This book contains the papers presented at a Nato Advanced Re- search
Workshop entitled "DENITRIFICATION IN THE N-CYCLE," held in Braunschweig
(W-Germany) from 24 to 27 Mai 1983. All expenses were provided by the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The scientific programme was in the
first instance planned by some members of the Eco-Science Panel under
the stimulating organization of Dr. Oscar Ravera and the final programme
was prepared in co-operation between Ravera and myself. However, even
during the meeting important con- tributions were added. The meeting was
hosted by the Microbiologi- cal Dept. of F.A.L., which also took care of
the organizatory as- pects. Nitrate is constantly lost from both
terrestial and aquatic ecosystems, causing rnixed feelings between
ecologists and agricul- turists. While bacteriologically very rnuch is
known, the ecology of the processes is still poorly understood, nor can
it be evaluated what it rneans as an econornic loss for farrners and
world food produc- tion. Therefore this NATO Advanced Workshop was
established to per- mit a lirnited nurnber of scientists active in this
field to corne to- gether for a short while to address the following
objectives: 1) To exchange ideas between scientists (bacteriologists and
ecologists) and agronornists. 2) To assess the state of the art. 3) To
discuss the difficulties of experimentation in the field. 4) To define
future research. In order to accornplish these objectives, the
workshopwas organ- ized in three parts with the following thernes: 1)
Bacteriological aspects of dentrification.