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Nitrogen cycle

Oceans apart

Reactive nitrogen is lost from the oceans as dinitrogen — N2 — produced by microbial metabolism. The latest twist in an ongoing story is that different pathways dominate in two of the oceanic regions concerned.

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Figure 1: Principal features of the marine nitrogen cycle.
Figure 2: Two oceans, two nitrogen cycles.

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Voss, M., Montoya, J. Oceans apart. Nature 461, 49–50 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/461049a

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