Modulating soil methanogenic microbial communities and their function by temperature. rice paddy soils and desert upland soil

Temperature is an important factor regulating the production of the greenhouse gas CH4. Previous studies of methanogenic soils showed that structure and function of the methanogenic microbial communities were often drastically different upon incubation at 45°C versus 25°C or 35°C, but were also different in different soils. Therefore, we wondered how different soil methanogenic microbial communities that had established upon incubation at one particular temperature would react upon a temperature shift. Therefore, we investigated paddy soils from Italy and the Philippines and a desert soil from Utah (USA) which all expressed CH4 production upon flooding.