= Denitrification
<Denitrification> is reduction of oxidized <nitrogen> compounds to gaseous products through the sequence <nitrate>, <nitrite>, <nitric oxide>, <nitrous oxide> and molecular <nitrogen>. In many <microorganisms> it supports <anaerobic respiration> when <oxygen> is scarce. Different <organisms> can perform different portions of the sequence; release of <nitrous oxide> does not imply complete conversion to molecular <nitrogen>.
<Denitrification> removes biologically available <nitrogen> from an <ecosystem>, whereas <nitrification> oxidizes reduced <nitrogen>. Disappearance of <nitrate> alone cannot distinguish gaseous loss from uptake by <plants>. Measurements using <isotope labelling> and <mass spectrometry> can trace <nitrogen> into both <nitrogen> gas and <nitrous oxide>, connecting the <nitrogen cycle> to an experimentally measured gas balance.<Measuring simultaneous fluxes from soil of N2O and N2 in the field using the 15N-gas nonequilibrium technique by Timothy T. Bergsma and others>[Environmental Science & Technology 35, pp. 4307–4312; simultaneous field gas-flux measurements]{ref}
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