Elizabeth Swanner and students publish in Communications Earth & Environment
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Elizabeth (Betsy) Swanner, professor in the Department of the Earth, Atmosphere, and Climate, recently published a paper with LAS students in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The study found that the trace element molybdenum did not limit cyanobacteria nitrogen fixation at concentrations below 1 nanomolar. This was unexpected and suggests that similarly low Archean (2.5 to 4 billion years ago) marine concentrations of molybdenum likely did not prevent nitrogen fixation from being a throttle to primary productivity.
Stevenson, Z., Schultz, D. L., Chamberlain, M., Rico, K., Anbar, A., Dekas, A. E., & Swanner, E. D. (2026). Lowering the Mo limit for nitrogen fixation by Mo-nitrogenase. Communications Earth & Environment, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03193-9