Influence of oxygen availability on the activities of ammonia-oxidizing archaea

Abstract

Recent studies point to the importance of oxygen (O2) in controlling the distribution and activity of marine ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA), one of the most abundant prokaryotes in the ocean. The AOA are associated with regions of low O2 tension in oceanic oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), and O2 availability is suggested to influence their production of the ozone-depleting greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). We show that marine AOA available in pure culture sustain high ammonia oxidation activity at low μM O2 concentrations, characteristic of suboxic regions of OMZs (<10 µM O2), and that atmospheric concentrations of O2 may inhibit the growth of some environmental populations. We quantify the increasing N2O production by marine AOA with decreasing O2 tensions, consistent with the plausibility of an AOA contribution to the accumulation of N2O at the oxic-anoxic redox boundaries of OMZs. Variable sensitivity to peroxide also suggests that endogenous or exogenous reactive oxygen species are of importance in determining the environmental distribution of some populations.