Waimate District Council says it has “committed” to building a denitrification plant, but numbers crunched for other Canterbury councils suggest an expensive and complicated venture.

Microorganisms in marine oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) drive globally impactful biogeochemical processes. One such process is multistep denitrificati...

Microbial teamwork behind denitrification can collapse in polluted environments, threatening ecosystem balance and resilience.

This work conducts a global synthesis including 3240 observations from 199 published isotope pairing studies and finds that denitrification governs microbial nitrogen loss in the form of N2 (79.8±0.4....

Nitrogen is a key nutrient because it fuels the growth of plankton, which forms the basis of the marine food web. Two opposing processes determine the global nitrogen cycle: nitrogen fixation and denitrification.

Well-studied denitrifiers can execute all steps in the process but their abundance in natural communities is unclear. Here, the authors analyse metagenomics data to show that denitrification is commun...

Denitrifying microorganisms grow better in soils with more types of microplastics

In this study, the authors report and analyze four complete genomes of respiratory endosymbionts to show that they carry the potential to breathe both oxygen and nitrogen oxides providing energy to th...

Tire wear particles (TWP) are emerging contaminants in the soil environment due to their widespread occurrence and potential threat to soil health. However, their impacts on soil biogeochemical processes remain unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of TWP at various doses and their leachate on soil respiration and denitrification using a robotized continuous-flow incubation system in upland soil. Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry and high-throughput sequencing were employed to elucidate the mechanisms underpinning the TWP effects. We show that TWP increased soil CO2, N2, and N2O emissions, which were attributed to the changes in content and composition of soil dissolved organic matter (DOM) induced by TWP and their leachate. Specifically, the labile DOM components (H/C ≥ 1.5 and transformation >10), which were crucial in shaping the denitrifying community, were significantly enriched by TWP exposure. Furthermore, the abundances of denitrification genes (nirK/S and nosZ-I) and the specific denitrifying genera Pseudomonas were increased following TWP exposure. Our findings provide new insights into impacts of TWP on carbon and nitrogen cycling in soil, highlighting that TWP exposure may exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions and fertilizer N loss, posing adverse effects on soil fertility in peri-urban areas and climate change mitigation.

Microorganisms in marine oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) drive globally impactful biogeochemical processes. One such process is multistep denitrificati...

Microplastics (MPs) are raising significant global concerns due to their environmental impacts. While most studies have focused on the effects of individual MP types, MPs in natural environments typic...

Contrary to previous assumptions, nitrogen burial – not denitrification – dominates nitrogen loss in fjords, accounting for up to 18% of oceanic nitrogen burial. Deoxygenation may yet alter the future...

Microbial cooperation in AOM-coupled denitrification inhibits N2O emissions and links carbon and nitrogen cycles.