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Updated: May 28, 2026

Visualizing Methane-Cycling Microbial Dynamics in Coastal Wetlands
Published on: January 31, 2025
Aerobic and anaerobic nonmicrobial methane emissions from plant material
Zhi-Ping Wang1, Zong-Qiang Xie, Bao-Cai Zhang
1State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanxincun 20, Xiangshan, Beijing 100093, China. wangzp5@ibcas.ac.cn
Abstract:
Methane (CH(4)) may be generated via microbial and nonmicrobial mechanisms. Nonmicrobial CH(4) is also ubiquitous in nature, such as in biomass burning, the Earth's crust, plants, and animals. Relative to microbial CH(4), nonmicrobial CH(4) is less understood. Using fresh (living) and dried (dead) leaves and commercial structural compounds (dead) of plants, a series of laboratory experiments have been conducted to investigate CH(4) emissions under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. CH(4) emissions from fresh leaves incubated at ambient temperatures were nonmicrobial and enhanced by anaerobic conditions. CH(4) emissions from dried leaves incubated at rising temperature ruled out a microbial-mediated formation pathway and were plant-species-dependent with three categories of response to oxygen levels: enhanced by aerobic conditions, similar under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, and enhanced by anaerobic conditions. CH(4) emissions in plant structural compounds may help to fully understand nonmicrobial CH(4) formation in plant leaves. Experiments of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generator and scavengers indicate that ROS had a significant role in nonmicrobial CH(4) formation in plant material under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. However, the detailed mechanisms of the ROS were uncertain.
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