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Habitats
Characteristic of the Thaumarchaeota phylum, N.maritimus is mainly found in oligotrophic (poor environment in nutrients) open ocean, within the Pelagic zone. Initially discovered in Seattle, in an aquarium, today N. maritimus can populate numerous environment such as the subtropical North Pacific and South Atlantic Ocean or the mesopelagic zone in the Pacific Ocean. N. Maritimus is an aerobic bacterial able to grow even with an extremely low concentration of nutrients, like in dark-deep open ocean, in which N. maritimus as an important impact.

Nitrification of the ocean
N. maritimus can oxidize ammonia to form nitrate, which is the first step of the nitrogen cycle. Ammonia and nitrate are the two nutrients which form the inorganic pool of nitrogen. Populating poor environments (lacking of organic energy sources and sunlight), the oxidation of ammonia could contribute to primary productivity. In fact, nitrate fuels half of the phytoplankton’s production but not only phytoplankton needs nitrate. The high ammonia’s affinity allows N. maritimus to largely compete with the other marine phototrophs and chemotrophs. Regarding the ammonium turnover per unit biomass, N. maritimus would be around 5 times higher than oligotrophic heterotrophs' turnover, and around 30 times higher than most of the oligotrophic diatoms known turnover. Computing these two observations nitrification by N. maritimus plays a key role in the marine nitrogen cycle.

Carbon and phosphorus implications
Its ability to fix inorganic carbon via an alternative pathway (3-hydroxypropionate/4-hydroxybutyrate pathway) allows N. maritimus to participate efficiently in the flux of the global carbon budget. Coupling with the ammonia-oxidizing pathway, N. Maritimu, and the other marine thaumarchaea, approximately, recycle 4.5% of the organic carbon mineralized in the oceans and transform 4.3% of detrital phosphorus into new phosphorus substances.