Increased annual methane uptake driven by warmer winters in an alpine meadow

Pronounced nongrowing season warming and changes in soil freeze-thaw (F-T) cycles can dramatically alter net methane (CH₄ ) exchange rates between soils and the atmosphere. However, the magnitudes and drivers of warming impacts on CH₄ uptake in different stages of the F-T cycle are poorly understood in cold alpine ecosystems, which have been found to be a net sink of atmospheric CH₄ . Here, we reported a year-round ecosystem daily CH₄ uptake in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau after a 5-year warming experiment that included a control, a low-level warming treatment (+2.4℃ at 5 cm soil depth), and a high-level warming treatment (+4.5℃ at 5 cm soil depth). We found that warming shortened the F-T cycle under the low-level warming and soils did not freeze under the high-level warming. Although both warming treatments increased the mean CH₄ uptake rate, only the high-level warming significantly increased annual CH₄ uptake compared to the control. The warming-induced stimulation of CH₄ uptake mainly occurred in the cold season, which was mostly during spring thaw under low-level warming and during the frozen winter under high-level warming due to a longer period with thawed soil. We also found that warming significantly stimulated daily CH₄ uptake mainly by reducing near-surface soil water content in the warm season, whereas both soil water content and temperature controlled daily CH₄ uptake in different ways during the autumn freeze, frozen winter, and spring thaw periods of the control. Our study revealed a strong warming effect on CH₄ uptake during the entire F-T cycle in the alpine meadow, especially the unfrozen winter. Our results also suggested the important roles of soil pH, available phosphorus, and methanotroph abundance in regulating annual CH₄ uptake in response to warming, which should be incorporated into biogeochemical models for accurately forecasting CH₄  fluxes under future climate scenarios.