ArticleGeobiology2021
Radiation of nitrogen-metabolizing enzymes across the tree of life tracks environmental transitions in Earth history.
Article in Geobiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- Salinity-driven microbial adaptation of hydrocarbon-degrading communities in coastal sediments.mSphere · 2026Article
- Evolutionary trajectory of microbial sulfur oxidation pathways recapitulates Earth's oxygenation history.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Abiotic sources of fixed nitrogen sustained early ecosystems for several hundred million years after the origin of life.Science advances · 2026Article
- Biological use of molybdenum and tungsten stems back to 3.4 billion years ago.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Photoholes within cyanobacterial mats can account for the origin of anammox bacteria and ancient nitrogen loss.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Revisiting Eck and Dayhoff's Building Block Model of Ferredoxin Evolution on Dayhoff's 100th Birthday.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Article
- Resurrected nitrogenases recapitulate canonical N-isotope biosignatures over two billion years.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Adaptation of Fe-S Cluster Assembly to Rising OResearch square · 2026Article
- Ecological constraints and evolutionary trade-offs shape nitrogen fixation across habitats.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Planetary sources of bio-essential nutrients on a prebiotic world.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- The emergence of metabolisms through Earth history and implications for biospheric evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- DPANN Archaea and CPR Bacteria: insights into early cellular evolution?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Exploring productivity hotspots in the Precambrian biosphere.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Persistence selection between simulated biogeochemical cycle variants for their distinct effects on the Earth system.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Exploring the influence of atmospheric COApplied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Co-evolution of early Earth environments and microbial life.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2024Review
- Oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere induced metabolic and ecologic transformations recorded in the Lomagundi-Jatuli carbon isotopic excursion.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Dating Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria with Abundant Eukaryotic Fossils.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Timing the evolution of phosphorus-cycling enzymes through geological time using phylogenomics.Nature communications · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Nitrogen is an essential element to life and exerts a strong control on global biological productivity. The rise and spread of nitrogen-utilizing microbial metabolisms profoundly shaped the biosphere on the early Earth. Here, we reconciled gene and species trees to identify birth and horizontal gene transfer events for key nitrogen-cycling genes, dated with a time-calibrated tree of life, in order to examine the timing of the proliferation of these metabolisms across the tree of life. Our results provide new insights into the evolution of the early nitrogen cycle that expand on geochemical reconstructions. We observed widespread horizontal gene transfer of molybdenum-based nitrogenase back to the Archean, minor horizontal transfer of genes for nitrate reduction in the Archean, and an increase in the proliferation of genes metabolizing nitrite around the time of the Mesoproterozoic (~1.5 Ga). The latter coincides with recent geochemical evidence for a mid-Proterozoic rise in oxygen levels. Geochemical evidence of biological nitrate utilization in the Archean and early Proterozoic may reflect at least some contribution of dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) rather than pure denitrification to N
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.