Improved methane mitigation potential and modulated methane cycling microbial communities in arable soil by compost addition.

The global atmospheric concentration of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH) is rising rapidly, and agriculture is responsible for 30%-50% of the yearly CH emissions. To limit its global warming effects, strong and sustained reductions are needed. Sustainable agricultural management strategies, as the use of organic amendments like compost, have previously proven to have a potent CH mitigation effect in laboratory experiments. Here we investigated, using an extensive field study, the effect of organic amendments on the CH mitigation potential and CH cycling microbial communities of arable soils. Organic-amended soils had higher potential CH uptake rates and an improved potential to oxidize CH to sub-atmospheric concentrations. Also, we showed for the first time that the methanotrophic and methanogenic microbial communities of arable soils were unequivocally altered after organic amendment application by increasing in size while getting less diverse. Compost-amended soils became dominated by the compost-originating methanotroph and methanogen , replacing the indigenous methane cycling community members. However, multivariate analyses didn't point out type Ib methanotrophs like as significant driving factors for the observed improved soil CH uptake potential. Conventional type IIa methanotrophs like sp. also had higher differential abundances in organic-amended soils and are speculated to contribute to the improved CH uptake potential. Altogether, the results showed that compost serves as a vector for the introduction of CH cycling microbes and improves the soil's CH uptake potential, which emphasizes the potential of organic fertilization with compost to contribute to CH mitigation in agricultural soils.