N2O

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for life, but when overused in agriculture and other applications it can harm water quality or be emitted as the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, or N2O.

Knowing more about the plant and soil nitrogen cycle can affect emissions of N2O, a gas that accounts for 6% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

"If you know which genes to target that result in the minimization of N2O or nitrate production, then you have the potential to affect both greenhouse gas-related warming and water quality," Mayes said.

The microbial community and their functional potential in regulating the N2O and CH4 cycles were evaluated using biogeochemical analysis and microbial genome-sequencing.

Like ammonia's N2O emissions, Robert Socolow, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, emeritus, and senior scholar at Princeton, said that widespread usage of ammonia in the energy sector will add to all the other impacts that fertilizer has already had on the global nitrogen cycle.