Nitrogen fixation as evidence for the reducing nature of the early biosphere

Probably the first nitrogen fixers were anaerobic, non-photosynthetic, bacteria, i.e. fermenters. During the evolution of N2 fixation they still needed nitrogen on the oxidation level of ammonia. Because of the complexities in structure and function of nitrogenase this evolution must have required a long time. The photosynthetic and later the respiring bacteria inherited the capacity for N2 fixation from the fermenters, but the process did not change a great deal when it was taken over. Because of the long need for NH3, which is unstable in a redoxneutral atmosphere, a long-persisting reducing atmosphere was needed. The transition to a redoxneutral atmosphere, dominated by CO2, H2O and N2, cannot have been rapid, and the NH3 in it was recycled. Probably the atmosphere contained for a long time, as was suggested by Urey but is often denied now, a great deal of methane as a reductant. The recycling occurred with participation of intermediates like cyanide, through energy input as UV radiation or as electric discharges. A stationary state was set up. The hypothesis is recalled that coloured, photosynthetic, NH3 bacteria, analogous to coloured sulphur bacteria, may have existed, or may still exist, in reducing conditions. A few remarks are made about the origin of nitrification in the later, oxidizing atmosphere.