ABSTRACT
Acknowledgments 189
References 189
7.1 INTRODUCTION
Biological Mn oxidation is an important process in the environment because it not only controls the cycling and bioavailability of Mn itself, but also is likely to exert controls on the cycling and bioavailability of other trace metals, either toxic (Nelson et al., 1999a) or nutrients (Bartlett, 1988), that strongly bind to sparingly soluble biogenic Mn oxides. Biogenic Mn oxides may also play important roles in the abiotic oxidation of complex organic compounds (Sunda and Kieber, 1994) and as terminal electron acceptors in biologically mediated degradation reactions (Nealson and Myers, 1992). Because of the importance of Mn cycling in the environment, a significant amount of research has been
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devoted to determining the enzymatic pathways responsible for biological oxidation of Mn (II) (Tebo et al., 1997). Also, a kinetic model for biological Mn oxidation has recently been developed (Zhang et al., 2002), and the implications of strong trace metal binding by biogenic Mn oxides have been explored through sampling and analysis in aquatic environments (Nelson et al., 1999a; Dong et al., 2000; Wilson et al., 2001).
