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Symbiosis

Anaerobic oxidation of methane: it takes two to tango

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 23, page 620 (2025)Cite this article

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As a young biology undergraduate, I attended a seminar by Lynn Margulis in Madrid. She spoke about how cooperation, rather than competition, has often been underestimated as an evolutionary force. At that time, I was just beginning my scientific career, and the prevailing message I heard was about how competitive one must be in academia — the infamous ‘publish or perish’ mantra.

In 2015, I began my PhD on alkane-oxidizing archaea in the laboratory of Antje Boetius at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology. I later completed a two-month internship and eventually a postdoc in the laboratory of Victoria Orphan at the California Institute of Technology. The close scientific relationship between both researchers and their laboratories inspired me through my entire career, as they decided to prioritize cooperation over rivalry at a time when, as young researchers, they had just contributed key discoveries to the field of anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM).

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References

Original article

  • Boetius, A. et al. A marine microbial consortium apparently mediating anaerobic oxidation of methane. Nature 407, 623–626 (2000)

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Related article

  • Orphan, V. J. et al. Methane-consuming archaea revealed by directly coupled isotopic and phylogenetic analysis. Science 293, 484–487 (2001)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

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  1. Department of Biogeochemistry and Microbial Ecology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Rafael Laso-Pérez

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  1. Rafael Laso-Pérez
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Correspondence to Rafael Laso-Pérez.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Laso-Pérez, R. Anaerobic oxidation of methane: it takes two to tango. Nat Rev Microbiol 23, 620 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-025-01218-2

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