Artificial ecosystem selection on soil methane oxidation

The goal of this project was to identify members of the microbiome that are associated with high methane oxidation rates in soil. We conducted a selection experiment where we passaged replicate soil microbiomes and selected microbiomes with a high methane oxidation rate. Selected microbiomes were used to inoculate the next generation. After several passages, we compared the microbiomes of the selected soils to a control set of soil microbiomes that did not undergo selection to identify microbial markers of methane oxidation in soil.