Publication Date:
2014-04-26
Description:
Biologically available nitrogen limits photosynthesis in much of the world ocean. Organic matter (OM) stoichiometry had been thought to control the balance between the two major nitrogen removal pathways-denitrification and anammox-but the expected proportion of 30% anammox derived from mean oceanic OM is rarely observed in the environment. With incubations designed to directly test the effects of stoichiometry, however, we showed that the ratio of anammox to denitrification depends on the stoichiometry of OM supply, as predicted. Furthermore, observed rates of nitrogen loss increase with the magnitude of OM supply. The variable ratios between denitrification and anammox previously observed in the ocean are thus attributable to localized variations in OM quality and quantity and do not necessitate a revision to the global nitrogen cycle.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Babbin, Andrew R -- Keil, Richard G -- Devol, Allan H -- Ward, Bess B -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Apr 25;344(6182):406-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1248364. Epub 2014 Apr 10.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Guyot Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24763588" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Ammonium Compounds/analysis/metabolism
;
Anaerobiosis
;
Bacteria/metabolism
;
Denitrification
;
Nitrites/analysis/metabolism
;
Nitrogen/*analysis/metabolism
;
Nitrogen Cycle
;
Oceans and Seas
;
Oxidation-Reduction
;
Oxygen/*analysis/metabolism
;
*Seawater/chemistry/microbiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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