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Oceanography

A marine nitrogen cycle fix?

Nature volume 445, pages 159–160 (2007)Cite this article

Some of our suppositions about the marine nitrogen cycle may be wrong. An innovative analysis of nutrients at the ocean's surface reveals a feedback mechanism that might hold the whole cycle in balance.

The flow of nitrogen compounds between the oceans and the atmosphere is central to life, as nitrogen is a fundamental component of biomass and is essential for many biological processes. Although we have learned much about the nitrogen cycle of the oceans, two burning questions remain unanswered: is the marine nitrogen budget currently in balance, and are the processes that add and remove nitrogen to and from the seas closely linked? On page 163 of this issue, Deutsch et al.1 provide evidence that the primary process responsible for putting nitrogen compounds into the sea — biological nitrogen fixation — is intimately associated, both geographically and temporally, with marine nitrogen removal. Furthermore, their work implies that the ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus in sea water may be the central factor that regulates nitrogen fixation.

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Figure 1: Coupling between marine nitrogen fixation and denitrification zones.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences and at the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 90089, California, USA

    Douglas G. Capone & Angela N. Knapp

  2. sabbatical at the Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche, France

    Douglas G. Capone & Angela N. Knapp

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  1. Douglas G. Capone
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  2. Angela N. Knapp
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Capone, D., Knapp, A. A marine nitrogen cycle fix?. Nature 445, 159–160 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/445159a

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