Examining the impact of acetylene on N-fixation and the active sediment microbial community
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Here we examined the impact of a commonly employed method used to measure nitrogen fixation, the acetylene reduction assay (ARA), on a marine sediment community. Historically, the ARA technique has been broadly employed for its ease of use, in spite of numerous known artifacts. To gauge the severity of these effects in a natural environment, we employed high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing to detect differences in acetylene-treated sediments vs. non-treated control sediments after a 7 h incubation. Within this short time period, significant differences were seen across all activity of microbes identified in the sediment, implying that the changes induced by acetylene occur quickly. The results have important implications for our understanding of marine nitrogen budgets. Moreover, because the ARA technique has been widely used in terrestrial and freshwater habitats, these results may be applicable to other ecosystems.
Source: Frontiers in Microbiology
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
Awards: Collaborative Research: Using Biogeochemical and Genetic Tools to Unravel the Environmental Controls of Nitrogen Fixation and Denitrification in Heterotrophic Marine Sediments, Biogeochemical implications of marine phage: Roseophage as a relevant and tractable model, Collaborative Research: Seasonal and decadal changes in temperature drive Prochlorococcus ecotype distribution patterns
OpenAlex ID: W1605609003