Phylogenetic analysis of peat bog methanogen populations

Feat bog samples from two upland sites in the UK were analysed for the diversity of methanogens using DNA sequence analysis of approximately 300 bp of the MCR I operon contained in 42 cloned amplimers. The clones could be represented as up to five clusters, the largest of which (designated A) contained DNA sequences from a site in the Upper Pennine Hills, UK (called the Moorhouse site), whilst clones from two of the other clusters were from the other site in Galway, South West Scotland (called the Ellergower Moss site). 10 clones were selected as representatives of each cluster and a phylogenetic analysis was performed using 628-bp fragments of the MCR I operon. This phylogenetic analysis supported the phylogenies generated from the shorter sequence analysis, suggested that they represented hitherto uncharacterised mcr genes and that the closest relative of these clones was Methanosarcina barkeri. (C) 1999 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.