Description: A shallow-water area in the Santa Barbara Channel, California, known collectively as the Coal Oil Point seep field, is one of the largest natural submarine hydrocarbon emission areas in the world. Both gas and oil are seeping constantly through a predominantly sandy seabed into the ocean. This study focused on the methanotrophic activity within the surface sediments (0–15 cm) of the permeable seabed in the so-called Brian Seep area at a water depth of ~10 m. Detailed investigations of the sediment biogeochemistry of active gas vents indicated that it is driven by fast advective transport of water through the sands, resulting in a deep penetration of oxidants (oxygen, sulfate). Maxima of microbial methane consumption were found at the sediment-water interface and in deeper layers of the sediment, representing either aerobic or anaerobic oxidation of methane, respectively. Methane consumption was relatively low (0.6–8.7 mmolm−2 d−1) in comparison to gas hydratebearing fine-grained sediments on the continental shelf. The low rates and the observation of free gas migrating through permeable coastal sediments indicate that a substantial proportion of methane can escape the microbial methane filter in coastal sediments.

Description: Biological dinitrogen (N2) fixation is the primary input of fixed nitrogen (N) into the marine biosphere, making it an essential process contributing to the biological functions of all organisms. Because biologically available N often limits marine productivity, microbial processes leading to its loss and gain (e.g. denitrification and N2 fixation, respectively) play an important role in global biogeochemical cycles. Bioturbation is known to influence benthic N cycling, most often reported as enhancement of denitrification and a subsequent loss of N2 from the system. N2 fixation has rarely been addressed in bioturbation studies. Instead, sedimentary N2 fixation typically has been considered important in relatively rare, localized habitats such as rhizosphere and phototrophic microbial mat environments. However, the potential for N2 fixation in marine sediments may be more widespread. We show here that nitrogenase activity can be very high (up to 5 nmol C2H4 cm–3 h–1) in coastal sediments bioturbated by the ghost shrimp Neotrypaea californiensis and at depths below 5 cm. Integrated subsurface N2-fixation rates were greater than those previously found for un-vegetated estuarine sediments and were comparable to rates from photosynthetic microbial mats and rhizospheres. Inhibition experiments and genetic analysis showed that this activity was mainly linked to sulfate reduction. Sulfatereducing bacteria (SRB) are widespread and abundant in marine sediments, with many possessing the genetic capacity to fix N2. Our results show that N2 fixation by SRB in bioturbated sediments may be an important process leading to new N input into marine sediments. Given the ubiquity of bioturbation and of SRB in marine sediments, this overlooked benthic N2 fixation may play an important role in marine N and carbon (C) cycles.

Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 8 (2017): 15595, doi:10.1038/ncomms15595.

Description: Although increasing atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) has been linked to nitrogen loading, predicting emissions remains difficult, in part due to challenges in disentangling diverse N2O production pathways. As coastal ecosystems are especially impacted by elevated nitrogen, we investigated controls on N2O production mechanisms in intertidal sediments using novel isotopic approaches and microsensors in flow-through incubations. Here we show that during incubations with elevated nitrate, increased N2O fluxes are not mediated by direct bacterial activity, but instead are largely catalysed by fungal denitrification and/or abiotic reactions (e.g., chemodenitrification). Results of these incubations shed new light on nitrogen cycling complexity and possible factors underlying variability of N2O fluxes, driven in part by fungal respiration and/or iron redox cycling. As both processes exhibit N2O yields typically far greater than direct bacterial production, these results emphasize their possibly substantial, yet widely overlooked, role in N2O fluxes, especially in redox-dynamic sediments of coastal ecosystems.

Description: D.D.B. acknowledges support from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grants to W.Z. and S.D.W. (OCE-1260373) and to S.D.W. (EAR-1252161).