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Bacteria on leaves: a previously unrecognised source of N2O in grazed pastures

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posted on 2023-05-03, 11:35 authored by Saman BowatteSaman Bowatte, Paul NewtonPaul Newton, Shona BrockShona Brock, Phil Theobald, Dongwen LuoDongwen Luo
Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from grazed pastures are a product of microbial transformations of nitrogen and the prevailing view is that these only occur in the soil. Here we show this is not the case. We have found ammonia-oxidising bacteria (AOB) are present on plant leaves where they produce N2O just as in soil. AOB (Nitrosospira sp. predominantly) on the pasture grass Lolium perenne converted 0.02–0.42% (mean 0.12%) of the oxidised ammonia to N2O. As we have found AOB to be ubiquitous on grasses sampled from urine patches, we propose a ‘plant’ source of N2O may be a feature of grazed grassland.

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Rights statement

© 2015 International Society for Microbial Ecology. All rights reserved.

Language

  • English

Does this contain Māori information or data?

  • No

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Journal title

ISME Journal

ISSN

1751-7362

Citation

Bowatte, S., Newton, P.C.D., Brock, S., Theobald, P., & Luo, D. (2014). Bacteria on leaves: a previously unrecognised source of N2O in grazed pastures. The ISME Journal, 9(1), 265-267.

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