Inhibition of Soil Methane Oxidation by Fertilizer Application: an Intriguing but Persistent Paradigm

) is one of the most important greenhouse gases and is oxidized by the methanotrophic bacteria in the soil. Present work is an effort to review the available information in this regard and present them in a systematic way. In this review, we concluded that low NH 4 + concentration can be supportive to the methane oxidation and growth of the methanotrophs. However, their high contents suppress the methanotrophic bacteria by inhibiting the enzymes particularly methane monooxygenase (MMO) involved in the methane oxidation. There are a range of the soil and environmental factors such as type of soil and vegetation, methane availability, amount and exposure time of ammonium, and type of methanotrophic community dominating in an ecosystem, which affect the response of the methanotrophic bacteria towards the fertilizer application. However, still there are several gaps in our knowledge as complex interaction of edhapic factors affecting the availability of ammonium is unraveled.