Researchers have discovered a new player in aquatic environments that thrives on nitrate.
Researchers have discovered a new player in aquatic environments that thrives on nitrate.
Diatoms – unicellular organisms – have long been known to science, but their overwhelming appetite for nitrate is a new discovery made in a global survey.
Nitrate is a nutrient, widely used as fertilizer in agriculture, and today, nitrate concentrations in Earths aquatic systems are a lot higher than in pre-industrial times.
– There is too much nitrate in rivers, fjords and coastal ecosystems today. What happens to it? Will it further accumulate? Or will it be consumed – and by whom? Our new study helps answer these questions, said Peter Stief, associate professor at Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark.
Read more at University of Southern Denmark
Image: Diatoms growing on pebbles in water. You can see them as brownish biofilms on some of the pebbles.(Photo Credit: © Peter Stief et al)
