The significance of nitrification for oceanic new production

Andrew Yool (), Adrian P. Martin, Camila Fernández and Darren R. Clark
Additional contact information
Andrew Yool: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK
Adrian P. Martin: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK
Camila Fernández: Laboratoire d’Océanographie et de Biogéochimie, Centre d’Océanologie de Marseille, 163 avenue de Luminy, Case 901, F-13288 Marseille, France
Darren R. Clark: Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK

Nature, 2007, vol. 447, issue 7147, 999-1002

Abstract: Nitrogen does the rounds Some 16% of the original Amazon forest has been cleared for agriculture, but much of that land is no longer in use and is starting to regrow. Such 'secondary forests' are becoming increasingly important as tropical land-use change results in larger areas that have gone through agricultural phases. A new study of Amazon forest areas between 3 and 70 years into their recovery reveals nitrogen and phosphorus cycling processes consistent with large losses of nitrogen during land use change. Nitrogen availability is ephemeral, and readily disrupted by either natural or anthropogenic disturbance. Understanding how the nutrient cycling processes of secondary forest succession should contribute to the better management Amazonian ecosystems. Elsewhere in the nitrogen cycle, an analysis of virtually all extant data on open oceanic nitrification, in conjunction with a global ecosystem model, demonstrates that the generally accepted assumptions concerning its distribution are incorrect. Much of the nitrate taken up by the oceans is generated through recent nitrification near the surface and, at the global scale, nitrification accounts for about half of the nitrate consumed by growing phytoplankton. This means that many previous attempts to quantify marine carbon export may be significant overestimates.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05885 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:447:y:2007:i:7147:d:10.1038_nature05885

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature05885

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().