Methanogenic bacterial populations in some lowland paddy field soils of Burkina Faso (West Africa)

In wetland ecosystems, such as rice fields, methanogenic bacteria (MB) play important roles in global carbon cycling as terminal organic decomposers and in hydrogen cycling as hydrogen consumers, leading to methane production (Jorgensen 1982). In the global atmosphere, concentration of methane has been increasing by about 1% per year (Blake and Rowland 1986; Bouwman 1989; Dlugokensky et al. 1994) and it is considered that 80% is of biological origin (Seiler 1984). The environmental impact of methane on global warming has also been confirmed (Chappellaz et al. 1990). Rice paddy fields contribute to an estimated 10% of the global methane emission (Bouwman 1989; IPCC 1992) and the intensification of paddy cultivation may contribute considerably to the gradual increase of atmospheric methane (Rasmussen and Khalil 1981). From 1970 to 1990, rice production increased by 110% in West Africa (FAO 1970, 1990), as a direct result of encroachment on new lands throughout most of West Africa (Windmeijer and Andriesse 1993; Issaka et al. 1996a, b). In Burkina Faso, about 85% of the rice cultivation areas are lowlands (Sié 1991). In recent years, many studies on methane emission from paddy fields and limited ecological studies on methanogenic populations have been conducted (Schütz et al. 1989; Asakawa and Hayano 1995; Adachi et al. 1996). However, studies on both methane emission and populations of methanogens in African paddy fields are very limited. Garcia et al. (1974) enumerated methanogenic populations in Sénégal rice soils by the most probable number (MPN) method. With the gradual increase in the land area under rice cultivation, more information is needed on methane fluxes, populations, and species of methanogens in paddy fields of West Africa. We reported here the enumeration of methanogenic populations in the soils of lowland paddy fields located in the Sudan and Guinea Savanna zones of Burkina Faso (West Africa) by the MPN method.