Wetland bacteria could make more methane in a warming world

Warming temperatures may cause methane emissions from wetlands to rise — by helping methane-producing bacteria thrive. Higher temperatures favor the activity of wetland soil microbes that produce the potent greenhouse gas, at the expense of other microbes that can consume it, researchers report April 23 in Science Advances.

The scientists, led by microbiologist Jaehyun Lee of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in Seoul, conducted a summer field study in coastal wetlands near the Chesapeake Bay, analyzing soil conditions in a set of marshy plots with differing environmental conditions. The findings may offer clues to a puzzling and worrisome spike in wetland emissions of methane over the last decade.