Effect of moisture, texture and aggregate size of paddy soil on production and consumption of CH4

Abstract

Laboratory experiments were conducted to find out under which conditions the soil from Italian rice fields could change from a source into a sink of atmospheric CH4. Moist (30% H2O=68% of the maximum water holding capacity (whc)) rice field soil oxidized CH4 with biphasic kinetics, exhibiting both a low (145ppmv CH4) and a high (20,200ppmv CH4) Km value and Vmax values of 16.8 and 839nmol gdw−1h−1, respectively. The activity with the low Km allowed the oxidation of atmospheric CH4. Uptake rates of high CH4 concentrations (16.5% v/v) and of O2 linearly decreased with aggregate size of soil between 2 and 10mm. Atmospheric CH4 (1.8 ppmv) was consumed in soil aggregates <6mm, but soil aggregates >6mm released CH4 into the atmosphere. Similarly, net uptake of atmospheric CH4 turned into net release of CH4 when the soil moisture was decreased below a water content of about 20% whc. The uptake rate of atmospheric CH4 increased threefold when the soil was amended with sterile quartz sand. Flooded microcosms with non-amended and quartz-amended soil emitted CH4 into the atmosphere. The CH4 emission rate increased when the flux was measured under an atmosphere of N2 instead of air, indicating that 30–99% of the produced CH4 was oxidized in the oxic soil surface layer. Removal of the flood water resulted in increase of CH4 emission rates until a water content of about 75–82% whc was reached, and subsequently in a rapid decrease. However, the soil microcosms never showed net uptake of atmospheric CH4. Our results show that the microorganisms consuming atmospheric CH4 were inactivated at an earlier stage of drainage than the microorganisms producing CH4, irrespective of the soil porosity which was adjusted by addition of quartz sand. Hence, it is unlikely that the Italian rice fields can act as a net sink for atmospheric CH4 even when drained.