Abiotic Sources of Fixed Nitrogen Sustained Early Ecosystems for Several Hundred Million Years After the Origin of Life

Abiotic Sources of Fixed Nitrogen Sustained Early Ecosystems for Several Hundred Million Years After the Origin of Life | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Abiotic Sources of Fixed Nitrogen Sustained Early Ecosystems for Several Hundred Million Years After the Origin of Life Joanne Boden, Zhanghan Ni, Rika E. Anderson, Eva Stüeken This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7759286/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Abstract Nitrogen plays a crucial role in controlling biological productivity. However, it remains unknown how Earth’s earliest ecosystems accessed bioavailable forms of nitrogen. Here, we present genomic evidence that the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) possessed genes for importing ammonium into the cell, but the first organisms with all three catalytic nitrogen fixing genes emerged at least 1 billion years later. Similarly, enzymatic pathways for accessing nitrogen from urea and nitriles appear to predate biological nitrogen fixation. Our results imply that Earth’s earliest biosphere was maintained by environmental sources of ammonium and other N-bearing compounds, possibly derived from a combination of processes such as hydrothermal activity, photochemistry, rock weathering, lightning or impact events. Biological nitrogen fixation may have emerged in response to an increase in biological nutrient demand or due to declining abiotic supplies of ammonium, urea and nitriles. Evolutionary Biology Geochemistry General Microbiology Planetary Science Nitrogen Ammonia Ammonium Urea Nitrile Cyanide Diazotroph Nitrogen Fixation Microbiology Micro-organisms Evolution Phylogenetics Genomics Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Supplementary Files SupplementaryDataset1.xlsx Supplementary Dataset 1 SupplementaryDataset2.xlsx Supplementary Dataset 2 EditedSupportingInformation.pdf Supporting Information Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Show more versions Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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