Where Does Nitrogen Fixation Occur?

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Brian with Ericksontutoring.blogspot.com. Today we're going to discuss where nitrogen fixation occurs. So, nitrogen fixation is the process of turning nitrogen gas into forms that are usable by plants. And, since animals eat plants, it also eventually leads to animals gaining the nitrogen that they need. Nitrogen fixation really can occur in three ways. A small portion of nitrogen is fixed, or turned into ammonium and nitrate, by lightning or UV radiation, but this really isn't a major source of nitrogen fixation. Another place where nitrogen fixation occurs is in industrial factories, it's an extremely energy-intensive process and is usually used to make fertilizers and the like. The most abundant form of nitrogen fixation occurs by fungi and bacteria that either live in the soil that might be associated with the roots of different plants in a symbiosis. So, this commonly happens with legumes, which are plants like peas, as well as trees like alders. But they also are free-living in the soil and in addition fungi and bacteria in the sea as well are responsible for a lot of nitrogen fixation. This has been a discussion of where nitrogen fixation occurs."