Lowering the Mo limit for nitrogen fixation by Mo-nitrogenase

Archean ocean marine primary productivity may have been limited by biologically available nitrogen. Due to low molybdenum abundances, early biological nitrogen fixation is thought to have relied on alternative nitrogenases that incorporate vanadium or iron instead of molybdenum. Here, we examine nitrogen fixation in a Cyanobacteria-dominated, ferruginous, low-sulfate, low-molybdenum lake, which replicates biological and chemical conditions relevant to early marine primary productivity. Nitrogen fixation occurs even when molybdenum is <1 nM, 100x less than the abundance in modern oceans. Molybdenum additions did not increase nitrogen fixation rates, indicating that diazotrophs were not molybdenum limited. Only the molybdenum-iron nitrogenase was detected in metagenomes and metatranscriptomes, indicating that the alternative nitrogenases were not required. We suggest that low sulfate (<1 μM) and/or efficient uptake mitigated molybdenum limitation. These results indicate that molybdenum bioavailability may be strongly controlled by sulfate and that alternative nitrogenases are not essential for nitrogen fixation at low molybdenum.