About This Project

Annual methane emissions have increased to 610 million tonnes per year causing habitat destruction, human sickness, and wetland degradation. By developing a humic-acid-binding peptide, I could research the effects of the added organic carbon on brackish tidal marshes. I hope to observe an increase in iron reduction and in turn a decrease in methane gas production to assist in marsh restoration. Your support will help make this research possible.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Brackish marshes are ecologically vital to our environment in the functions, habitat, and natural water filters they provide.

With recent increases in temperature and sea level, methanogens have boosted in population, producing high levels of methane. Methane gas can not only harm marshes by causing pressure build up and tearing delicate marsh vegetation but can also trap heat in the atmosphere leading to global warming.

To counteract the increase in methane production in brackish marshes due to sea level rise, an addition of humic acids from a targeted peptide will accelerate dissimilatory iron reduction. The humic-acid-binding peptide will act as an efficient electron shuttle, bypassing standard diffusion barriers to transfer electrons rapidly from organic matter to ferric iron. An increase in iron reduction will outcompete methanogens for primary electron donors, reducing methane production, leading to marsh restoration.

What is the significance of this project?

Methane gas is the second-largest contributor to Earth's warming responsible for 30% of the current rise in global temperature. CH4 production is an immediate threat to marsh vegetation, agricultural growth, and even human health in correlation with air quality. As brackish tidal marshes are a significant part of how our ecosystem operates, CH4 must not only be reduced for environmental reasons but also to sustain marsh health. With recent sea level rise, iron reduction has been limited due to spatial separation allowing for methanogens to use up the organic matter before iron reducing bacteria, producing methane (Taillefert et al., 2007; Schepers et al., 2025). This has set an immediate cause for an increase in methane and hydrogen sulfide production in brackish marshes and a decrease in air quality as well as vegetation growth in the local ecosystems. More in depth research needs to be conducted to not only observe what is happening but hopefully lead to the end of it.

What are the goals of the project?

I would like to see how creating and introducing a DNA strand that binds with decaying plant matter, a peptide, could affect a simulative, controlled brackish marsh.

After taking 6 cores of marsh from the Cattus Island Marsh, I will create 6 controlled chambers with similar conditions to how a real marsh interacts with its surroundings and treat three of them with the peptide I create. I will then test it over a span of 3-4 months to see how the bacteria respond to this addition of organic carbon and if iron reduction increases even with sea level rise.

I will then confirm the correlation of iron reduction to methane gas and hydrogen sulfide decrease. I would like to see a decrease in methane gas release and confirm the data I collect with the RNA sequencer I am hopefully able to obtain later on! I would then like to see this implemented into real wetland ecosystems and not just a controlled simulative marsh and observe its response!