Archaea predominate among ammonia-oxidizing prokaryotes in soils

Autor(en)

Sven Leininger, Tim Urich, M Schloter, Lorenz Schwark, Ji Qi, Graeme W. Nicol, James I. Prosser, Stephan C. Schuster, Christa Schleper

Abstrakt

Ammonia oxidation is the first step in nitrification, a key process in the global nitrogen cycle that results in the formation of nitrate through microbial activity. The increase in nitrate availability in soils is important for plant nutrition, but it also has considerable impact on groundwater pollution owing to leaching. Here we show that archaeal ammonia oxidizers are more abundant in soils than their well-known bacterial counterparts. We investigated the abundance of the gene encoding a subunit of the key enzyme ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) in 12 pristine and agricultural soils of three climatic zones. amoA gene copies of Crenarchaeota (Archaea) were up to 3,000-fold more abundant than bacterial amoA genes. High amounts of crenarchaeota-specific lipids, including crenarchaeol, correlated with the abundance of archaeal amoA gene copies. Furthermore, reverse transcription quantitative PCR studies and complementary DNA analysis using novel cloning-independent pyrosequencing technology demonstrated the activity of the archaea in situ and supported the numerical dominance of archaeal over bacterial ammonia oxidizers. Our results indicate that crenarchaeota may be the most abundant ammonia-oxidizing organisms in soil ecosystems on Earth.

Organisation(en)

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Bergen (UiB), Helmholtz-Zentrum München - Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt, Universität zu Köln, Pennsylvania State University, University of Aberdeen

Journal

Nature

Band

442

Seiten

806-809

Anzahl der Seiten

4

ISSN

0028-0836

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04983

Publikationsdatum

08-2006

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

106022 Mikrobiologie

Schlagwörter

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/0ecc7674-e460-4729-96bc-2a38ac246587