Sulfate-reducing bacteria
Methanogens
CH₄ bubbles
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Tidal wetlands are prized "blue carbon" ecosystems because they bury organic carbon fast — but burial alone doesn't guarantee a climate benefit. What actually makes saline marshes and mangroves so effective is a microbial competition happening in the mud beneath them: sulfate-reducing bacteria, fed by sulfate carried in from the tide, out-compete methane-producing archaea for the same buried carbon. This simulator renders that competition as a live 3D sediment column — raise the salinity slider and watch sulfate reduction (orange) crowd out methanogenesis (purple), watch the CH₄ bubble stream thin out at the surface, and read the resulting CO₂-equivalent flux update in real time, grounded in the same competitive-inhibition kinetics measured in real marsh porewater studies.