Methanogenesis in Big Soda Lake Nevada: an Alkaline Moderately Hypersaline Desert Lake

摘要

Incubated sediment slurries from Big Soda Lake, Nevada, produced significant levels of CH4, and production was inhibited by 2-bromoethanesulfonic acid and by autoclaving. Methane production was stimulated by methanol, trimethylamine, and, to a lesser extent, methionine. Surprisingly, hydrogen, acetate, and formate amendments provided only slight or no stimulation of methanogenesis. Methane production by sediment slurries had a pH optimum of 9.7. A methanol-grown enrichment culture containing a small, epifluorescent coccus as the predominant organism was recovered from sediments. The enrichment grew best when FeS or autoclaved sediment particles were included in the media, had a pH optimum of 9.7, and produced ¹⁴CH4 from ¹⁴CH3OH. The methane formed by methanolgrown enrichment cultures was depleted in ¹³C by 72 to 77‰ relative to the methanol.