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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Detection, Diversity, And Evolution Of Fungal Nitric Oxide Reductases (P450nor), Steven Adam Higgins Aug 2017

Detection, Diversity, And Evolution Of Fungal Nitric Oxide Reductases (P450nor), Steven Adam Higgins

Doctoral Dissertations

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a gas responsible for significant ozone layer depletion and contributes to greenhouse effects in Earth’s atmosphere. N2O is primarily generated by denitrification, whereby nitrate (NO3-) or nitrite (NO2-) is converted to gaseous N2O or N2. Teragram quantities of N2O are emitted annually from agricultural soils treated with nitrogenous fertilizers due to the activity of soil microbiota. Although bacteria and fungi harbor genes permitting denitrification, fungi lack NosZ, an enzyme responsible for reducing N2O into inert N2 gas. Historically, scientists have linked fungi …


Disturbance And The Community Composition Of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi In Ontario Tallgrass Prairies, Sarah N. Allan Jul 2017

Disturbance And The Community Composition Of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi In Ontario Tallgrass Prairies, Sarah N. Allan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Glomeromycota) form beneficial symbiotic relationships with the majority of land plants, especially in grasslands. Tallgrass prairies in Ontario are an endangered plant community currently being restored on former agricultural land. The objectives of my study were to determine if there were differences in the communities of Glomeromycota between disturbed and undisturbed tallgrass prairies in Ontario and if there were any potential indicator taxa for the ends of the disturbance spectrum. A molecular approach using DNA derived from soil samples was used to compare species composition between disturbed and undisturbed tallgrass prairies. A total of 177 operational taxonomic …