The nitrogen cycle is a biogeochemical process encompassing the biologically mediated and abiotic transformations of nitrogen between atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic reservoirs, enabling its assimilation into and release from living organisms. Key microbial processes include nitrogen fixation (conversion of N₂ to bioavailable ammonia), nitrification (oxidation of ammonia to nitrite and nitrate), assimilatory and dissimilatory nitrate reduction, ammonification (mineralization of organic nitrogen to ammonium), and denitrification and anammox, which return nitrogen to gaseous forms (N₂, N₂O). This cycle regulates nitrogen availability, constrains primary productivity, and is tightly coupled to carbon and oxygen cycles in ecosystems.
A research team from the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has clarified how deposited nitrogen is retained in forest ecosystems and how this process contributes to carbon sequestration ...
Environment
Feb 11, 2026
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19
A research team from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has introduced a soil amendment called humic acid-modified bentonite (HAMB). This amendment effectively enhances a soil's ability ...
Ecology
Feb 11, 2026
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12
When snow blankets the landscape, it may seem like life slows down. But beneath the surface, an entire world of activity is unfolding.
Earth Sciences
Feb 3, 2026
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34
Cats—unlike humans—are true carnivores: they must eat meat to survive because their bodies can't draw some essential nutrients from plants. By looking at tissues, researchers can get a good understanding of what foods animals ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 3, 2026
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135
Nitrogen pollution is a serious concern for the agriculture industry. Agricultural fertilizers contain nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plant health. However, these fertilizers also produce nitrogen runoff, which occurs ...
Ecology
Jan 26, 2026
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20
Human activities add large quantities of nitrogen to the environment, much of which gets washed into streams and rivers. These waterways transport some of that nitrogen to the oceans, but they also remove a significant portion ...
Ecology
Jan 19, 2026
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26
Guanidine is an organic compound primarily used as a denaturing reagent to disrupt the structures of proteins and nucleic acids. Together with partner institutions, scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 13, 2026
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54
Ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) are some of the most abundant microorganisms in the ocean and play a key role in nitrogen cycling. Yet, despite their ubiquity, scientists have long puzzled over how these microbes can flourish ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 11, 2025
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21
In a step toward better understanding how the ocean sequesters carbon, new findings from UC Santa Barbara researchers and collaborators challenge the current view of how carbon dioxide is "fixed" in the sunless ocean depths. ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 1, 2025
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28
Microorganisms in the Black Sea can produce large amounts of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). However, this gas never reaches the atmosphere because it is swiftly consumed by other microorganisms, which convert ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 4, 2025
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