The ability to respire nitrate when oxygen is limited has been described in taxonomically diverse microorganisms including members of the alpha-, beta-, gamma- and epsilon-proteobacteria, high and low GC Gram-positive bacteria and even Archaea. Respiratory nitrate reduction is the first step of the denitrification pathway, which is important since it is the main biological process responsible f...

The nitrogen cycle describes the processes through which nitrogen is converted between its various chemical forms. These transformations involve both biological and abiotic redox processes. The principal processes involved in the nitrogen cycle are nitrogen fixation, nitrification, nitrate assimilation, respiratory reduction of nitrate to ammonia, anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox) and denit...

Cyanobacteria, blue-green algae, are the most abundant autotrophs in aquatic environments and form the base of all aquatic food chains by fixing carbon and nitrogen into cellular biomass. The single most important nutrient for photosynthesis and growth is nitrate, which is severely limiting in many aquatic environments particularly the open ocean. It is therefore not surprising that NrtA, the s...

Management of the nitrogen cycle has been identified as one of fourteen grand challenges for engineering and is an especially important issue for agricultural watersheds of the Upper Midwest. In large river systems, it has become increasingly important to understand the interactions between abiotic and biotic processes that influence nitrogen cycling. Native freshwater mussels are one of the mo...

Fertilised cropland is a potential non-point source of nitrogen contributing to the nutrient enrichment of surface water ecosystems. Nitrogen is present in drainage outflow primarily because of the addition of fertilisers. The purpose of this study is to model the nitrate leaching to surface waters using a quasi twodimensional mechanistic flow model (DRAINMOD) in combination with a GIS. The GIS...

in the present study, the root vigor and kinetic characteristics of nitrogen absorption in potato cultivars was investigated through sand cultivation and pot tests with nutrient solution. four cultivars of potatoes, namely, feiwuruita, yunshu301, liangshu97, and chuanyu56 were grown in nutrient solution matrix cultures. the result showed that: (1) nitrogen uptake rates differed significantly am...

Cytokinin activity in plants is closely related to nitrogen availability, and an Arabidopsis gene for adenosine phosphate-isopentenyltransferase (IPT), IPT3, is regulated by inorganic nitrogen sources in a nitrate-specific manner. In this study, we have identified another regulatory system of cytokinin de novo biosynthesis in response to nitrogen status. In rice, OsIPT4, OsIPT5, OsIPT7 and OsIP...

A basic tenet of nitrogen utilization in phytoplankton is that ammoniuln inhibits nitrate uptake. Consequently, it is generally believed that little or no nitrate uptake occurs at ammonium concentrations above ca 1 yM. A thorough review of field studies shows that the reduction of nitrate uptake rate in the presence of ammonium is rarely so severe, and that it is a highly variable phenomenon. T...

The principal forms of amino nitrogen transported in xylem were studied in nodulated and non-nodulated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.). In symbiotic plants, asparagine and the nonprotein amino acid, 4-methyleneglutamine, were identified as the major components of xylem exudate collected from root systems decapitated below the lowest nodule or above the nodulated zone. Sap bleeding from detached no...

At the European scale, nitrate concentration is the most important parameter that determines groundwater quality. Since in most cases nitrate input into the aquifer is a non-point source pollution problem, measures to reduce nitrate leaching have to be designed on the aquifer scale. In this context we have coupled the unsaturated, vertical soil water and nitrogen transport model SIMWASER/STOTRA...