Controlled burning of peat before rewetting modifies soil chemistry and microbial dynamics to reduce short-term methane emissions

This dataset documents methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from rewetted organic soils under controlled experimental conditions. Increased CH4 emissions from rewetted organic soils can undermine the climate benefits of reduced CO2 release. This is especially problematic in low-lying areas that tend to remain waterlogged and act as potential CH4 hotspots. Here we test whether burning the soil surface before rewetting can reduce CH4 emissions. Using laboratory experiments with soil cores collected from degraded farmland in Denmark, we found that rewetting organic soils following burning reduced CH4 emissions by more than 95% over a 90-day period compared to rewetting alone. The dataset includes time-series measurements of CH4 and CO2 fluxes, along with associated environmental variables and microbial community information. The reduction was likely associated with changed soil chemistry, such as increased soil carbon stability and the decrease in methanogen abundance and activ..., , # Data from: Controlled burning of peat before rewetting modifies soil chemistry and microbial dynamics to reduce short-term methane emissions Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.pk0p2nh0g](10.5061/dryad.pk0p2nh0g) ## Description of the data and file structure Mitigating methane hotspots in rewetted organic soils: A targeted burning approach to enhance climate benefits This dataset comprises the following components: Data_CEE.xlsx The experimental data in the study include the following sheets: * \"Gas emissions\": cumulative gas emission data across treatments during incubation * \"Soil FTIR\": FTIR data of burnt and unburnt soils * \"Gene data\": data of CH4 cycling-related genes across treatments * \"Soil basic properties\": data of soil properties across treatments archaea.zip Raw sequence data of archaeal community composition. bacteria.zip Raw sequence data of bacterial community composition. ## Code/software Excel ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the da..., ,