How might methane-producing Methanosarcina microbes have contributed to Permian climate change?

Near the end of the Permian Period, a rapid population explosion of the archaea Methanosarcina likely contributed to significant climate change by releasing large quantities of methane into the atmosphere.12

This biological event was potentially triggered by massive volcanic activity, which released substantial amounts of nickel—a limiting nutrient for these microbes—into the environment. The resulting surge in atmospheric methane is hypothesized to have driven dramatic warming temperatures, ocean acidification, and major disruptions to the global carbon cycle. Geologic evidence indicates that these changes in carbon deposition were more extensive than what could be attributed to the Siberian Traps volcanic eruptions alone, suggesting that the metabolic processes of Methanosarcina played a critical role in the environmental shifts of the era.12