Archaeal nitrification in the ocean
- Author(s)
- Cornelia Wuchter, Ben Abbas, Marco J.L. Coolen, Lydie Herfort, Judith Van Bleijswijk, Peer Timmers, Marc Strous, Eva Teira, Gerhard J. Herndl, Jack J. Middelburg, Stefan Schouten, Jaap S.Sinninghe Damsté
- Abstract
Marine Crenarchaeota are the most abundant single group of prokaryotes in the ocean, but their physiology and role in marine biogeochemical cycles are unknown. Recently, a member of this clade was isolated from a sea aquarium and shown to be capable of nitrification, tentatively suggesting that Crenarchaeota may play a role in the oceanic nitrogen cycle. We enriched a crenarchaeote from North Sea water and showed that its abundance, and not that of bacteria, correlates with ammonium oxidation to nitrite. A time series study in the North Sea revealed that the abundance of the gene encoding for the archaeal ammonia monooxygenase alfa subunit (amoA) is correlated with a decline in ammonium concentrations and with the abundance of Crenarchaeota. Remarkably, the archaeal amoA abundance was 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than those of bacterial nitrifiers, which are commonly thought to mediate the oxidation of ammonium to nitrite in marine environments. Analysis of Atlantic waters of the upper 1,000 m, where most of the ammonium regeneration and oxidation takes place, showed that crenarchaeotal amoA copy numbers are also 1-3 orders of magnitude higher than those of bacterial amoA. Our data thus suggest a major role for Archaea in oceanic nitrification.
- Organisation(s)
- External organisation(s)
- Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Radboud University, Universidad de Vigo, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW)
- Journal
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)
- Volume
- 103
- Pages
- 12317-12322
- No. of pages
- 6
- ISSN
- 0027-8424
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0600756103
- Publication date
- 08-2006
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 106021 Marine biology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 14 - Life Below Water
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/archaeal-nitrification-in-the-ocean(088c1ea7-d8a2-4163-8e50-5d1b29505532).html