Effect of Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) on Methanogenic Archaeal Communities Inhabiting Rice Roots in a Japanese Rice Field

The effect of free-air CO₂ enrichment (FACE) on the methanogenic archaeal communities inhabiting rice roots was studied in a Japanese rice field by separately collecting rice roots three times (at mid-tillering, panicle initiation, and heading stages) according to their nodal number, extracting DNA from the roots and subjecting it to polymerase-chain reaction (PCR)-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and sequence analyses. Appearance of roots indicated that aging and senescence occurred faster under the FACE conditions than under the ambient conditions. The number of DGGE bands of methanogenic archaeal communities tended to increase with the growth stages. Cluster analysis showed that the succession of methanogenic archaeal communities in the ambient plot preceded that in the FACE plot, while the trend of the appearance of rice roots was opposite. All the closest relatives associated with the DGGE bands belonged to Methanomicrobiales and Rice cluster I, and FACE did not affect the phylogenetic position of the closest relatives associated with the characteristic DGGE bands. Faster succession of methanogenic archaeal communities in the ambient plot and similar phylogenetic members between the plots were observed in rice roots in years with both warmer (1999) and cooler (2003) weather during the rice cultivation period than in average years.