13
Inhibition of Soil Methane Oxidation by Fertilizer Application: an Intriguing but Persistent Paradigm
Authors: Virendra Kumar Mishra, Reetika Shukla, Prabhu Nath Shukla
Number of views: 476
Methane (CH4) is one of the most important greenhouse gases and is oxidized by the
methanotrophic bacteria in the soil. Present work is an effort to review the available information in
this regard and present them in a systematic way. In this review, we concluded that low NH4
+
concentration can be supportive to the methane oxidation and growth of the methanotrophs.
However, their high contents suppress the methanotrophic bacteria by inhibiting the enzymes
particularly methane monooxygenase (MMO) involved in the methane oxidation. There are a range
of the soil and environmental factors such as type of soil and vegetation, methane availability,
amount and exposure time of ammonium, and type of methanotrophic community dominating in an
ecosystem, which affect the response of the methanotrophic bacteria towards the fertilizer application.
However, still there are several gaps in our knowledge as complex interaction of edhapic factors
affecting the availability of ammonium is unraveled.