Access
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
News and Views
Nature 452, 162-163 (13 March 2008) | doi:10.1038/452162a; Published online 12 March 2008
Open Innovation Challenges
-
Direct Molecular Detection of Proteins and Nucleic Acids
This Challenge is looking for novel approaches to protein and nucleic acid detection. This is an Id...
-
Single-cell Analysis Platform
This Challenge is looking for novel approaches to analyzing changes at a single-cell level. This is...
- More Challenges
- Powered by:
nature jobs
Basic Science Medical Educators
- Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
- El Paso, Texas, USA
Tenure-Track Faculty Position Experimental Condensed Matter Physics Department of Physics McGill University
- McGill Univerisity
- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nitrogen cycle: Out of reach
Sybil Seitzinger1
Abstract
Denitrifying bacteria and hungry plants do sterling work in disposing of the nitrates that we pump into rivers and streams. But as the excess influx goes up and up, the efficiency of removal goes down and down.
Thanks to human contributions — from fossil-fuel combustion, the growth of agricultural crops, and above all the fertilizers that help to keep the more than six billion humans worldwide in food1 — nitrogen is entering Earth's soils at more than twice its natural rate. Much of the nitrogen from these sources goes on to enter streams, primarily as nitrates, and is transported downriver to coastal marine systems.
- Sybil Seitzinger is at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Rutgers/NOAA CMER Program, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8521, USA.
Email: sybil@marine.rutgers.edu
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS
These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.
NEWS AND VIEWS
Nitrogen cycle Natural organic tendencyNature News and Views (24 Jan 2002)
Global change It's not a gasNature News and Views (16 Nov 2000)
See all 4 matches for News And ViewsRESEARCH
Stream denitrification across biomes and its response to anthropogenic nitrate loadingNature Letters to Editor (13 Mar 2008)
Effect of stream channel size on the delivery of nitrogen to the Gulf of MexicoNature Letters to Editor (17 Feb 2000)
Reversal of the net dinitrogen gas flux in coastal marine sedimentsNature Letters to Editor (12 Jul 2007)
See all 6 matches for Research