Journal Article10.1038/NATURE02550
Iron and phosphorus co-limit nitrogen fixation in the eastern tropical North Atlantic
963
TL;DR: The results support the hypothesis that aeolian mineral dust deposition promotes nitrogen fixation in the eastern tropical North Atlantic and show that community primary productivity was nitrogen-limited, and that nitrogen fixation was co-limited by iron and phosphorus.
read more
Abstract: The role of iron in enhancing phytoplankton productivity in high nutrient, low chlorophyll oceanic regions was demonstrated first through iron-addition bioassay experiments1 and subsequently confirmed by large-scale iron fertilization experiments2. Iron supply has been hypothesized to limit nitrogen fixation and hence oceanic primary productivity on geological timescales3, providing an alternative to phosphorus as the ultimate limiting nutrient4. Oceanographic observations have been interpreted both to confirm and refute this hypothesis5, 6, but direct experimental evidence is lacking7. We conducted experiments to test this hypothesis during the Meteor 55 cruise to the tropical North Atlantic. This region is rich in diazotrophs8 and strongly impacted by Saharan dust input9. Here we show that community primary productivity was nitrogen-limited, and that nitrogen fixation was co-limited by iron and phosphorus. Saharan dust addition stimulated nitrogen fixation, presumably by supplying both iron and phosphorus10, 11. Our results support the hypothesis that aeolian mineral dust deposition promotes nitrogen fixation in the eastern tropical North Atlantic.
read more
Chat with Paper
AI Agents for this Paper
Find similar papers on Google Scholar, PubMed and Arxiv
Write a critical review of this paper
Analyze citations of this paper to find unaddressed research gaps
Citations
Biochemical mechanism of phosphorus limitation impairing nitrogen fixation in diazotrophic bacterium Klebsiella variicola W12
Lei Zhang,Eleonora Silvano,Branko Rihtman,Maria del Mar Aguilo-Ferretjans,Bing Han,W.X. Shi,Yi Chen +6 more
TL;DR: In this article , comparative proteomics and lipidomics analyses were conducted on a diazotrophic bacterium Klebsiella variicola W12 under P-deficient and P-replete conditions to gain insight into how P availability affects biological nitrogen fixation.
4
Diazotrophy as the main driver of planktonic production and biogeochemical C, N, P cycles in theWestern Tropical South Pacific Ocean: results from a 1DV biogeochemical-physical coupled model
TL;DR: In this article, the role of N 2 fixation on the C, N, P cycles was investigated in the Western Tropical South Pacific (WTSP) during the austral summer (March-April 2015).
Phosphomonoesterase and phosphodiesterase activities and their regulation during dinoflagellate blooms under different external phosphate conditions
TL;DR: In this article , the authors analyzed spatiotemporal variation in phosphomonoesterase (PMEase) activity (PMEA) and phosphodiesterases (PDEase), during two dinoflagellate blooms occurring in two coastal areas of Fujian Province, East China Sea, which differed in external phosphate conditions.
4
•Journal Article
Contribution and mechanism of microbe-driving nitrogen cycling processes in coastal ecosystems
TL;DR: In this paper, the rates, fluxes, contributions, and functional gene quantity of microbes in nitrogen fixation, ammonification,nitrification, denitrification, and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium, and anammox in coastal sediments.
4
Aerosol iron solubility: Observations from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
Clifton S. Buck
- 01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this paper, the elemental solubility of marine aerosols was measured using both seawater and ultrapure deionized water leaching methods under trace metal clean conditions.
4
References
•Journal Article
The biological control of chemical factors in the environment.
3.7K
Fluorometric analysis of chlorophyll a in the presence of chlorophyll b and pheopigments
TL;DR: A fluorometric method is described which provides sensitive measurements of extracted chlorophyll a free from the errors associated with conventional acidification techniques and provides adequate sensitivity for small sample sizes even in the most oligotrophic marine and freshwater environments.
2.6K
Iron deficiency limits phytoplankton growth in the north-east Pacific subarctic
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reported that the addition of nmol amounts of dissolved iron resulted in the nearly complete utilization of excess NO3, whereas in the controls, without added Fe, only 25% of the available NO3 was used.
2.1K
The relative influences of nitrogen and phosphorus on oceanic primary production
TL;DR: In this article, the competition between nitrogenfixing and other phytoplankton is inserted into a two-box global model of the oceanic nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, with surface waters more deficient in nitrate than phosphate in the steady state.
1.6K