Book Chapter

Energy cost of biological nitrogen fixation

author(s)

Neves, Maria Cristina Prata

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full citation

Neves, Maria Cristina Prata. 1982. Energy cost of biological nitrogen fixation . In: Graham, Peter H.; Harris, Susan C. (eds.). Biological nitrogen fixation technology for tropical agriculture: Papers presented at workshop held at CIAT, March 9-13, 1981 . Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, CO. p. 77-92. (CIAT series no. 03E-5(82)

Biological nitrogen (N2) fixation in both free-living and symbiotic organisms is an energy-requiring process dependent upon a supply of carbon and energy. In this paper the energy costs for N2 fixation and nodule respiration in symbiotic systems are compared with those of free-living N2-fixing systems, with the theoretical energy requierement for N2 fixation, and with the cost of utilization of combined N.