Nature often demonstrates the following regularity: products, synthesized by some microbes, are consumed by others with an "appetite". Here is a typical example: bacteria, residing in benthic sediments of bogs and rice-fields or in the intestines of ruminants, constantly excrete methane (CH4) into the atmosphere. But this gas has "consumers"-it is oxidized by metanotrophic bacteria of forest soils. However, if in the latter case we observe large concentrations of nitrogen compounds, they suppress an oxidizing activity of the given metanotrophs. Therefore, of great interest is a work of a group of scientists from Russia and Germany, who, for the first time, proved that both the efficiency of bacterial oxidation of methane and an extent of nitrogen influence on the corresponding process depend on the species of trees growing in the forest. The journalist Nataliya Reznik told about these studies with стр. 22 reference to a publication in the journal Doklady RAN (RAS Reports), No. 1, Vol. 447, 2012, on the pages of electronic edition of Science and Technologies of Russia-STRF.ru. Methane is second in significance gas, participating in creation of hothouse effect, and that is why scientists are searching for methods of minimizing its influence. Specialists from the Institute of Forest named after V. Suka-chev, RAS SB, the Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk), Lomonosov Moscow State University and Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology (Marburg, Germany) are carrying out experiments for a number of years, trying to elucidate a role of some natural factors in fixation of methane. The work has been supported by the RFFR, RF Ministry of Education and Science, US Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). In the focus of attention of international community are soil microorganisms, which annually remove from the atmosphere approximately 30 mln t of hothouse gases, which makes ... Читать далее