Effects of oxygen, mannitol and ammonium concentrations on nitrogenase [C2H2] activity in a marine skeletal carbonate sand

Autor: D. G. Patriquin, R. Knowles
Rok vydání: 1975
Předmět:
Zdroj: Marine Biology. 32:49-62
ISSN: 1432-1793
0025-3162
DOI: 10.1007/bf00395159
Popis: Following a lag of 3 to 18 h, acetylene reduction in mannitol-amended sand systems proceeded at approximately constant and high rates for periods up to 4 days. Carbon dioxide production and O2 consumption were low in these systems in comparison to similar systems additionally amended with ammonium, indicating N-limitation of growth in the former. Thus, long-term acetylene assays of mannitol-amended sand and suspensions from the sand incubated at various partial pressures of oxygen could be used to characterize the O2-sensitivity of the N2-fixing bacterial population as a whole, in batch-type systems with a minimal degree of enrichment or change in pO2 during the course of the assays. Results of various studies suggested that aerobic or microaerophilic N2-fixing bacteria were absent or scarce in the sand, and that nitrogenase activity occurring in aerobically incubated systems occurred in anaerobic microenvironments. Hydrogen stimulated acetylene-reducing activity, but the time course differed from that of mannitol-supported activity, and proceeded with shorter lags in systems incubated at 0.2 and 0.05 atm O2 than in systems incubated anaerobically. Efficiency of N2 fixation [C2H2] increased with decreasing initial mannitol concentration. For sand washed with seawater to remove native combined inorganic nitrogen, and amended with 0.015% mannitol, 374 μmoles added NH4-N/kg wet sand caused almost complete repression of nitrogenase activity, while concentrations as low as 12 μmoles added NH4-N/kg wet sand appeared to cause at least partial repression of nitrogenase activity. Some implications of these results for the existence of anaerobic microenvironments in the cavities of skeletal carbonates, and for N2-fixation in the seagrass rhizosphere are discussed.
Databáze: OpenAIRE