Nitrifying Bacteria

Abstract

Two groups of highly specialized organisms—the ammonia and the nitrite oxidizers—are called nitrifiers. The organisms are characterized by the capacity for lithotrophic growth in which energy is generated by the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite (ammonia oxidizers) or nitrite to nitrate (nitrite oxidizers). Nitrifiers are autotrophic bacteria, fixing CO2 as the main carbon source via the Calvin cycle. In addition to aerobic lithotrophic growth, the organisms possess a high metabolic diversity. The nitrogen of the biosphere exists in the oxidations states of NH 3 . Lithotrophic nitrification is considered to be the main process by which the transformation of more reduced nitrogen compounds to nitrate occurs. The nitrogen cycle is characterized by mobilization, immobilization, and transformation of the various nitrogen‐containing compounds. Nitrifying bacteria are of ecological importance because these organisms convert ammonia, which is often absorbed to soil particles, to nitrate, which is mobile in soil water. Although Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter are the two most commonly isolated nitrifiers, they are not necessarily the most abundant ones in natural habitats. Their dominance in enrichment cultures may be explained by the fact that conditions in the commonly used enrichment culture methods promote the growth of these organisms.

Niche Partitioning of the N Cycling Microbial Community of an Offshore Oxygen Deficient Zone

“…In contrast to previous observations in the ETNP (Ganesh et al, 2015 ), the nitrite-oxidizer Nitrospina was not enriched in particles. This could be due to the different size filter used to define “particles” (1.6 vs. 30 μm used here) because individual Nitrospina cells can be 6 μm long (Spieck and Bock, 2015 ).…”

Differentiation between Impacted and Unimpacted Microbial Communities of a Nitrogen Contaminated Aquifer

“…Within the Proteobacteria there were two OTUs of Desulfarculaceae, three Gammaproteobacteria with known denitrifiers in the family (Family Burkholderiaceae) [33], and eight Alphaproteobacteria consisting of three complete denitrifiers (Genus Rhodoplanes) [34], two S and Fe reducers (7.4%) (Genus Rhodobacter) [35,36] and three possible degraders of aromatic compounds (14.3%) (Family Sphingomonadaceae). In addition, there was one Fe oxidiser (Class Acidimicrobiia) [37], four fermentative bacteria from the Bacteroidota and Elusimicrobia phyla (Family Chitinophagaceae and Order Elusimicrobia) [38,39], one NO 2 − oxidiser in the Nitrospirota phylum (Genus Nitrospira) [40] and one NH 4 + oxidising archaea in the Thaumarchaeota phylum (Family Nitrosopumilaceae) [41]. Bore RB23 was situated in a small grove of trees slightly upstream from the WWTP and further downstream than bore DSE63723 from the agricultural region.…”

Diversity and metabolic flexibility of nitrifying and denitrifying consortia used in wastewater treatment

“…La comprensión de la estabilidad funcional de al phylum Nitrospirae (Waite et al, 2020). Varios de estos microorganismos especializados poseen una alta diversidad filogenética y metabólica (Garrity & Holt, 2015;Spieck & Bock, 2015). En plantas de tratamiento de aguas residuales, además de bacterias nitrificantes, se han encontrado AOA, la mayoría de la clase Nitrososphaeria, phylum Thaumarchaeota (Kerou et al, 2016;Xu et al, 2021) o Thermoproteota (Rinke et al, 2021).…”