Source Texts
Text
While many initiatives aimed at limiting atmospheric warming focus on curbing emissions of methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas that is typically generated by microbially mediated processes, Lisa Y. Stein and Mary E. Lidstrom caution that under certain circumstances, such efforts cause microbial communities to accelerate production of nitrous oxide (N2O), another potent greenhouse gas, thus offsetting the impact of CH4 reduction. Researchers, therefore, need to take such biological interactions into account to ensure that any CH4 mitigation strategy has an overall positive climate effect.