Reading this, especially with the climate doom opening paragraph, I’m left with the idea that it will be used as a tool to limit modern farming practices by going after yield enhancing chemical fertilzers.
…it might even be feasible to use the knowledge in order to prevent nitrous oxide from being released into the atmosphere, for example, by additives in fertilizers that preserve the functioning of N2O-reductase…
From the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Nature: How the N2O Greenhouse Gas Is Decomposed
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a harmful climate gas. Its effect as a greenhouse gas is 300 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide destroys the ozone layer. In industrial agriculture, it is generated on excessively fertilized fields when microorganisms decompose nitrate fertilizers. Decomposition of nitrous oxide frequently is incomplete and strongly depends on environmental conditions. Researchers from Freiburg, Constance, and KIT have now identified the structure of the enzyme that decomposes nitrous oxide and the decomposition mechanism. Their results are published in the Nature journal (AOP; DOI:10.1038/nature10332).
The study demonstrated that the N2O-reductase enzyme possesses active centers made up of four copper atoms and two sulfur atoms. “Surprisingly, we found that microbiologists all over the world have assumed an incorrect structure so far,” explains Professor Oliver Einsle, group leader at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Freiburg. Scientists have assumed a single sulfur atom only and have not been able to completely identify the nitrous oxide decomposition mechanism. Based on the new data, the reaction sequence of the enzyme can be modeled much better. Future investigations are to provide further details and help understand which influence environmental conditions have on the process.
“It was of decisive importance that all steps of our investigation were executed in the absence of air oxygen,“ emphasizes Walter G. Zumft, retired professor of Karlsruher Institute of Technology. In contact with oxygen, parts of the enzyme react and the enzyme changes its structure. Together with Dr. Anja Pomowski from the University of Freiburg, the bacteria were cultivated under an oxygen-free atmosphere, the enzymes were isolated on a large scale, crystallized, and the structure was analyzed using X-rays. The team of four authors was completed by Professor Peter Kroneck from the University of Constance.
“The current study provides interesting and complementary insight into the nitrogen cycle,” says Dr. Ralf Kiese from the KIT Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research. Nitrous oxide and nitrogen production on fields, pastures, and in forests depends on a multitude of often opposing effects. Last year, a KIT study demonstrated that animal husbandry may lead to less nitrous oxide unter certain conditions (doi:10.1038/nature08931).
Detailed knowledge of microbial processes and their dependence on environmental conditions might help to better model the nitrous oxide contribution to the climate. In the long term, it might even be feasible to use the knowledge in order to prevent nitrous oxide from being released into the atmosphere, for example, by additives in fertilizers that preserve the functioning of N2O-reductase or by optimized processes in sewage treatment plants.
KIT press releases on other studies relating to nitrous oxide:
“Greenhouse Gases from Forest Soils”
http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2011_6446.php
”Cattle Reduce Nitrous Oxide Emissions“
http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2010_883.php
Homepage of the working group of Professor Einsle at the University of Freiburg: http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/xray.
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a public corporation according to the legislation of the state of Baden-Württemberg. It fulfills the mission of a university and the mission of a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT focuses on a knowledge triangle that links the tasks of research, teaching, and innovation.
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Hoser,
It is interesting that we are often presented with graphs showing increasing problems related to increasing nutrients. What is carefully avoided is for many of these waterbodies there were also fundamental changes in grazing (ex oyster die-off), loss of habitat etc occurring simultaneously. To ascribe all the changes in productivity ( some of which are positive) to P or N (which are the only vaiables of regulatory interest) is deceptive at best. A recent USGS study (Circular 1350) cited evidence that the R2 for phosphorus on productivity was only 0.12 (and suggested it might actually be much lower). Habitat alteration played a far larger role than did P. Yet we don’t see EPA fundamentally changing course to promote habitat improvement– it is not in their regulatory interest to do so.
I am not one to further bastardize the science -it is already sufficiently wounded -to politically push back on Nitrogen. I believe the proper way forward is to reframe environmental improvement as best served by corrective action and not senseless attacks on our economic system disguised as protection. The greatest threat to the environmental movement is improvement in environmental quality. We should be pushing wetland and oyster rehabilitation, fishery and habitat enhancement etc as our answer to the public perception of a degraded ecosystem with real world cost benefit analyses for the projects. And remember ultimately the Public has the right to choose whether it does or does not want to pay the costs (My gut is that the cost of fixing our environmental issues will be a fraction of the costs compared to our current “protection” efforts.).
Now that I’ve stepped back off my soap box– the real issue with respect to nitrogen (and the dirty little secret) is that levels for many areas have been falling for decades due to catalytic converters, improved wastewater treatment, stabilization of fertilizer usage over the last 3 decades, improved Ag practices and the Clean Air Act requirements. So if nitrogen levels have been falling during the period when supposed “problems” were increasing- how we can we possibly blame it on N?
An example -when settlers first arrived on the prairies nitrogen levels were so high there were actually salt deposits on the surface. N was so high it killed domestic cattle that fed on the vegetation. N was so high many crops could not be raised and corn went up like a fuse when lit because of the high levels of potassium nitrate crystals in the stalks. What no current EPA researcher dares discuss is the role of fire- prior to the 20th century practice of fire suppression- and the explosion of N fixation. So if I was to take a political stand I would be strongly pushing for a long term nitrogen trend analysis which just might show for many areas that current air quality with respect to N and even ozone (especially during the critical warm weather period of the year) is approaching or better than it was 100 plus years ago.
And as to your point re cyano bacteria and other pico-nano bacteria the issue that is no longer PC is the fact that they often increase as the result of nutrient deficiency especially silica. But declining nutrient levels as a potential environmental concern does not fit the narrative.