User:Ljwegner/Methanobrevibacter ruminantium

Lead
Methanobrevibacter ruminantium is a methane producing archaea commonly found in the rumen of ruminants. M. ruminantium make up 27.3% of rumen archaea of studied foregut fermenters, making it the second most common Methanobrivibacter after, M. gottschalkii. M. ruminantium was first described in 1958 at UC Davis isolated from cattle. This archaea is rod-shaped, non-motile microbe able to use H2 to reduce CO2 to CH4 and H2O. In 2010 M. ruminantium was the first rumen methanogen to have it's genome sequenced.

Article body
Methanobrevibacter ruminantium hail from the class Euryarchaeota, which includes a wide array of archaea including other methanogens, found to be mesophiles, halophiles, and thermophiles. The majority of archaea found in ruminants are identified as methanogens, most of which come from the methanomicrobium or methanobrevibacter genera, and play an important role of hydrogen metabolization making it more favorable for other microbes to make the essential volatile fatty acids for the host's digestion.

The byproduct of Methanobrevibacter ruminatium's metabolism, methane, is released from ruminant's gastrointestinal tract in the form of belches from ruminants such as cattle. This enteric methane is problematic greenhouse gas, methane being 21x more potent than carbon dioxide, that paired with the scale of livestock of ruminant animals contributing to up to 40% of anthropogenic methane. One potential solution for reducing livestock's methane production is to include red seaweed a part of the feed supplement, one study has shown an 80% reduction of methane emission from cattle.