aim of this study was to develop and validate a community supported online infrastructure and bioresource for methane yield data and accompanying metadata collected from published literature. In total, 1164 entries described by 15749 data points were assembled. Analysis of data collection showed litle congruence in reporting of methodological approaches. The largest identifiable source of variation in reported methane yields was represented by authorship (i.e. substrate batches within particular substrate class) within which experimental scales (volumes (0.02 l to 5 l), incubation temperature (34°C to 40°C) and %VS of substrate played an important role (p(0.05, npermutations=999) as well. The largest fraction of variability, however, remained unaccounted for and thus unexplained ()63%). This calls for reconsideration of accepted approaches to reporting data in currently published literature to increase capacity to service industrial decision making to a greater extent.
COBISS.SI-ID: 7022945
Ruminant livestock are important sources of human food and global greenhouse gas emissions. Feed degradation and methane formation by ruminants rely on metabolic interactions between rumen microbes and affect ruminant productivity. Rumen and camelid foregut microbial community composition was determined in 742 samples from 32 animal species and 35 countries, to estimate if this was influenced by diet, host species, or geography. Similar bacteria and archaea dominated in nearly all samples, while protozoan communities were more variable. The dominant bacteria are poorly characterised, but the methanogenic archaea are better known and highly conserved across the world. This universality and limited diversity could make it possible to mitigate methane emissions by developing strategies that target the few dominant methanogens. Differences in microbial community compositions were predominantly attributable to diet, with the host being less influential. There were few strong co-occurrence patterns between microbes, suggesting that major metabolic interactions are non-selective rather than specific.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3636616