Methane mitigation in ruminants: from microbe to the farm scale.

By Cécile Martin, D. Morgavi, M. Doreau. Animal, 2010

906 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Decreasing enteric methane (CH4) emissions from ruminants without altering animal production is desirable both as a strategy to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and as a means of improving feed conversion efficiency. The aim of this paper is to provide an update on a selection of proved and potential strategies to mitigate enteric CH4 production by ruminants. Various biotechnologies are currently being explored with mixed results. Approaches to control methanogens through vaccination or the use of bacteriocins highlight the difficulty to modulate the rumen microbial ecosystem durably. The use of probiotics, i.e. acetogens and live yeasts, remains a potentially interesting approach, but results have been either unsatisfactory, not conclusive, or have yet to be confirmed in vivo. Elimination of the rumen protozoa to mitigate methanogenesis is promising, but this option should be carefully evaluated in terms of livestock performances. In addition, on-farm defaunation techniques are not available up to now. Several feed additives such as ionophores, organic acids and plant extracts have also been assayed. The potential use of plant extracts to reduce CH4 is receiving a renewed interest as they are seen as a natural alternative to chemical additives and are well perceived by consumers. The response to tannin- and saponin-containing plant extracts is highly variable and more research is needed to assess the effectiveness and eventual presence of undesirable residues in animal products. Nutritional strategies to mitigate CH4 emissions from ruminants are, without doubt, the most developed and ready to be applied in the field. Approaches presented in this paper involve interventions on the nature and amount of energy-based concentrates and forages, which constitute the main component of diets as well as the use of lipid supplements. The possible selection of animals based on low CH4 production and more likely on their high efficiency of digestive processes is also addressed. Whatever the approach proposed, however, before practical solutions are applied in the field, the sustainability of CH4 suppressing strategies is an important issue that has to be considered. The evaluation of different strategies, in terms of total GHG emissions for a given production system, is discussed.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Building and Construction

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3b376dda17b676ef867bac0ad8f22174f400cc80

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Agronomy and Crop Science

In Building and Construction

E. Charmley

Citations in the corpus

Effect of fibre- and starch-rich finishing diets on methanogenic Archaea diversity and activity in t (2011, background): “In their review, Martin et al. (2010) reported a decrease in CH4 production of 4.8% with each supplement of 10 g linseed lipids/kg DM added to the ration, and suggested that effect of lipids on methanogenesis may depend on diet.”
Breeding perennial grasses for forage usage: An experimental assessment of trait changes in diploid (2011, background): “Increasing the part of WSC in herbage digestible energy has furthermore been recognised asmeans to reduce enteric methane eructation by ruminants (Martin et al., 2010; Shibata and Terada, 2010) and consequently livestock GHG emissions.”
Comparison of methane production between C3 and C4 grasses and legumes (2011, background): “These values can be compared with those of Margan et al. (1998) who found that sheep fed C4 grasses produced 23% more CH4 (MJ/MJ intake) than sheep consuming a C3 grass, but only two C4 grasses were studied.”
Potential of phytofactors to mitigate rumen ammonia and methane production. (2010, background): “reduction of both the number and the activity of methanogens (Martin et al., 2010).”
Prediction of enteric methane production, yield and intensity of beef cattle using an intercontinental database (2019, background): “603 Furthermore, it was suggested that a critical dietary content of starch is required to decrease CH4 604 production (Martin et al., 2010; Van Gastelen et al., 2015), possibly more than approximately 20% 605 of DM, and that slight differences in intakes of starch, and other major carbohydrates (e.”
Special topics--Mitigation of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from animal operations: I. A review of enteric methane mitigation options. (2013, neutral): “…2007b, 2009; Eckard et al., D ow nloaded from https://academ ic.oup.com /jas/article-abstract/91/11/5045/4731308 by guest on 15 M arch 2020 2010; Martin et al., 2010; Cottle et al., 2011; Goel and Makkar, 2012; for a full list see Hristov et al., 2013b) and data from these reports have been…”
Livestock production in a changing climate: adaptation and mitigation research in Australia (2012, positive): “For reducing enteric methane, adding oil supplements to ruminant cattle diets (particularly dairy cattle) is supported by several recent reviews (Eckard et al. 2010; Martin et al. 2010; Grainger and Beauchemin 2011; Moate et al. 2011).”
Effects of type of ration and allocation methods on the environmental impacts of beef-production systems (2012, methodology): “…the effect of diets supplemented with lipids rich in omega-3 FAs on ruminants' enteric methane production, a 4.8% reduction factor of enteric methane production (g CH4/kg DMI) per percentage unit of added lipids was applied, based on results from a quantitative analysis (Martin et al., 2010).”
Invited review: Enteric methane in dairy cattle production: quantifying the opportunities and impact of reducing emissions. (2014, background): “High-starch, cereal grain-based diets stimulate the growth and metabolic activity of propionate-producing microbes (Ominski and Wittenberg, 2005; Martin et al., 2010).”