Molecular evidence for sediment nitrogen fixation in a temperate New England estuary

Primary production in coastal waters is generally nitrogen (N) limited with denitrification outpacing nitrogen fixation (N(2)-fixation). However, recent work suggests that we have potentially underestimated the importance of heterotrophic sediment N(2)-fixation in marine ecosystems. We used clone libraries to examine transcript diversity of nifH (a gene associated with N(2)-fixation) in sediments at three sites in a temperate New England estuary (Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts, USA) and compared our results to net sediment N(2) fluxes previously measured at these sites. We observed nifH expression at all sites, including a site heavily impacted by anthropogenic N. At this N impacted site, we also observed mean net sediment N(2)-fixation, linking the geochemical rate measurement with nifH expression. This same site also had the lowest diversity (non-parametric Shannon = 2.75). At the two other sites, we also detected nifH transcripts, however, the mean N(2) flux indicated net denitrification. These results suggest that N(2)-fixation and denitrification co-occur in these sediments. Of the unique sequences in this study, 67% were most closely related to uncultured bacteria from various marine environments, 17% to Cluster III, 15% to Cluster I, and only 1% to Cluster II. These data add to the growing body of literature that sediment heterotrophic N(2)-fixation, even under high inorganic nitrogen concentrations, may be an important yet overlooked source of N in coastal systems.