Denitrification as the dominant nitrogen loss process in the Arabian Sea

B. B. Ward (), A. H. Devol, J. J. Rich, B. X. Chang, S. E. Bulow, Hema Naik, Anil Pratihary and A. Jayakumar
Additional contact information
B. B. Ward: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
A. H. Devol: University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
J. J. Rich: Center for Environmental Studies, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA
B. X. Chang: University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
S. E. Bulow: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
Hema Naik: National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa 403004, India
Anil Pratihary: National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa 403004, India
A. Jayakumar: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

Nature, 2009, vol. 461, issue 7260, 78-81

Abstract: Nitrogen lost at sea Fixed nitrogen availability is the factor limiting primary production in more than half of the world's oceans. Recent reports have shown that anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation), rather than conventional denitrification producing dinitrogen gas (N2), is responsible for all or most of the fixed nitrogen loss in oxygen limited regions of the ocean. Ward et al. demonstrate that denitrification, rather than anammox, dominates the fixed nitrogen loss in the Arabian Sea. In this region denitrifying bacteria are more abundant than anammox bacteria, even when anammox rates are significant. This work addresses a major uncertainty in our understanding of the global nitrogen cycle and the fixed nitrogen inventory, confirming that denitrification is a major process in the overall marine nitrogen cycle.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08276 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:461:y:2009:i:7260:d:10.1038_nature08276

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature08276

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 ().