Molecular Ecology Techniques for the Study of Aerobic Methanotrophs

1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand 2Department of Bioresources/Microbiology, ARC Siebersdorf Research GmbH, A-2444 Seibersdorf, Austria 3Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, England Methane oxidation can occur in both aerobic and anaerobic environments; however, these are completely different processes involving different groups of prokaryotes. Aerobic methane oxidation is carried out by aerobic methanotrophs, and anaerobic methane oxidizers, discovered recently, thrive under anaerobic conditions and use sulfate or nitrate as electron donors for methane oxidation (11, 104). This review will focus on the aerobic oxidation of methane.