The Microbiology of Climate Active Gases

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is one of Earth's most abundant organosulfur compounds with key roles in global nutrient and sulfur cycling, signalling and potentially climate regulation. Microbial DMSP degradation is the major bio-source of the climate-cooling gas dimethylsulfide (DMS). DMS degradation in anoxic sediments can yield methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, yet little is known of the microbes responsible or how they do so. This project aims to elucidate organosulfur-dependent methane generation pathways, their environmental controls in wetland sediments, and to determine their potential importance on global methane production.
This project will sample freshwater and saline wetland sediment and characterise natural organosulfur cycling and related methane production using anaerobic microcosms and analytical techniques to quantify organosulfur compounds and climate-active volatiles. The project will investigate how environmental conditions affect anaerobic organosulfur and methane cycling and the transcription of the key genes responsible. Finally, using molecular ecology tools and bioinformatics, the diversity, abundance, activity, and metabolism of microbes driving organosulfur cycling and related methane production in natural wetlands will be elucidated.