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Nitrogen loss through anaerobic ammonium oxidation in agricultural drainage ditches

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Abstract

Agricultural drainage ditches are a key conduit of nitrogen from agricultural fields to surface water. Denitrification has been proven to be an important N removal pathway in agricultural drainage ditches; however, it is currently unknown about the role of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox). Here, we investigated the N loss through anammox in six different agricultural drainage ditches, located in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province (China). Stable isotope-labeling experiments confirmed the anammox activity in every examined ditch, and the potential anammox rates ranged from 4.4 to 23.8 nmol N2 g−1 sediment day−1. The anammox process contributed 2.1–18.8 % to sediment dinitrogen gas production, while the remainder would be due to denitrification. It is estimated that a total loss of 6.1–32.9 g N m-2 per year could be attributed to the anammox process in the examined ditches. Illumina-based 16S rRNA gene sequencing confirmed the presence of diverse anammox bacteria in the examined sediments, including Candidatus Brocadia, Candidatus Kuenenia, and Candidatus Anammoxoglobus. Quantitative PCR further confirmed the presence of anammox bacteria, varying between 1.9 × 104 and 1.2 × 105 copies g−1 sediment. The results of our study showed the evidence of anammox process in agricultural drainage ditches and demonstrated that the contribution of anammox to N removal from agricultural drainage ditches may not be negligible.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41501261), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (no. BK20150893), the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of NUIST (no. S8113112001), and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD).

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  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Agricultural Meteorology, Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, College of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210044, China

    Li-dong Shen

  2. Department of Agricultural Resource and Environment, College of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Li-dong Shen, Pei-hui Zheng & Shi-jie Ma

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  1. Li-dong Shen
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Shen, Ld., Zheng, Ph. & Ma, Sj. Nitrogen loss through anaerobic ammonium oxidation in agricultural drainage ditches. Biol Fertil Soils 52, 127–136 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-015-1058-4

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