Effect of plants on methane emissions from a temperate marsh in different seasons

Plants play an important role in CH4 emissions from wetlands. Vascular plants transport CH4 from the anaerobic zone to the atmosphere through their aerenchyma, thereby bypassing the aerobic zone and strongly increasing CH4 emission rates. However, most studies of the effect of plants on wetland CH4 emissions are based on observations made during the growing seasons. The effects in non-growing seasons are still unclear. In this study, we conducted a clipping experiment to investigate the effects of plants on CH4 emissions from a temperate marsh in the growing and non-growing seasons. The results show that the influence of plants on CH4 emissions from the wetland varied among different seasons. Plant-mediated CH4 accounted for 38% of the total fluxes in the plant-growing season. After the growing season, whether the plants transported CH4 from the soil to the atmosphere in situ was determined by the involved environmental conditions. In autumn, the plants did not transport CH4. This is because the CH4 diffused easily in the soil and water, rather than via the plantsʹ organs. In the surface soil freezing period, CH4 diffusion was blocked and accumulated under the frozen surface. The highly concentrated CH4 in the pore water was compelled to enter the organs of the plants and diffused by them. The ‘passive diffusion’ via plants transported 84% of the total CH4 emissions during this period. Nonetheless, the plants did not transport CH4 again in the deep soil freezing season. By synthesizing our data together with previous studies, we suggested that this is because the frozen soil layer was deep enough in this period to exceed the depth horizon of the plantsʹ roots and the CH4 in free water could not enter the plantsʹ organs.