Study of the methanotrophic community present in chronosequence soils from Amazon

Abstract

Methanotrophic bacteria constitute a single group of microorganisms, physiologically distinguished by their ability to use methane as sole carbon source and energy are therefore able to perform biological oxidation of methane. It is believed that they form a sort of biological barrier to gas, in soils. The Amazon Rainforest has been the target of investigations related to global warming. These tropical ecosystems have significant carbon reservoir. In recent decades the region has suffered from deforestation for land conversion to pasture. Methane gas (CH4) is a greenhouse gas more important, and its impact on the atmosphere is grim. Its increase over the years is significant, and this gas has become a major concern for scientists. The bodies metanotróficos integrate the goals of the lines of research of the Laboratory of Ecology of Micro-organisms from the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo, related to knowledge and understanding of the Microbial Ecology of the processes involving the production and consumption of methane gas. Accordingly, the aim of this work is to verify the occurrence of methanotrophic activity from samples of a soil chronosequence covering forest and pasture regrowth will, to see if such soil management influences the composition of the methanotrophic community. Soil samples of the Amazon rainforest, as well as the area of pasture and secondary forest will be collected at Fazenda Nova Vida, in the central region of the state of Rondônia. Cultures will be made for evaluation of methane consumption in NMS medium in sealed flasks with controlled internal atmosphere with 15% methane in air. The use of methane is observed by gas chromatography (G /FID). DNA extraction will be performed the samples for gene amplification to be used as pmoA phylogenetic marker in the construction of DNA libraries, the realization DGGE and qPCR. (AU)