Up to six trillion climate change-fighting microbes inhabit each square metre of tree bark, according to a new study by scientists at Australia’s Monash and Southern Cross universities.

The paper, published in Science, samples eight species of Australian tree and finds that not only is the bark teeming with life, but those microbes are “air eaters”, processing gases such as carbon monoxide and methane.

One finding stands out: Microbes on bark are especially good at sucking up hydrogen. The scientists calculate that each year, the “barkosphere” pulls up to 55 million tonnes of the gas from the atmosphere.

It’s the sheer amount of bark already in the world that makes this discovery so significant: strip all the trees in existence and their bark would cloak the whole planet. Now, there is a suggestion that the most efficient types of microbe could be scaled up by strategically planting their host trees and used in the race to try to rebalance our climate.

Luke Jeffrey, who co-led the work, says that when he looks at a tree now, he thinks of all those “tiny microbes… quietly helping filter and shape our atmosphere in more ways than we ever realised.”