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Article: Planet's nitrogen cycle overturned by 'tiny ammonia eater of the seas'.
- Article from:
- Global Warming Focus
- Article date:
- October 12, 2009
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It's not every day you find clues to the planet's inner workings in aquarium scum. But that's what happened a few years ago when University of Washington researchers cultured a tiny organism from the bottom of a Seattle Aquarium tank and found it can digest ammonia, a key environmental function. New results show this minute organism and its brethren play a more central role in the planet's ecology than previously suspected.
The findings, published online today in the journal Nature, show that these microorganisms, members of ancient lineage called archaea, beat out all other marine life in the race for ammonia. Ecologists now assume that ammonia in the upper ...