Nitrogen Cycle

The Earth holds an amazing secret in maintaining all the life forms living on it,
starting from the most basic organisms such as bacteria, plants, animals and at last
humans. One of the ways how the Earth maintains the life living on it is through a
biogeochemical cycle known as the nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen cycle is a medium to utilize
the availability of plants and animals living in an ecosystem. The air around us consist
predominantly of atmospheric nitrogen. Atmospheric nitrogen makes approximately 70%-
80% of air. However, living organisms are not able to utilize it in the form of atmospheric
nitrogen. It is very difficult to separate the atoms of nitrogen in the air thus it needs to be
fixed with the help of naturally occuring events such as lighting strike or biologically with
the help of organism living on the soil. The fixation of atmospheric nitrogen can be
explained by the nitrogen cycle. The nitrogen cycle consists of five processes that are;
nitrogen fixation, ammonification, nitrification, assimilation and denitrification. (refer to
Figure 1 Appendix 1)

The first step in a nitrogen cycle is the nitrogen fixation process. The nitrogen
fixation process refers to the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia. In addition,
the molecular nitrogen splits into two molecules of free nitrogen to combine with
hydrogen to form two molecules of ammonia There are two ways for nitrogen fixation to
occur. One is through high-energy fixation and the second one is through biological
fixation (Smith & Smith, 2006). A high energy fixation refers to the fixation of
atmospheric nitrogen with the help of naturally occuring events on the atmosphere such
as lightning strike or cosmic radiation that provides a high energy production needed to
combine nitrogen with the oxygen and hydrogen of water. The product of the nitrogen
fixation, ammonia and nitrates, are carried to the Earth's surface in rainwater. Smith &
Smith, 2006 also explains that the second method of fixation is by the help of symbiotic
bacteria living in mutualistic association. For instance, several cyanobacteria and some
methanogens are involved in this conversion process. Nitrogen fixation impacts other
organisms greatly as some nitrogen-fixing bacteria live freely in soil. As a comparison,
nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria are indispensable to maintain the fertility of soils in areas
like paddy fields. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria such as Rhizobium interact symbiotically with
plants of the legume family. Plants of the legume family are generally crops like
soybeans, clover or peanuts. Nitrogen-fixing prokaryotes also play a role in increasing the
nitrogen available to plants (Campbell et. al., 2010). this is due to the fact that these plants
cannot utilize atmospheric nitrogen but are able to use the nitrogen compounds that the
prokaryotes produce from ammonia.

The second step in the nitrogen cycle is ammonification. Ammonification is a one way
process of breaking down proteins and nucleic acids present in dead organism such as
plants and animals to amino acids and later on be oxidized to become carbon dioxide,
water and ammonia (Smith, 1996). Ammonification process takes place with the presence
of decayed elements or organisms such as plants and animals with the help of
decomposers in order to recycle the existing nitrogen contained in the physical structure
of the dead organisms to produce ammonium or ammonia ions ("Nitrogen Cycle", n.d). In
addition towards what Smith (1996) have stated, the ammonia ion produced during
ammonification will be directly absorbed by the roots of plants and assimilated into
amino acids which will consequently pass along the food chain or the food web that are
present in the ecosystem. The ammonification process occurs often on the surface of the
soil and water where most dead organisms can be found. Besides of being one of the
major components in nitrogen cycle, ammonification is also important to produce
ammonium or ammonia ions which acts as a source of nutrition for various species of
plants, especially to those that grow on acidic soil.

Unlike other plant nutrients such as carbon or oxygen, ammonium are one of the
nutrients that most plants cannot synthesize effectively and therefore, plants overcome
this limitation by absorbing nitrates as its other source of nitrogen nutrition. Therefore, in
order for plants to obtain this type of nutrients is through the process of nitrification.
Nitrification is a biological process in which ammonia is oxidized to nitrate and nitrite
along with the production of energy (Smith, 1992). Nitrification process starts with
synthesizing ammonium ion to become nitrite (NO- 2 ) with the help of a bacteria in the
genus of Nitrosomonas and subsequently be continued by a bacteria in the genus of
Nitrobacter. The ammonium ions are rapidly oxidized into nitrite and the nitrite will
become nitrate, which is an important nutritional requirement for plants.

After fixing and converting the atmopheric nitrogen, assimilation takes place.
Assimilation is the action of plants and animals integrate nitrate (NO 3-). Throughout the
process of assimilation, nitrogen fixation and nitrification also occurs producing ammonia
for plants. Plants transport the nitrogen from the soil through their roots. This process is
known as absorption. The nitrogen absorbed from the soil are in the form of nitrate ions
or ammonium ions. When nitrate is absorbed, it is first reduced to nitrite ions and then ammonium
ions for incorporation into amino acids, nucleic acids and chlorophyll. In plants that have a symbiotic
relationship with rhizobia, some nitrogen will be assimilated in the form of ammonium ions directly from

the nodules of the roots. Campbell et al. (2014) explained that plants can take in two inorganic
forms of nitrogen, ammonium (NH 4 ) and nitrate (NO3 ) including amino acids. Nitrite (NO 2 ) and other
bacteria can use all the inorganic form of nitrogen too. In a meanwhile, organic forms of nitrogen only can
be utilized by animals. Animals, fungi, and other heterotrophic organisms are gaining nitrogen by ingestion
of amino acids, nucleotides and other small organic molecules. Mainly the animals, fungi and the other
organisms are feeding on the plants tissue to assimilate nitrogen.
The following step of the nitrogen cycle is denitrification. Denification is the
reverse process of nitrification. During denitrification, nitrates are reduced to nitrites and
then to nitrogen gas and ammonia with the help of a group of bacteria known as
Pseudomonas. Thus, reduction of nitrates to gaseous nitrogen by microorganisms in a
series of biochemical reactions is called denitrification". The process is wasteful as
available nitrogen in soil is lost into the atmosphere. Denitrification leads to the loss of
nitrogen (nitrate nitrogen) from the soil which causes the depletion of an essential nutrient
for plant growth and therefore, it is an undesirable reaction of soil fertility and
agricultural productivity. Although denitrification is an undesirable reaction due to
agricultural productivity, it is also required for the ecological importance of an ecosystem.
This is because without denitrification, the supply of nitrogen including N2 in the
atmosphere, would not encounter depletion and NO3 would have accumulated in the soil
and water. According to Campbell et al. (2014), the action of nitrogen gases being
reduced to nitrate for some bacteria is known as denitrification. Reactive nitrogen gases,
for example nitrogen oxides is released to the air in a massive amount. Nitrogen oxides is
produced from the pollution made by human activities.
 References

Smith, R., L. (1992). Elements of ecology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins
Publishers Inc.
Smith, R., L. (1996). Ecology and field biology (5th ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins

Publishers Inc.

Nitrogen Cycle: Ammonification and Nitrification. (n.d). In Science Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from: http://science.jrank.org/pages/4690/Nitrogen-Cycle-Ammonification-
nitrification.html
Smith, T., M., & Smith, R., L. (2006). Elements of ecology (6th ed.). San Francisco: CA:
Benjamin Cummings, Pearson Education Inc.
Campbell, N.A., Reece, J.B., Urry, L.A., Cain, M.L., Wasserman, S.A., Minorsky, P.V.,
Jackson, R.B. (2014). Biology: A global approach (10th ed.). Essex, England:
Pearson Education.