31
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. P. Zehr, D. G. Capone, Marine Nitrogen Fixation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67746-6_3
Chapter 3
History of Research on Marine N 2 Fixation
3.1 History of Studies of Marine N 2 Fixation
The history of research into biological N 2 fixation (BNF) in marine systems has
deep roots in terrestrial studies. While the capacity of legumes to enrich soils with
nutrients had been known since antiquity (e.g. Pliny the Elder commented on its
qualities of fertilization, see Moore 1905), evidence of its existence as a biological
reaction began to accumulate in the middle 1800s. Boussingault (1839; see Aulie
1970) provided some of the first evidence that some leguminous crops could accumulate excess N over that initially present in the soils and that crop rotations with
legumes would enrich the soils in N. He speculated this enrichment came from air
N 2 . In parallel, other key facets of the N cycle were being elucidated such as the
decay of organic matter releasing inorganic N (Reiset 1856), nitrification (Schloesing
and Muntz 1877) and denitrification (Schloesing 1868) and indeed the cyclic nature
of the cycle itself (Reiset 1856).
N 2 fixation itself was first unambiguously demonstrated as a biological process
catalyzed by the root nodules of legumes in the mid-1800s by Hellriegel and
Wilfarth (1888) (Fig. 3.1). Specific microbes capable of BNF were first reported by
the pioneering microbial ecologists, the Russian Sergey Winogradsky (Dworkin and
Gutnick 2012) and Martinus Beijerinck of the Delft School of Microbiology at the
turn of the nineteenth century (Ashby 1907) and a N 2 -fixing bacterium, an
Azotobacter, was first isolated by Beijerinck (1888). For many years BNF was
believed to be a capability of only a few bacteria (Kamen 1953). The earliest fundamental research on BNF itself was largely focused on legumes and their rhizobial
symbionts in terrestrial agricultural systems (as mentioned in Chap. 2). Much of the
early (~ 1960–1970s) process oriented work in a wide range of terrestrial non-agricultural biomes is summarized elsewhere (Cleveland et al. 1999; Lin et al. 1998).
With the recognition of N 2 fixation as a biological process, various early marine
scientists considered its potential role in the oceans, particularly in the context of the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. P. Zehr, D. G. Capone, Marine Nitrogen Fixation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67746-6_3
Chapter 3
History of Research on Marine N 2 Fixation
3.1 History of Studies of Marine N 2 Fixation
The history of research into biological N 2 fixation (BNF) in marine systems has
deep roots in terrestrial studies. While the capacity of legumes to enrich soils with
nutrients had been known since antiquity (e.g. Pliny the Elder commented on its
qualities of fertilization, see Moore 1905), evidence of its existence as a biological
reaction began to accumulate in the middle 1800s. Boussingault (1839; see Aulie
1970) provided some of the first evidence that some leguminous crops could accumulate excess N over that initially present in the soils and that crop rotations with
legumes would enrich the soils in N. He speculated this enrichment came from air
N 2 . In parallel, other key facets of the N cycle were being elucidated such as the
decay of organic matter releasing inorganic N (Reiset 1856), nitrification (Schloesing
and Muntz 1877) and denitrification (Schloesing 1868) and indeed the cyclic nature
of the cycle itself (Reiset 1856).
N 2 fixation itself was first unambiguously demonstrated as a biological process
catalyzed by the root nodules of legumes in the mid-1800s by Hellriegel and
Wilfarth (1888) (Fig. 3.1). Specific microbes capable of BNF were first reported by
the pioneering microbial ecologists, the Russian Sergey Winogradsky (Dworkin and
Gutnick 2012) and Martinus Beijerinck of the Delft School of Microbiology at the
turn of the nineteenth century (Ashby 1907) and a N 2 -fixing bacterium, an
Azotobacter, was first isolated by Beijerinck (1888). For many years BNF was
believed to be a capability of only a few bacteria (Kamen 1953). The earliest fundamental research on BNF itself was largely focused on legumes and their rhizobial
symbionts in terrestrial agricultural systems (as mentioned in Chap. 2). Much of the
early (~ 1960–1970s) process oriented work in a wide range of terrestrial non-agricultural biomes is summarized elsewhere (Cleveland et al. 1999; Lin et al. 1998).
With the recognition of N 2 fixation as a biological process, various early marine
scientists considered its potential role in the oceans, particularly in the context of the