Living on Air

Atmospheric methane oxidizing bacteria are the only organisms on Earth that can consume the greenhouse gas methane directly from the atmosphere. These organisms remove up to 47 million tons of methane from the atmosphere every year, but despite this, atmospheric methane concentrations increase rapidly. How these bacteria will react to increased methane concentrations in the atmosphere and to which extent they will help combat the large releases of methane in the future is unknown. Our project (LoAir) will use special techniques for cultivation of methane oxidizing bacteria to study how these organisms live. Further, we will create atmospheric compositions and temperatures predicted for the future to study how these important consumers of greenhouse gases will behave in the future.

Atmospheric methane oxidizing bacteria (atmMOB) are the only organisms on Earth that can consume the greenhouse gas methane directly from the atmosphere. This process removes up to 47 million tons of methane from the atmosphere every year, but despite this, atmospheric methane concentrations increase rapidly. How atmMOB will react to these increases are unknown. In 2019, we provided the first detailed description of an atmMOB, Methylocapsa gorgona MG08. M. gorgona MG08 is the only confirmed atmMOB in pure culture. LoAir will refine the groundbreaking cultivation techniques that allowed isolation of M. gorgona MG08 to enable fully controlled physiological experiments. We will use M. gorgona MG08 as a model organism to study energy, carbon and nitrogen harvest during growth on atmospheric methane. We will also use our cultivation platform to identify which other types of methane oxidizing bacteria can grow on atmospheric methane. Finally, we will create atmospheric compositions predicted for the future to study how increased methane concentrations affect the physiology and methane capture efficiency of atmMOB. This way, LoAir will provide fundamental knowledge about atmMOB. In the extension of LoAir, this knowledge may be used to understand the function of atmospheric methane oxidizing bacteria in the environment and predict their role in scenarios for a warmer future.