The soil in a grassland, a forest, a wetland and a desert is quietly working, transforming trace gases in the atmosphere. New research led by Associate Professor Chris Greening from the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute has found that more than 70% of soil bacteria feed on the hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane in the air we breathe. It was previously believed that only 1% of soil bacteria were active in this way. The study examined soil that was in a “natural” state – in an uncultivated native grassland north of Melbourne, in the Wombat State Forest in central Victoria, in a desert north of Alice Springs, and in the Jock Marshall wetlands on the Monash University Clayton campus.