From Archaea to the atmosphere: linking above and belowground communities to scale methane and isotopic emissions across the Arctic

High latitude peatlands are a significant source of atmospheric methane. Production, consumption and emission rates are spatially and temporally heterogeneous, resulting in a wide range of global estimates for the atmospheric budget of methane. Increasing temperatures in Arctic regions cause degradation of underlying permafrost, changing hydrology, vegetation and microbial communities, but the consequences of this for methane cycling, including stable methane isotopes, are poorly understood. We provide evidence of direct linkages between below ground methanogen communities and above ground plant communities that can be remotely sensed and used in model simulations to effectively predict methane and isotopic fluxes across the landscape. Combining remote sensing with biogeochemical modeling can be used to predict methane dynamics, including the fraction derived from hydrogenotrophic versus acetoclastic microbial methanogenesis. Applying this approach across heterogeneous discontinuous permafrost peatlands enables us to accurately predict isotopic emissions, which will help constrain the global role of Arctic methane emissions.