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Identification, Enumeration And Diversity Of Nitrifying Planktonic Archaea And Bacteria In Trophic End Members Of The Laurentian Great Lakes, Maitreyee Mukherjee, Anirban Ray, Anton F. Post, Robert Michael Mckay, George S. Bullerjahn

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

Oligotrophic Lake Superior and mesotrophic Lake Erie are trophic end members of the hydrologically connected Laurentian Great Lakes system, and as such exhibit different profiles of dissolved nitrogen species. Nitrification in Lake Superior has led to increasing nitrate concentrations over the past century, as opposed to Erie, where nitrate inventories have declined due to denitrification. In this study, we examined the abundance and diversity of nitrifying microbes involved in the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite, and nitrite to nitrate. By in situ hybridization methods, we enumerated the major planktonic ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) during a July 2011 …