fairfolio
Saved Projects

Methane Production and Consumption in Suburban Landscapes

CSEF · 2005 Microbiology

Patrick F. Michaels · Palos Verdes High School, Palos Verdes Estates

Overview

Objectives/Goals Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is produced by specific archaea called methanogens and consumed by bacteria called methanotrophs. Methanogens reside in anaerobic ecosystems such as over watered lawns or compost heaps. Results Earlier experiments indicated that saturated yard compost produced methane, suggesting that levels of irrigation in suburban landscapes might influence methane production. This year, measurements of methane production in suburban environments found little methane and little variability with the level of water saturation. Plugs of lawn incubated under high methane concentrations showed that significant levels of methanotrophy were occurring or could be induced. Ammonia inhibits methanotrophs. Ammonia-based fertilizers, when added to portions of a lawn, reduced the level of methanotrophy compared to normally fertilized lawns. Conclusions/Discussion The study indicates that normal suburban landscapes are not significant methane sources and may even consume methane. Excessive use of ammonia-based fertilizers, particularly in over-watered areas, could turn them into a methane source.

Summary statement

The amount of water and fertilizer applied to suburban landscapes may influence whether they produce or consume methane, an important greenhouse gas.

Help received

Dr. Anthony Michaels gave advice and supervised the use of a GC at the University of Southern California, Mr Robertson also provided advice.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2005 Microbiology · Entry S1317

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google