Methanogenesis: Ecology

Robert D Barber, University of Wisconsin‐Parkside, Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA

Published online: September 2007

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0000475.pub2

Methanogenic Archaea provide an essential metabolic link between aerobic and anaerobic environments in the global carbon cycle as part of microbial consortia that recycle biomass. Understanding methanogenesis and the impact of microbial interactions on this process offers an opportunity to gain significant insight into environmental events such as global warming.

Keywords: methanogen; syntrophy; hydrogen; methane; anaerobic

Figure 1. Phylogenetic relationships of life. Ribosomal RNA comparisons divide biology into three domains of life, Eubacteria, Archaea and Eukarya. Archaea can be further separated into two kingdoms, Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota. Methanogens are prominent members of the Euryarchaeota kingdom.
Figure 2. Microbial food chain in anaerobic environments. Three types of microbes are required for the decomposition of complex biomass to methane and carbon dioxide. The principle intermediates and the major route of carbon flow are shown in red.
Figure 3. Effect of hydrogen partial pressure on the free energy of methanogenesis, sulfate reduction or acetate production using hydrogen. The equations for the reactions are shown in Table 2. The dots show typical hydrogen thresholds for various microbial groups where these reactions become energetically favourable. Adapted from Zinder SH (1993).
Figure 4. A syntrophic genesis of eukaryotes. Proposed formation of an endosymbiotic relationship between a eubacterium (green) and methanoarchaeon (orange) dependent on the metabolic interactions. Adapted from Vogel G (1998).
close
 References
    book Boone DR, Whitman WB and Rouvière P (1993) "Diversity and taxonomy of methanogens". In: Ferry JG (ed.) Methanogenesis: Ecology, Physiology, Biochemistry and Genetics, pp. 35–80. New York: Chapman and Hall.
    Bousquet P, Ciais P, Miller JB et al. (2006) Contribution of anthropogenic and natural sources to atmospheric methane variability. Nature 443: 439–443.
    Cord-Ruwisch R, Steitz HJ and Conrad R (1988) The capacity of hydrogenotrophic anaerobic bacteria to compete for traces of hydrogen depends on the redox potential of the terminal electron acceptor. Archives of Microbiology 149: 350–357.
    Hallam SJ, Putnam N, Preston CM et al. (2004) Reverse methanogenesis: testing the hypothesis with environmental genomics. Science 305: 1457–1462.
    Lessner DJ, Li L, Li Q et al. (2006) An unconventional pathway for reduction of CO2 to methane in CO-grown Methanosarcina acetivorans revealed by proteomics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 103: 17921–17926.
    Lowe SE, Jain MK and Zeikus JG (1993) Biology, ecology, and biotechnological applications of anaerobic bacteria adapted to environmental stresses in temperature, pH, salinity, or substrates. Microbiological Reviews 57: 451–509 Links.
    Martin W and Müller W (1998) The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote. Nature 392: 37–41.
    Schink B (2006) Syntrophic associations in methanogenic degradation. Progress in Molecular and Subcellular Biology 41: 1–19.
    Schleper C, Jurgens G and Jonuscheit M (2005) Genomic studies of uncultivated archaea. Nature Reviews Microbiology 3: 479–488.
    Thauer RK, Jungermann K and Decker K (1977) Energy conservation in chemotrophic anaerobic bacteria. Bacteriology Reviews 41: 100–180.
    Thauer RK and Shima S (2006) Biogeochemistry: methane and microbes. Nature 440: 878–879.
    book Tyler SC (1991) "The global methane budget". In: Roger JE and Whitman WB (eds) Microbial Production and Consumption of Greenhouse Gases: Methane, Nitrogen Oxides, and Halomethanes, p. 7. Washington DC: American Society for Microbiology.
    Zinder SH (1984) Microbiology of anaerobic conversion of organic wastes to methane: recent developments. American Society for Microbiology News 50: 294–298.
    book Zinder SH (1993) "Physiological ecology of methanogens". In: Ferry JG (ed.) Methanogenesis: Ecology, Physiology, Biochemistry and Genetics, pp. 128–206. New York: Chapman and Hall.
 Further Reading
    Erkel C, Kube M, Reinhardt R and Liesack W (2006) Genome of rice cluster I Archaea – the key methane producers in the rice rhizosphere. Science 313: 370–372.
    Ferry JG (1999) Enzymology of one-carbon metabolism in methanogenic pathways. FEMS Microbiological Reviews 23: 13–38.
    Shima S, Warkentin E, Thauer RK and Ermler U (2002) Structure and function of enzymes involved in methanogenic pathway utilizing carbon dioxide and molecular hydrogen. Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering 93: 519–530.
    Vogel G (1998) Did the first complex cell eat hydrogen? Science 279: 1633–1634.
    Whitman WB, Coleman DC and Wiebe WJ (1998) Prokaryotes: the unseen majority. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 95: 6578–6583.
    Zinder SH (1984) Microbiology of anaerobic conversion of organic wastes to methane: recent developments. American Society for Microbiology News 50: 294–298.

Related Sub-Topics:

Biogeochemical Cycles | Restoration Ecology | Competition | Archaea | Environmental Microbiology
Contact Editor close
Submit a note to the editor about this article by filling in the form below.

* Required Field

Article Title: Methanogenesis: Ecology
 
How to Cite close
Barber, Robert D(Sep 2007) Methanogenesis: Ecology. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0000475.pub2]