NITROGEN FIXATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does nitrogen fixation mean? 

• NITROGEN FIXATION (noun)
  The noun NITROGEN FIXATION has 1 sense:

1. the assimilation of atmospheric nitrogen by soil bacteria and its release for plant use on the death of the bacteria

  Familiarity information: NITROGEN FIXATION used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NITROGEN FIXATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The assimilation of atmospheric nitrogen by soil bacteria and its release for plant use on the death of the bacteria

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural processes

Hypernyms ("nitrogen fixation" is a kind of...):

biological process; organic process (a process occurring in living organisms)

 Context examples 

A taxonomic family of rhizobial, symbiotic bacterium in the phylum Proteobacteria that are found in plant roots and perform nitrogen fixation.

(Brucellaceae, NCI Thesaurus)

A taxonomic family of bacterium, which perform nitrogen fixation, in the phylum Proteobacteria that includes the genera Methylobacterium and Meganema, among others.

(Methylobacteriaceae, NCI Thesaurus)

Cyanobacteria can do this even though oxygen, a byproduct of photosynthesis, interferes with the process of nitrogen fixation.

(Bacteria Used to Create Fertilizer Out of Thin Air, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The next steps for the team are to dig deeper into the details of the process, perhaps narrow down even further the subset of genes necessary for nitrogen fixation, and collaborate with other plant scientists to apply the lessons learned from this study to the next level: nitrogen-fixing plants.

(Bacteria Used to Create Fertilizer Out of Thin Air, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Nitrogen fixation rates dropped markedly with the addition of a little oxygen (up to 1 percent), but rose again with the addition of a different group of genes from Cyanothece, although it did not reach rates as high as without the presence of oxygen.

(Bacteria Used to Create Fertilizer Out of Thin Air, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)