ИСТИНА

Recent studies have shown that mud volcanoes are important methane sources. We found mud volcanoes with high methane emissions in the floodplains of West Siberia middle taiga zone (25-40 km from Khanty-Mansiysk city). Despite of the minor area in comparison with surrounding methane-emitting wetlands, their methane emission rate reach 0.2 kg/(m2*h) that appears to be 1000 to 100000 times higher than that for wetlands. Probability density distribution of the observed methane emission rates is close to log-normal. Methanotrophic communities oxidizing emitted methane were found around seepages. Molecular identification of bacteria community composition using pmoA gen detects both type II and type I of methanotrophic bacteria (Gammaproteobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria classes, respectively) with type I dominating. Microorganisms similar to the authentic psychrophile Methylobacter psychrophiles (previously detected only in tundra soils) were also found among the later as well as a number of unidentified methanotrophs belonging to unknown taxon.