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Title: The environmental controls that govern the end product of bacterial nitrate respiration

Abstract

In the biogeochemical nitrogen cycle, microbial respiration processes compete for nitrate as an electron acceptor. Denitrification converts nitrate into nitrogenous gas and thus removes fixed nitrogen from the biosphere, whereas ammonification converts nitrate into ammonium, which is directly reusable by primary producers. In this paper, we combined multiple parallel long-term incubations of marine microbial nitrate-respiring communities with isotope labeling and metagenomics to unravel how specific environmental conditions select for either process. Microbial generation time, supply of nitrite relative to nitrate, and the carbon/nitrogen ratio were identified as key environmental controls that determine whether nitrite will be reduced to nitrogenous gas or ammonium. Finally, our results define the microbial ecophysiology of a biogeochemical feedback loop that is key to global change, eutrophication, and wastewater treatment.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [1];  [3];  [5];  [6]
  1. Max Planck Inst. for Marine Microbiology, Bremen (Germany)
  2. Max Planck Inst. for Marine Microbiology, Bremen (Germany); Univ. of Bielefeld (Germany). Inst. for Genome Research and Systems Biology. Center for Biotechnology
  3. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States). UT-ORNL Graduate School of Genome Science and Technology; Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Chemical Science Division
  4. Univ. of North Carolina, Charlotte, NC (United States). Dept. of Biological Sciences; Xiamen Univ. (China). State Key Lab. of Marine Environmental Science
  5. Max Planck Inst. for Marine Microbiology, Bremen (Germany); NIOZ Royal Netherlands Inst. for Sea Research, Yerseke (Netherlands)
  6. Max Planck Inst. for Marine Microbiology, Bremen (Germany); Univ. of Bielefeld (Germany). Inst. for Genome Research and Systems Biology. Center for Biotechnology; Univ. of Calgary, AB (Canada). Dept. of Geoscience
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
Contributing Org.:
Max Planck Inst. for Marine Microbiology, Bremen (Germany); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
OSTI Identifier:
1286720
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Science
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 345; Journal Issue: 6197; Journal ID: ISSN 0036-8075
Publisher:
AAAS
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Citation Formats

Kraft, Beate, Tegetmeyer, Halina E., Sharma, Ritin, Klotz, Martin G., Ferdelman, Timothy G., Hettich, Robert L., Geelhoed, Jeanine S., and Strous, Marc. The environmental controls that govern the end product of bacterial nitrate respiration. United States: N. p., 2014. Web. doi:10.1126/science.1254070.
Kraft, Beate, Tegetmeyer, Halina E., Sharma, Ritin, Klotz, Martin G., Ferdelman, Timothy G., Hettich, Robert L., Geelhoed, Jeanine S., & Strous, Marc. The environmental controls that govern the end product of bacterial nitrate respiration. United States. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1254070
Kraft, Beate, Tegetmeyer, Halina E., Sharma, Ritin, Klotz, Martin G., Ferdelman, Timothy G., Hettich, Robert L., Geelhoed, Jeanine S., and Strous, Marc. Fri . "The environmental controls that govern the end product of bacterial nitrate respiration". United States. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1254070. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1286720.
@article{osti_1286720,
title = {The environmental controls that govern the end product of bacterial nitrate respiration},
author = {Kraft, Beate and Tegetmeyer, Halina E. and Sharma, Ritin and Klotz, Martin G. and Ferdelman, Timothy G. and Hettich, Robert L. and Geelhoed, Jeanine S. and Strous, Marc},
abstractNote = {In the biogeochemical nitrogen cycle, microbial respiration processes compete for nitrate as an electron acceptor. Denitrification converts nitrate into nitrogenous gas and thus removes fixed nitrogen from the biosphere, whereas ammonification converts nitrate into ammonium, which is directly reusable by primary producers. In this paper, we combined multiple parallel long-term incubations of marine microbial nitrate-respiring communities with isotope labeling and metagenomics to unravel how specific environmental conditions select for either process. Microbial generation time, supply of nitrite relative to nitrate, and the carbon/nitrogen ratio were identified as key environmental controls that determine whether nitrite will be reduced to nitrogenous gas or ammonium. Finally, our results define the microbial ecophysiology of a biogeochemical feedback loop that is key to global change, eutrophication, and wastewater treatment.},
doi = {10.1126/science.1254070},
journal = {Science},
number = 6197,
volume = 345,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Aug 08 00:00:00 EDT 2014},
month = {Fri Aug 08 00:00:00 EDT 2014}
}

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