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Microbiology

A fight for scraps of ammonia

Bacteria that can oxidize both ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate seem to be better adapted to ammonia-limited environments than most cultured microbes that oxidize ammonia to nitrite only, contrary to expectations. See Letter p.269

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Figure 1: Substrate affinities for ammonia-oxidizing microbes.

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Correspondence to Marcel M. M. Kuypers.

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Kuypers, M. A fight for scraps of ammonia. Nature 549, 162–163 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/549162a

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