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Warming stimulates sediment denitrification at the expense of anaerobic ammonium oxidation

Nature Climate Change volume 10, pages 349–355 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Temperature is one of the fundamental environmental variables governing microbially mediated denitrification and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) in sediments. The GHG nitrous oxide (N2O) is produced during denitrification, but not by anammox, and knowledge of how these pathways respond to global warming remains limited. Here, we show that warming directly stimulates denitrification-derived N2O production and that the warming response for N2O production is slightly higher than the response for denitrification in subtropical sediments. Moreover, denitrification had a higher optimal temperature than anammox. Integrating our data into a global compilation indicates that denitrifiers are more thermotolerant, whereas anammox bacteria are relatively psychrotolerant. Crucially, recent summer temperatures in low-latitude sediments have exceeded the optimal temperature of anammox, implying that further warming may suppress anammox and direct more of the nitrogen flow towards denitrification and associated N2O production, leading to a positive climate feedback at low latitudes.

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Fig. 1: Temperature responses of sedimentary denitrification, anammox and related N2O production potential rates.
Fig. 2: Temperature responses of the relative contribution of anammox to total gas (N2 + N2O) production (ra%).
Fig. 3: Variation of Q10 values for denitrification-related gas production and Nr-removal processes from both seasons.
Fig. 4: Compiled literature values for denitrification and anammox in subtropical, temperate and polar sediments globally.
Fig. 5: The projected increase of sedimentary denitrification and associated N2O production in coastal environments.

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The data that support the findings of this study can be requested from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC no. 91851209, 41721005, 41561164019 and 41806092). This is State Key Laboratory of Marine Environment Science contribution no. melpublication2019349. J.J.M. was supported by the Netherlands Earth System Science Center. Special acknowledgment to intensive field and laboratory work by J. C. Xu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

    Ehui Tan, Wenbin Zou, Zhenzhen Zheng, Moge Du, Li Tian & Shuh-ji Kao

  2. Institute of Marine Science and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Shantou University, Shantou, China

    Xiuli Yan

  3. School of Urban and Environmental Science, Huaiyin Normal University, Huaian, China

    Ting-Chang Hsu

  4. Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Jack J. Middelburg

  5. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Thomas W. Trull

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Contributions

E.T. and S.-j.K. conceived the study and designed the experiment; E.T., W.Z., M.D. and L.T. performed the experiment and measured the samples; E.T., M.D., T.-C.H., L.T. and S.-j.K. analysed the data; E.T., Z.Z., X.Y., T.-C.H., J.J.M., T.W.T. and S.-j.K. contributed to the discussion of the results and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shuh-ji Kao.

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Tan, E., Zou, W., Zheng, Z. et al. Warming stimulates sediment denitrification at the expense of anaerobic ammonium oxidation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 349–355 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0723-2

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