ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Nitrifier adaptation to low energy flux controls inventory of reduced nitrogen in the dark ocean.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 130 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Ammonia oxidizers offset acidification stress via adaptive substrate affinity in aquatic ecosystems.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Unique phylogenies and metabolic adaptations of novel lineage III and comammoxISME communications · 2026Article
- Close spatial and metabolic association between heterotrophic and ammonia-oxidizing marine Nitrososphaerota.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Genomics and physiological characterizations of an acidotolerant nitrite-oxidizingApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Microbial responses to ocean deoxygenation: Revisiting the impacts on organic carbon cycling.iScience · 2025Review
- Spatiotemporal and temperature-dependent disconnect between ammonia oxidation and dark DIC fixation in deep oligotrophic Lake Constance.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Minor contribution of ammonia oxidizers to inorganic carbon fixation in the ocean.Nature geoscience · 2025Article
- Ecological dynamics explain modular denitrification in the ocean.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Metaproteomic analysis decodes trophic interactions of microorganisms in the dark ocean.Nature communications · 2024Article
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- The microbial carbon pump and climate change.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2024Review
- An abundant bacterial phylum with nitrite-oxidizing potential in oligotrophic marine sediments.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Prokaryote Distribution Patterns along a Dissolved Oxygen Gradient Section in the Tropical Pacific Ocean.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Reduced nitrite accumulation at the primary nitrite maximum in the cyclonic eddies in the western North Pacific subtropical gyre.Science advances · 2023Article
- A ubiquitous gammaproteobacterial clade dominates expression of sulfur oxidation genes across the mesopelagic ocean.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- Increasing deep-water overflow from the Pacific into the South China Sea revealed by mooring observations.Nature communications · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
22 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Ammonia oxidation to nitrite and its subsequent oxidation to nitrate provides energy to the two populations of nitrifying chemoautotrophs in the energy-starved dark ocean, driving a coupling between reduced inorganic nitrogen (N) pools and production of new organic carbon (C) in the dark ocean. However, the relationship between the flux of new C production and the fluxes of N of the two steps of oxidation remains unclear. Here, we show that, despite orders-of-magnitude difference in cell abundances between ammonia oxidizers and nitrite oxidizers, the two populations sustain similar bulk N-oxidation rates throughout the deep waters with similarly high affinities for ammonia and nitrite under increasing substrate limitation, thus maintaining overall homeostasis in the oceanic nitrification pathway. Our observations confirm the theoretical predictions of a redox-informed ecosystem model. Using balances from this model, we suggest that consistently low ammonia and nitrite concentrations are maintained when the two populations have similarly high substrate affinities and their loss rates are proportional to their maximum growth rates. The stoichiometric relations between the fluxes of C and N indicate a threefold to fourfold higher C-fixation efficiency per mole of N oxidized by ammonia oxidizers compared to nitrite oxidizers due to nearly identical apparent energetic requirements for C fixation of the two populations. We estimate that the rate of chemoautotrophic C fixation amounts to ∼1 × 10
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