Disproportionate increase in freshwater methane emissions induced by experimental warming

Yizhu Zhu, Kevin J. Purdy, Özge Eyice, Lidong Shen, Sarah F. Harpenslager, Gabriel Yvon-Durocher, Alex J. Dumbrell and Mark Trimmer ()
Additional contact information
Yizhu Zhu: Queen Mary University of London
Kevin J. Purdy: University of Warwick
Özge Eyice: Queen Mary University of London
Lidong Shen: Queen Mary University of London
Sarah F. Harpenslager: Queen Mary University of London
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher: University of Exeter, Penryn Campus
Alex J. Dumbrell: University of Essex
Mark Trimmer: Queen Mary University of London

Nature Climate Change, 2020, vol. 10, issue 7, 685-690

Abstract: Abstract Net emissions of the potent GHG methane from ecosystems represent the balance between microbial methane production (methanogenesis) and oxidation (methanotrophy), each with different sensitivities to temperature. How this balance will be altered by long-term global warming, especially in freshwaters that are major methane sources, remains unknown. Here we show that the experimental warming of artificial ponds over 11 years drives a disproportionate increase in methanogenesis over methanotrophy that increases the warming potential of the gases they emit. The increased methane emissions far exceed temperature-based predictions, driven by shifts in the methanogen community under warming, while the methanotroph community was conserved. Our experimentally induced increase in methane emissions from artificial ponds is, in part, reflected globally as a disproportionate increase in the capacity of naturally warmer ecosystems to emit more methane. Our findings indicate that as Earth warms, natural ecosystems will emit disproportionately more methane in a positive feedback warming loop.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0824-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:10:y:2020:i:7:d:10.1038_s41558-020-0824-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-0824-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().