Insights into the unexplored diversity of the nitrous oxide reducing microbial community

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a major radiative forcing and stratospheric ozone depleting gas emitted from terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. It can be transformed to N2 by bacteria and archaea harboring the nitrous oxide reductase (N2OR), which is the only known N2O sink in the biosphere. Despite its crucial role in mitigating N2O emissions, knowledge of the N2OR in the environment remains limited. Here, we report a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the nosZ gene coding the N2OR in genomes retrieved from public databases. The resulting phylogeny revealed two distinct clades of nosZ, with one unaccounted for in studies investigating N2O reducing communities. Examination of N2OR structural el…