Date: November 5, 2015
Source: University of Zurich
Animals
produce methane during the digestion process -- some more than others.
Currently, around 20 percent of the world's methane emissions stem from
ruminants. If this gas is released into the atmosphere, it aggravates the
greenhouse effect and aids global warming. Previous studies revealed that
ruminants, which include cows and sheep, release more methane into the
environment than kangaroos, for instance -- even though the latter also possess
a foregut, where bacteria break down the plant fibers and produce methane (much
like in a cow's rumen). Exactly why kangaroos produce less methane, however,
remained a mystery. The belief was that a different intestinal flora
composition to a cow's was responsible.
Researchers
from the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the University of Wollongong in
Australia have now studied the previous assumptions from a different angle. The
team measured how much methane kangaroos emit per food intake. "If you
consider the absolute volume of methane per body size, kangaroos produce about
as much as horses or ostriches -- i.e. significantly less than cows,"
explains Marcus Clauss from the University of Zurich. "If the gas
production is correlated with the amount of food ingested, however, the amount
of methane is higher and therefore closer to the ruminants again. In other
words, the digestion process itself in kangaroos is not all that different to a cow's."
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