University of Otago scientists are part of an international research collaboration which has made an important discovery in the quest to lower global agricultural methane emissions.
University of Otago scientists are part of an international research collaboration which has made an important discovery in the quest to lower global agricultural methane emissions.
Professor Greg Cook, Dr Sergio Morales, Dr Xochitl Morgan, Rowena Rushton-Green and PhD student Cecilia Wang, all from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, are members of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases that has identified new processes that control methane production in the stomach of sheep and similar animals like cattle and deer.
Specifically, they determined the microbes and enzymes that control supply of hydrogen, the main energy source for methane producing microbes (methanogens).
Professor Cook explains the discovery is important because methane emissions from animals account for about a third of New Zealand’s emissions.
Read more at University of Otago
Image by vika-imperia550 from Pixabay
