Ammonia-oxidizing Archaea Populations Research Articles

Nitrous oxide emissions from grazed grassland as affected by a nitrification inhibitor, dicyandiamide, and relationships with ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea

Purpose Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas and, in grazed grassland systems where animals graze outdoor pastures, most of the N2O is emitted from animal urine nitrogen (N) deposited during grazing. Recently, ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) were found to be present in large numbers in soils as well in the ocean, suggesting a potentially important role for AOA, in addition to ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), in the nitrogen cycle. The relationship between N2O emissions and AOB and AOA populations is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the quantitative relationship between N2O emissions and AOB and AOA populations in nitrogen-rich grassland soils.

Evidence that Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea are More Abundant than Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria in Semiarid Soils of Northern Arizona, USA

Autotrophic ammonia-oxidizing communities, which are responsible for the rate-limiting step of nitrification in most soils, have not been studied extensively in semiarid ecosystems. Abundances of soil archaeal and bacterial amoA were measured with real-time polymerase chain reaction along an elevation gradient in northern Arizona. Archaeal amoA was the predominant form of amoA at all sites; however, ratios of archaeal to bacterial amoA ranged from 17 to more than 1,600. Although size of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria populations was correlated with precipitation, temperature, percent sand, and soil C/N, there were no significant relationships between ammonia-oxidizing archaea populations and any of the environmental parameters evaluated in this study. Our results suggest that in these soils, archaea may be the primary ammonia oxidizers, and that ammonia-oxidizing archaea and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria occupy different niches.