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. 1993 Jul;59(7):2093–2098. doi: 10.1128/aem.59.7.2093-2098.1993

Nitrification and Denitrification in Lake and Estuarine Sediments Measured by the 15N Dilution Technique and Isotope Pairing

Søren Rysgaard 1,†,*, Nils Risgaard-Petersen 1, Lars Peter Nielsen 1, Niels Peter Revsbech 1
PMCID: PMC182241  PMID: 16348987

Abstract

The transformation of nitrogen compounds in lake and estuarine sediments incubated in the dark was analyzed in a continuous-flowthrough system. The inflowing water contained 15NO3-, and by determination of the isotopic composition of the N2, NO3-, and NH4+ pools in the outflowing water, it was possible to quantify the following reactions: total NO3- uptake, denitrification based on NO3- from the overlying water, nitrification, coupled nitrification-denitrification, and N mineralization. In sediment cores from both lake and estuarine environments, benthic microphytes assimilated NO3- and NH4+ for a period of 25 to 60 h after darkening. Under steady-state conditions in the dark, denitrification of NO3- originating from the overlying water accounted for 91 to 171 μmol m-2 h-1 in the lake sediments and for 131 to 182 μmol m-2 h-1 in the estuarine sediments, corresponding to approximately 100% of the total NO3- uptake for both sediments. It seems that high NO3- uptake by benthic microphytes in the initial dark period may have been misinterpreted in earlier investigations as dissimilatory reduction to ammonium. The rates of coupled nitrification-denitrification within the sediments contributed to 10% of the total denitrification at steady state in the dark, and total nitrification was only twice as high as the coupled process.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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