Anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox): a proposed missing piece in the Baltic Sea nitrogen cycle

Anaerobic ammonia oxidation (anammox): a proposed missing piece in the Baltic Sea nitrogen cycle

Financiers

Swedish Research Council

Project type

Research

The microbial community ecology of the Baltic Proper is studied within this project, funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, and several microbial ecosystem functions are investigated in order to understand the microbial capacities to cope with environmental change. With low surface salinity, a steep halocline, an eutrophication process and infrequent water mixing, areas of anoxic deep waters and sediments are gradually increasing, resulting in a steep oxygen gradient. The stratification of microbial community structure and functional capacity along the oxygen gradient through the water into the sediment is investigated (applying direct metagenomic sequencing at Sci Life, bioinformatics, metadata analysis
and statistics).

The project includes three parts, one has a particular focus on the key processes important for balancing the nitrogen budget and in the removal of nitrogen, denitrification and anaerobic ammonia oxidation, anammox. The second part of the project focuses on investigating the extent of stratification of microbial community structure and functional capacity along the oxygen gradient. The third part of the project focuses on developing ribonucleotide reductases as novel biomarkers for oxic-anoxic habitability (the project is in collaboration with researchers at Stockholm University).

B-M Sjöberg, Department of Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics, Stockholm University

A Poole, University of Canterbury, School of Biological Sciences, New Zealand

Research area / geographic area

Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies Biology Geography International Health Environmental Science Meal Sciences Global Development Studies Environmental Studies Nature & the environment Europe

Project time

2009 — 2015

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Page updated

28-05-2019