Inner Mongolia. Four grazing intensity sites founded in 1989, control (CK), low-intensity grazing (LG), middle-intensity grazi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 2008-02, Vol.80 (2), p.145-152
Main Authors: Zhou, Xiao-Qi, Wang, Yan-Fen, Huang, Xiang-Zhong, Tian, Jian-Qing, Hao, Yan-Bin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Community composition
Community structure
Composition
Consumption
Electrophoresis
gas emissions
Gel electrophoresis
grassland soils
Grasslands
Grazing
Grazing intensity
Herbivores
Life Sciences
Methane
Methanotrophic bacteria
methanotrophs
microbial activity
microbial ecology
Original Paper
Oxidation
Polymerase chain reaction
rRNA 16S
Scaling
Soil bacteria
soil biological properties
soil ecology
Soil microorganisms
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Summary:The effects of different grazing intensities on in situ methane flux and the structure and diversity of the methanotrophic community are measured in the typical grassland of Inner Mongolia. Four grazing intensity sites founded in 1989, control (CK), low-intensity grazing (LG), middle-intensity grazing (MG) and heavy-intensity grazing (HG), were selected. Group-specific PCR-DGGE (polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis) of 16S rRNA genes for the type I and type II methanotrophs was used to characterize the composition of the methanotrophic community. DGGE patterns were further analyzed using the method of the Shannon-wiener index H and non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS). The results showed that there were no significant differences in methane flux among different sites, yet methanotrophic communities showed significant differences. MDS analysis showed that type I methanotroph community composition at the CK site were significantly different from the three other sites. For type II methanotrophic community composition, it was similar between CK and HG site, and between LG and MG site, while that at the former two sites were significantly different from latter two ones. Additionally Shannon indices of type II methanotrophs were higher at the LG and MG sites than two other sites. Though grazing intensities had an impact on the structure of the methanotrophic community, management-induced changes in the structure of methanotrophic community did not reflect methane consumption capacity across sites. These results suggest that methane consumption is a complex process in soil, and we should be cautious when speculating on the change of methane consumption rates based on a change of methanotrophic community structure.
ISSN:1385-1314
1573-0867
DOI:10.1007/s10705-007-9127-1