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Water column methanotrophy controlled by a rapid oceanographic switch

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 378–382 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Large amounts of the greenhouse gas methane are released from the seabed to the water column1, where it may be consumed by aerobic methanotrophic bacteria2. The size and activity of methanotrophic communities, which determine the amount of methane consumed in the water column, are thought to be mainly controlled by nutrient and redox dynamics3,4,5,6,7. Here, we report repeated measurements of methanotrophic activity and community size at methane seeps west of Svalbard, and relate them to physical water mass properties and modelled ocean currents. We show that cold bottom water, which contained a large number of aerobic methanotrophs, was displaced by warmer water with a considerably smaller methanotrophic community within days. Ocean current simulations using a global ocean/sea-ice model suggest that this water mass exchange is consistent with short-term variations in the meandering West Spitsbergen Current. We conclude that the shift from an offshore to a nearshore position of the current can rapidly and severely reduce methanotrophic activity in the water column. Strong fluctuating currents are common at many methane seep systems globally, and we suggest that they affect methane oxidation in the water column at other sites, too.

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Figure 1: Study area and distribution of aerobic methanotrophy and physicochemical parameters above methane seeps at the Svalbard continental margin.
Figure 2: Modelled cross-slope distribution of water column temperature and current velocity in the West Spitsbergen Current.
Figure 3: Modelled bottom water current velocity at methane seeps.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the captains, crews and shipboard scientific parties of R/V Poseidon and R/V Maria S. Merian for their excellent help at sea. We greatly acknowledge K. Hissmann and J. Schauer for operating the submersible Jago. Model simulations were performed at the North-German Supercomputing Alliance (HLRN). This work received financial support through a D-A-CH project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and German Research Foundation (grant no. 200021L_138057). Further support was provided through the EU COST Action PERGAMON (ESSEM 0902), a Postgraduate Scholarship of the National Research Council of Canada, the Centre of Excellence ‘CAGE’ funded by the Norwegian Research Council (grant no. 223259), the cooperative Projects ‘RACE—Regional Atlantic Circulation and Global Change’ funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the Cluster of Excellence ‘The Future Ocean’ funded by the German Research Foundation.

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  1. Tina Treude & Jens Greinert

    Present address: Present address: University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Earth, Planetary & Space Sciences and Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, 4056 Basel, Switzerland

    Lea Steinle, Moritz F. Lehmann & Helge Niemann

  2. GEOMAR, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, 24148 Kiel, Germany

    Lea Steinle, Tina Treude, Arne Biastoch, Christian Berndt, Erik Behrens, Claus W. Böning, Jens Greinert, Markus Scheinert & Stefan Sommer

  3. Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK

    Carolyn A. Graves & Rachael H. James

  4. Department of Geology, CAGE-Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate, University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromsø, Norway

    Bénédicte Ferré & Jens Greinert

  5. Alfred Wegener Institute, Marine Station Helgoland, 27498 Helgoland, Germany

    Ingeborg Bussmann

  6. Institute of Geosciences, University of Kiel, 24118 Kiel, Germany

    Sebastian Krastel

  7. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington 6021, New Zealand

    Erik Behrens

  8. Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research NIOZ, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands

    Jens Greinert

  9. Laboratoire de Glaciologie, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

    Célia-Julia Sapart

  10. Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, 3584CC Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Célia-Julia Sapart

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Contributions

L.S., C.A.G., T.T., I.B., J.G., C-J.S., S.S. and H.N. collected the samples and performed measurements of biogeochemical rates and/or physicochemical parameters. L.S. carried out enumeration of microbial cells. A.B., B.F., J.G., E.B., C.W.B. and M.S. conducted oceanographic modelling, interpretation and/or graphical representation. C.B. and S.K. were responsible for acoustic measurements. T.T., R.H.J., M.F.L. and H.N. supervised research. L.S. and H.N. led the development of the manuscript and all co-authors contributed to data interpretation and writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Lea Steinle or Helge Niemann.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Steinle, L., Graves, C., Treude, T. et al. Water column methanotrophy controlled by a rapid oceanographic switch. Nature Geosci 8, 378–382 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2420

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