Overview
- Researchers from Monash University and Southern Cross University report in Science that microbial communities living on the bark of eight common Australian tree species metabolize methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
- Live-tree experiments show these microbes consume gases both as they move through trunks from soils and directly from ambient air at trace concentrations.
- Genomic profiling indicates hydrogen-oxidizing microbes are more prevalent than methane-oxidizers, with carbon monoxide oxidizers also abundant across bark communities.
- Wetland trees, including Melaleuca paperbark, hosted particularly dense microbiomes, and researchers cite a global bark area near 41 million square kilometers with trillions of microbial cells per square meter.
- The team says the results could inform reforestation, conservation and urban greening, while a 2024 study’s estimate that bark microbes remove roughly 25–50 million tons of methane annually remains a modeled figure requiring further quantification.