nitrogen cycle

nitrogen cycle, the continuous flow of nitrogen through the biosphere by the processes of nitrogen fixation, ammonification (decay), nitrification, and denitrification. Nitrogen is vital to all living matter, both plant and animal; it is an essential constituent of amino acids, which form proteins of nucleic acids, and of many other organic materials.

Nitrogen Fixation

Although the earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, free gaseous nitrogen cannot be utilized by animals or by higher plants. They depend instead on nitrogen that is present in the soil. To enter living systems, nitrogen must be "fixed" (combined with oxygen or hydrogen) into compounds that plants can utilize, such as nitrates or ammonia. A certain amount of atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by lightning and by some cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). But the great bulk of nitrogen fixation is performed by soil bacteria of two kinds: those that live free in the soil and those that live enclosed in nodules in the roots of certain leguminous plants (e.g., alfalfa, peas, beans, clover, soybeans, and peanuts). Among the free-living forms are species of Clostridium, discovered c.1893 by Sergei Winogradsky, and Azotobacter, discovered c.1901 by M. W. Beijerinck. Both Clostridium and Azotobacter are generally present in agricultural soils, and both are saprophytes, i.e., they use the energy from decaying organic matter in the soil to fuel soil processes, including nitrogen fixation.

Bacteria that live in the roots of legumes are of the genus Rhizobium, first isolated c.1888 by Beijerinck. These rod-shaped bacteria enter the roots chiefly through the root hairs and then work their way to the inner root tissues. There they stimulate the growth of tumorlike nodules. Within the nodules the bacteria develop into forms called bacteroids, which live in a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with the green plant. The bacteroids take carbohydrates from the plant for energy to fix nitrogen and synthesize amino acids; the plants take the amino acids elaborated in the nodule to build plant tissue. Animals in turn consume the plants and convert plant protein into animal protein. Rhizobia can be found free-living in the soil, but they cannot fix nitrogen in the free state, nor can the legume root fix nitrogen without Rhizobia.

The exact biochemistry of nitrogen fixation within the nodule is not yet understood. It is estimated that more than 300 lbs of nitrogen per acre (340 kg per hectare) can be fixed by fields of alfalfa and other legumes. After a harvest legume roots left in the soil decay, returning organic nitrogen compounds to the soil for uptake by the next generation of plants. For this reason crop rotation in which a leguminous crop is rotated with a nonleguminous one is a common practice for maintaining soil fertility.

Other Aspects of the Nitrogen Cycle

Decomposing animal remains and animal wastes also return organic nitrogen to the soil as ammonia. Many different kinds of decay microorganisms participate in ammonification. The nitrifying bacteria of the genus Nitrosomonas oxidize the ammonia to nitrites, and Nitrobacter oxidize the nitrites to nitrates. The nitrates can then be taken up again by the green plant. The cycle of fixation-decay-nitrification-fixation can proceed indefinitely without any nitrogen being returned to a gaseous state. But still another group of microorganisms, the denitrifying bacteria, can reduce nitrates all the way to molecular nitrogen. Denitrification occurs only in the absence of oxygen and is not common in well-cultivated soils.

Effects of Artificial Fixation

Nitrogen fixation can also be accomplished artificially by various methods (see nitrogen). Humans annually fix vast amounts of nitrogen for industrial purposes and for use as fertilizer. Unfortunately, large-scale legume cultivation and artificial fixation may be upsetting the natural nitrogen cycle in the biosphere. There is some question whether natural denitrification can keep pace with fixation. For one thing, run-off of nitrate fertilizer can cause eutrophication of lakes and streams (see water pollution) and can foul drinking supplies. Another environmental problem is that inorganic fertilizers tend to depress legume fixation. As a consequence, root tissue remaining after harvest is poorer, and thus more fertilizer must be applied the following year.

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nitrogen cycle

Circulation of nitrogen in various forms throughout nature. Nitrogen is essential to life, but in the atmosphere it is in a form (the diatomic molecule N₂) unavailable to most organisms. Nitrogen fixation by microbes turns this nitrogen into nitrates and other compounds, which plants or algae assimilate into their tissues. Animals that eat plants in turn incorporate the compounds into their own tissues. Microbes decompose the remains and waste of all living things into ammonia (ammonification); the ammonia may leave the soil through vaporization into the air or leaching into water. Ammonia remaining in soil may be transformed by bacteria into nitrates (nitrification), which then can be reassimilated into living organisms, or into free nitrogen (denitrification), which reenters the atmosphere. Hence, once fixed from air, some nitrogen goes through the cycle repeatedly without returning to the gaseous state.

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nitrogen cycle

the natural circulation of nitrogen by living organisms. Nitrates in the soil, derived from dead organic matter by bacterial action (see nitrification, nitrogen fixation), are absorbed and synthesized into complex organic compounds by plants and reduced to nitrates again when the plants and the animals feeding on them die and decay

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nitrogen cycle [′nī·trə·jən ‚sī·kəl]

(nuclear physics)

carbon-nitrogen cycle

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Nitrogen cycle

The collective term given to the natural biological and chemical processes through which inorganic and organic nitrogen are interconverted. It includes the process of ammonification, ammonia assimilation, nitrification, nitrate assimilation, nitrogen fixation, and denitrification.

Diagram of the nitrogen cycle

Nitrogen exists in nature in several inorganic compounds, namely N₂, N₂O, NH₃, NO₂^-, and NO₃^-, and in several organic compounds such as amino acids, nucleotides, amino sugars, and vitamins. In the biosphere, biological and chemical reactions continually occur in which these nitrogenous compounds are converted from one form to another. These interconversions are of great importance in maintaining soil fertility and in preventing pollution of soil and water.

An outline showing the general interconversions of nitrogenous compounds in the soil-water pool is presented in the illustration. There are three primary reasons why organisms metabolize nitrogen compounds: (1) to use them as a nitrogen source, which means first converting them to NH₃, (2) to use certain nitrogen compounds as an energy source such as in the oxidation of NH₃ to NO₂^- and of NO₂^- to NO₃^-, and (3) to use certain nitrogen compounds (NO₃^-) as terminal electron acceptors under conditions where oxygen is either absent or in limited supply. The reactions and products involved in these three metabolically different pathways collectively make up the nitrogen cycle.

There are two ways in which organisms obtain ammonia. One is to use nitrogen already in a form easily metabolized to ammonia. Thus, nonviable plant, animal, and microbial residues in soil are enzymatically decomposed by a series of hydrolytic and other reactions to yield biosynthetic monomers such as amino acids and other small-molecular-weight nitrogenous compounds. These amino acids, purines, and pyrimidines are decomposed further to produce NH₃ which is then used by plants and bacteria for biosynthesis, or these biosynthetic monomers can be used directly by some microorganisms. The decomposition process is called ammonification.

The second way in which inorganic nitrogen is made available to biological agents is by nitrogen fixation (this term is maintained even though N₂ is now called dinitrogen), a process in which N₂ is reduced to NH₃. Since the vast majority of nitrogen is in the form of N₂, nitrogen fixation obviously is essential to life. The N₂-fixing process is confined to prokaryotes (certain photosynthetic and nonphotosynthetic bacteria). The major nitrogen fixers (called diazotrophs) are members of the genus Rhizobium, bacteria that are found in root nodules of leguminous plants, and of the cyanobacteria (originally called blue-green algae).