[Answered] Microbial activities are foundational for the functioning of our planet and also can help us adapt to climate change. Elaborate.

Microbes include bacteria, algae, fungi, and protozoa. Microbes are everywhere in the biosphere, and their presence invariably affects the environment that they are growing in. Microbial processes have a central role in the global fluxes of the key biogenic greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) and are likely to respond rapidly to climate change.

The beneficial effects of microbes derive from their metabolic activities in the environment, their associations with plants and animals, and from their use in food production and biotechnological processes.  Some important functions are:

• Nitrogen fixation: Nitrogen fixation also results in replenishment of soil nitrogen removed by agricultural processes. Some bacteria fix nitrogen in symbiotic associations in plants and other are free-living in soil and aquatic habitats.
• Nutrient Cycling: Microorganisms such as planktonic algae and cyanobacteria account for nearly half of the primary production on the planet. These unicellular organisms are the “grass of the sea”, and they are the source of carbon from which marine life is derived.
• Carbon cycle: The global carbon cycle is mainly dependent on microbial communities that fix atmospheric carbon, promote plant growth, and degrade or transform organic material in the environment.
• Production of Oxygen: At least 50 percent of the oxygen on earth is produced by photosynthetic microorganisms (algae and cyanobacteria).
• Symbiosis with Animals and Plants: Microbes invariably enter into beneficial, sometimes essential, associations with all higher forms of organisms, including insects, invertebrates, fish, animals and plants.
• Give Plant Roots Access to Nutrients in the Soil: As plant roots scavenge the soil, they create a zone of nutrient depletion around themselves. To have access to new sources of nutrients, a plant forms an association with a fungus which provides an even longer and more efficient absorptive structure. Most vascular plants can form such associations.

Role of Microbial activities in climate change

• Microbes have prominent roles related to climate change. They produce and consume the three dominant gases that are responsible for 98% of the increased warming: carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O).
• There are prospects of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through managing terrestrial microbial processes.
• Furthermore, microbial communities if managed with biogeochemical cycles, they can act as a good mechanism to solve climate change.

The role of microbes in climate change cannot be ignored. They play an important role as both users and producers of greenhouse gases.