Bioconversion of plant biomass into biofuels and bio-products produces large amounts of lignin. The aromatic biopolymers need to be degraded before being converted into value-added bio-products. Microbes can be environment-friendly and efficiently degrade lignin. Compared to fungi, bacteria have some advantages in lignin degradation, including broad tolerance to pH, temperature, and oxygen and the toolkit for genetic manipulation. Our previous study isolated a novel ligninolytic bacterial strain Erwinia billingiae QL-Z3. Under optimized conditions, its rate of lignin degradation was 25.24% at ...