A report on Nitrogen fixation and Nitrogen cycle

Schematic representation of the nitrogen cycle. Abiotic nitrogen fixation has been omitted.

Global cycling of reactive nitrogen including industrial fertilizer production, nitrogen fixed by natural ecosystems, nitrogen fixed by oceans, nitrogen fixed by agricultural crops, NOx emitted by biomass burning, NOx emitted from soil, nitrogen fixed by lightning, NH3 emitted by terrestrial ecosystems, deposition of nitrogen to terrestrial surfaces and oceans, NH3 emitted from oceans, ocean NO2 emissions from the atmosphere, denitrification in oceans, and reactive nitrogen burial in oceans.

Nodules are visible on this broad bean root

ANAMMOX is anaerobic ammonium oxidation, DNRA is dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium, and COMMAMOX is complete ammonium oxidation.

Equipment for a study of nitrogen fixation by alpha rays (Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory, 1926)

The main studied processes of the N cycle in different marine environments. Every coloured arrow represents a N transformation: N2 fixation (red), nitrification (light blue), nitrate reduction (violet), DNRA (magenta), denitrification (aquamarine), N-damo (green), and anammox (orange). Black curved arrows represent physical processes such as advection and diffusion.

Lightning heats the air around it breaking the bonds of starting the formation of nitrous acid.

Classical representation of nitrogen cycle

alt=Diagram of nitrogen cycle above and below ground. Atmospheric nitrogen goes to nitrogen-fixing bacteria in legumes and the soil, then ammonium, then nitrifying bacteria into nitrites then nitrates (which is also produced by lightning), then back to the atmosphere or assimilated by plants, then animals. Nitrogen in animals and plants become ammonium through decomposers (bacteria and fungi).|Flow of nitrogen through the ecosystem. Bacteria are a key element in the cycle, providing different forms of nitrogen compounds able to be assimilated by higher organisms

Simple representation of the nitrogen cycle. Blue represent nitrogen storage, green is for processes moving nitrogen from one place to another, and red is for the bacteria involved

Estimated nitrogen surplus (the difference between inorganic and organic fertilizer application, atmospheric deposition, fixation and uptake by crops) for the year 2005 across Europe.

Important processes in the nitrogen cycle include fixation, ammonification, nitrification, and denitrification.

- Nitrogen cycle

As part of the nitrogen cycle, it is essential for agriculture and the manufacture of fertilizer.

- Nitrogen fixation

7 related topics with Alpha

Cyanobacteria

2 links

Cyanobacteria, also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of Gram-negative bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis.

Cyanobacteria are found almost everywhere. Sea spray containing marine microorganisms, including cyanobacteria, can be swept high into the atmosphere where they become aeroplankton, and can travel the globe before falling back to earth.

• Unicellular: (a) Synechocystis and (b) Synechococcus elongatus
• Non-heterocytous: (c) Arthrospira maxima,• False- or non-branching heterocytous: (f) Nostoc• True-branching heterocytous: (h) Stigonema

Outer and plasma membranes are in blue, thylakoid membranes in gold, glycogen granules in cyan, carboxysomes (C) in green, and a large dense polyphosphate granule (G) in pink

Environmental impact of cyanobacteria and other photosynthetic microorganisms in aquatic systems. Different classes of photosynthetic microorganisms are found in aquatic and marine environments where they form the base of healthy food webs and participate in symbioses with other organisms. However, shifting environmental conditions can result in community dysbiosis, where the growth of opportunistic species can lead to harmful blooms and toxin production with negative consequences to human health, livestock and fish stocks. Positive interactions are indicated by arrows; negative interactions are indicated by closed circles on the ecological model.

Diagnostic Drawing: Cyanobacteria associated with tufa: Microcoleus vaginatus

(1) Cyanobacteria enter the leaf tissue through the stomata and colonize the intercellular space, forming a cyanobacterial loop.
(2) On the root surface, cyanobacteria exhibit two types of colonization pattern; in the root hair, filaments of Anabaena and Nostoc species form loose colonies, and in the restricted zone on the root surface, specific Nostoc species form cyanobacterial colonies.
(3) Co-inoculation with 2,4-D and Nostoc spp. increases para-nodule formation and nitrogen fixation. A large number of Nostoc spp. isolates colonize the root endosphere and form para-nodules.

Live cyanobionts (cyanobacterial symbionts) belonging to Ornithocercus dinoflagellate host consortium
(a) O. magnificus with numerous cyanobionts present in the upper and lower girdle lists (black arrowheads) of the cingulum termed the symbiotic chamber.
(b) O. steinii with numerous cyanobionts inhabiting the symbiotic chamber.
(c) Enlargement of the area in (b) showing two cyanobionts that are being divided by binary transverse fission (white arrows).

Light microscope view of cyanobacteria from a microbial mat

Types of cell death according to the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (upper panel; and proposed for cyanobacteria (lower panel). Cells exposed to extreme injury die in an uncontrollable manner, reflecting the loss of structural integrity. This type of cell death is called "accidental cell death" (ACD). “Regulated cell death (RCD)” is encoded by a genetic pathway that can be modulated by genetic or pharmacologic interventions. Programmed cell death (PCD) is a type of RCD that occurs as a developmental program, and has not been addressed in cyanobacteria yet. RN, regulated necrosis.

Synechococcus uses a gliding technique to move at 25 μm/s. Scale bar is about 10 µm.

Based on data: nodes (1–10) and stars representing common ancestors from Sánchez-Baracaldo et al., 2015, timing of the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), the Lomagundi-Jatuli Excursion, and Gunflint formation. Green lines represent freshwater lineages and blue lines represent marine lineages are based on Bayesian inference of character evolution (stochastic character mapping analyses).

Tree of Life in Generelle Morphologie der Organismen (1866). Note the location of the genus
Nostoc with algae and not with bacteria (kingdom "Monera")

Cyanobacteria cultured in specific media: Cyanobacteria can be helpful in agriculture as they have the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in soil.

Stromatolites left behind by cyanobacteria are the oldest known fossils of life on Earth. This fossil is one billion years old.

Oncolitic limestone formed from successive layers of calcium carbonate precipitated by cyanobacteria

Oncolites from the Late Devonian Alamo bolide impact in Nevada

{{center|Cyanobacterial remains of an annulated tubular microfossil Oscillatoriopsis longa{{hsp}}<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/pala.12374 |title=First record of Cyanobacteria in Cambrian Orsten deposits of Sweden |year=2018 |last1=Castellani |first1=Christopher |last2=Maas |first2=Andreas |last3=Eriksson |first3=Mats E. |last4=Haug |first4=Joachim T. |last5=Haug |first5=Carolin |last6=Waloszek |first6=Dieter |journal=Palaeontology |volume=61 |issue=6 |pages=855–880 |s2cid=134049042}}</ref>

Cyanobacteria activity turns Coatepeque Caldera lake a turquoise color

Some species are nitrogen-fixing and live in a wide variety of moist soils and water, either freely or in a symbiotic relationship with plants or lichen-forming fungi (as in the lichen genus Peltigera).

Planktonic cyanobacteria are a fundamental component of marine food webs and are major contributors to global carbon and nitrogen fluxes.

A cluster of Escherichia coli bacteria magnified 10,000 times

Microorganism

2 links

Organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was the first to study microscopic organisms.

Lazzaro Spallanzani showed that boiling a broth stopped it from decaying.

Vardhmana Mahavira postulated the existence of microscopic creatures in the sixth century BC.

Louis Pasteur showed that Spallanzani's findings held even if air could enter through a filter that kept particles out.

Robert Koch showed that microorganisms caused disease.

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria magnified about 10,000x

Euglena mutabilis, a photosynthetic flagellate

A tetrad of Deinococcus radiodurans, a radioresistant extremophile bacterium

The photosynthetic cyanobacterium Hyella caespitosa (round shapes) with fungal hyphae (translucent threads) in the lichen Pyrenocollema halodytes

Wastewater treatment plants rely largely on microorganisms to oxidise organic matter.

The eukaryotic parasite Plasmodium falciparum (spiky blue shapes), a causative agent of malaria, in human blood

He was responsible for the first isolation and description of both nitrifying and nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

The nitrogen cycle in soils depends on the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen.

Archaea

2 links

Archaea (singular archaeon ) constitute a domain of single-celled organisms.

Archaea were found in volcanic hot springs. Pictured here is Grand Prismatic Spring of Yellowstone National Park.

The ARMAN are a group of archaea recently discovered in acid mine drainage.

Membrane structures. Top, an archaeal phospholipid: 1, isoprene chains; 2, ether linkages; 3, L-glycerol moiety; 4, phosphate group. Middle, a bacterial or eukaryotic phospholipid: 5, fatty acid chains; 6, ester linkages; 7, D-glycerol moiety; 8, phosphate group. Bottom: 9, lipid bilayer of bacteria and eukaryotes; 10, lipid monolayer of some archaea.

Bacteriorhodopsin from Halobacterium salinarum. The retinol cofactor and residues involved in proton transfer are shown as ball-and-stick models.

Sulfolobus infected with the DNA virus STSV1. Bar is 1 micrometer.

Archaea that grow in the hot water of the Morning Glory Hot Spring in Yellowstone National Park produce a bright colour

Methanogenic archaea form a symbiosis with termites.

Their morphological, metabolic, and geographical diversity permits them to play multiple ecological roles: carbon fixation; nitrogen cycling; organic compound turnover; and maintaining microbial symbiotic and syntrophic communities, for example.

This includes both reactions that remove nitrogen from ecosystems (such as nitrate-based respiration and denitrification) as well as processes that introduce nitrogen (such as nitrate assimilation and nitrogen fixation).

Nitrogen

1 links

Chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7.

The shapes of the five orbitals occupied in nitrogen. The two colours show the phase or sign of the wave function in each region. From left to right: 1s, 2s (cutaway to show internal structure), 2px, 2py, 2pz.

Table of nuclides (Segrè chart) from carbon to fluorine (including nitrogen). Orange indicates proton emission (nuclides outside the proton drip line); pink for positron emission (inverse beta decay); black for stable nuclides; blue for electron emission (beta decay); and violet for neutron emission (nuclides outside the neutron drip line). Proton number increases going up the vertical axis and neutron number going to the right on the horizontal axis.

Molecular orbital diagram of dinitrogen molecule, N2. There are five bonding orbitals and two antibonding orbitals (marked with an asterisk; orbitals involving the inner 1s electrons not shown), giving a total bond order of three.

Solid nitrogen on the plains of Sputnik Planitia on Pluto next to water ice mountains

Structure of [Ru(NH3)5(N2)]2+ (pentaamine(dinitrogen)ruthenium(II)), the first dinitrogen complex to be discovered

Mesomeric structures of borazine, (–BH–NH–)3

Standard reduction potentials for nitrogen-containing species. Top diagram shows potentials at pH 0; bottom diagram shows potentials at pH 14.

Nitrogen dioxide at −196 °C, 0 °C, 23 °C, 35 °C, and 50 °C. converts to colourless dinitrogen tetroxide at low temperatures, and reverts to at higher temperatures.

Fuming nitric acid contaminated with yellow nitrogen dioxide

Schematic representation of the flow of nitrogen compounds through a land environment

A container vehicle carrying liquid nitrogen.

The nitrogen cycle describes movement of the element from the air, into the biosphere and organic compounds, then back into the atmosphere.

Nitrogen fixation by industrial processes like the Frank–Caro process (1895–1899) and Haber–Bosch process (1908–1913) eased this shortage of nitrogen compounds, to the extent that half of global food production (see Applications) now relies on synthetic nitrogen fertilisers.

Haber process

1 links

A historical (1921) high-pressure steel reactor for production of ammonia via the Haber process is displayed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

First reactor at the Oppau plant in 1913

Modern ammonia reactor with heat exchanger modules: The cold gas mixture is preheated to reaction temperature in heat exchangers by the reaction heat and cools in turn the produced ammonia.

The Haber process, also called the Haber–Bosch process, is an artificial nitrogen fixation process and is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia today.

}} The Haber–Bosch process is one of the largest contributors to a buildup of reactive nitrogen in the biosphere, causing an anthropogenic disruption to the nitrogen cycle.

Azotobacter

0 links

Genus of usually motile, oval or spherical bacteria that form thick-walled cysts and may produce large quantities of capsular slime.

Martinus Beijerinck (1851–1931), discoverer of the genus Azotobacter

They are aerobic, free-living soil microbes that play an important role in the nitrogen cycle in nature, binding atmospheric nitrogen, which is inaccessible to plants, and releasing it in the form of ammonium ions into the soil (nitrogen fixation).