Abstract:Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas which generates approximately 300-fold powerful greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide (CO2) and is one of the main compounds that causing ozone-depletion in stratospheric. Nitrification and denitrification of microorganism is the most important path for N2O production. It has long been considered that denitrification only occurred in prokaryote until in 1970's two Japanese scientists found that fungi like Fusarium oxysporum also had the ability to denitrifying. Unlike bacterial denitrification (bDNF), N2O is the end-product of fungal denitrification process (fDNF) due to the lack of nitrous oxide reductase (nosZ). It means that fDNF usually produce more N2O than bDNF. Recent studies have proved that fDNF contributed over 50% of the total N2O emission in soil and 70% in high permeable sediments thus it shouldn't be neglect. In this review, we elucidated the species composition, denitrification mechanism, measurements and N2O-contribution of fDNF base on the current studies. At last, we discussed some problems remain to be solved on the research of fDNF and suggest prospects for future studies.
