Methane Eating Bacteria Offer Hope for Global Warming

Researchers from the United States discovered that bacteria found in the depths of the ocean can break down gases that contribute to climate change.
Greenhouse gases are all the gases present in the atmosphere that block some of the heat that would otherwise escape from Earth into space.

Without them, the temperature on our planet would be tens of degrees lower than it is today, and life as we know it could not exist.
But these gases also have a dark side: in recent years, we have witnessed global warming due to increased greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human activity and other factors.
The rise in the Earth’s average temperature can have very serious consequences, including rising sea levels, storms, floods, droughts, the spread of diseases and more.
In a recently published article, researchers from the University of Texas documented bacteria that may help alleviate the greenhouse gas problem.

These bacteria live at extremely high temperatures on the ocean floor in the Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California, Mexico.
Among other discoveries, new species of bacteria were found that were very different genetically from those known to us and they were therefore defined as separate branches in the evolutionary tree.
It seems that this great diversity is one of the ways that allows bacteria to survive in an extreme environment.
The ocean floor in this area represents such an environment, characterized by extreme temperatures and changing chemical composition, which is why the researchers chose to focus on it.

Volcanic activity in the Guaymas Basin raises water temperatures to nearly two hundred degrees Celsius.
It also creates layers of sediment rich in organic matter that over time become the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, along with hydrogen, ammonia and hydrocarbons such as methane, ethane and benzene.
Of all these, methane draws significant research attention because it is an important greenhouse gas that greatly affects Earth’s climate.
These compounds feed colonies of bacteria that can use them as energy sources.

To study them, researchers obtained sediment samples from a depth of about two thousand meters below the sea surface using the Alvin submarine, which also helped locate the Titanic.
Butane and Methane as Food After sequencing the genomes of bacteria found in the samples, researchers could infer from their gene systems, compared to known bacteria, what substances they feed on.
They identified 551 different genetic sequences, including 22 new strains that mostly use hydrocarbons such as butane and methane as food sources for growth and development.

During this process, carbon dioxide and water are released.
Bacteria that break down greenhouse gases could, if properly harnessed, help reduce their atmospheric concentrations and thus mitigate global warming.
Furthermore, similar to other known bacteria, they may also be efficient in breaking down oil and petroleum.
Brett Baker, who led the study, notes that these are only preliminary findings, and additional samples are needed to obtain a complete picture of the function of bacteria found in the ocean depths and to understand their role in the natural carbon cycle.

Researchers continue to decode the DNA sequences of the collected bacteria.
Understanding their metabolic mechanisms may help us in the future reduce air pollution and the greenhouse effect if we can replicate the process artificially or harness the bacteria themselves to break down harmful gases.