Journal article
Autotrophic ammonia oxidation by soil thaumarchaea
LM Zhang, PR Offre, JZ He, DT Verhamme, GW Nicol, JI Prosser
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | Published : 2010
Abstract
Nitrification plays a central role in the global nitrogen cycle and is responsible for significant losses of nitrogen fertilizer, atmospheric pollution by the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, and nitrate pollution of groundwaters. Ammonia oxidation, the first step in nitrification, was thought to be performed by autotrophic bacteria until the recent discovery of archaeal ammonia oxidizers. Autotrophic archaeal ammonia oxidizers have been cultivated from marine and thermal spring environments, but the relative importance of bacteria and archaea in soil nitrification is unclear and it is believed that soil archaeal ammonia oxidizers may use organic carbon, rather than growing autotrophically. In ..
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Awarded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Lawrence Maurice and the Scottish Agricultural College Craibstone Estate (Aberdeen, UK) for access to the Woodlands Field pH plots and the laboratories of Prof. David Stahl and Prof. Christa Schleper for cultures of N. maritimus and fosmid clone 54d9, respectively. This work was supported by a Royal Society of Edinburgh International Exchange grant (to J.I.P.); Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 30811130224 and 40871129 (to L.-M.Z. and J.-Z.H.); the K.C. Wong Education Foundation, Hong Kong (L.-M.Z. and J.-Z.H.); Advanced Fellowship NE/D010195/1 from the Natural Environment Research Council (to G.W.N.); Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship PIEF-GA-2008-220639 (to P.R.O.); and Grant BB/F022646/1 from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (to D.T.V.).