identifier: traitmech:000187
label: complete ammonia oxidation
definition: A nitrification metabolism in which a single organism oxidizes ammonia
  via nitrite to nitrate.
definition_source: DOI:10.1038/nature16459
trait_category: METABOLISM
term_kind: CLASS
mapping_status: PROPOSED
parent_traits:
- METPO:1005001
synonyms:
- synonym_text: comammox
  synonym_type: EXACT_SYNONYM
  source: DOI:10.1038/nature16459
evidence:
- reference: DOI:10.1038/nature16459
  snippet: Complete oxidation of ammonia to nitrate in one organism (complete ammonia
    oxidation; comammox) is energetically feasible
  notes: van Kessel et al. define complete ammonia oxidation, or comammox, as oxidation
    of ammonia to nitrate in a single organism.
- reference: DOI:10.1038/nature16461
  snippet: Here we report on the discovery and cultivation of a completely nitrifying
    bacterium from the genus Nitrospira, a globally distributed group of nitrite oxidizers.
  notes: Daims et al. independently demonstrated complete nitrification in a single
    Nitrospira organism.
- reference: DOI:10.1128/aem.01698-23
  snippet: The dominance of Nitrospira sp. BO4 could be explained by the ability of
    comammox to generate more energy through the complete oxidation of ammonia to
    nitrate
  notes: Ghimire-Kafle et al. support the same ammonia-to-nitrate scope in a freshwater
    complete-ammonia-oxidizing Nitrospira enrichment.
canonical_examples:
- taxon_id: NCBITaxon:1715989
  taxon_label: Candidatus Nitrospira inopinata
  note: Daims et al. cultivated and physiologically characterized Candidatus Nitrospira
    inopinata as a complete nitrifier.
  reference: DOI:10.1038/nature16461
discussions:
- discussion_id: complete-ammonia-oxidation-xref-gap
  prompt: Resolve an exact external ontology class for one-organism complete ammonia
    oxidation before adding a TraitRecord xref.
  kind: CURATION_TODO
  status: OPEN
  rationale: The pinned METPO snapshot contains only METPO:1000862 obsolete Complete
    ammonia oxidation. METPO:1005001 denotes nitrification without requiring both
    oxidation steps to occur in one organism, while GO:0019329 ammonia oxidation and
    GO:0019332 nitrite oxidation each cover only one component of the comammox phenotype.
  posed_by: codex
  posed_date: '2026-09-14'
curation_history:
- timestamp: '2026-09-14T19:03:57Z'
  curator: codex
  action: MINTED_TRAITMECH_ID
  changes: Minted complete ammonia oxidation as a DOI-backed nitrification TraitRecord
    after a repository-wide duplicate review covering ignored and hidden files; METPO
    has only an obsolete Complete ammonia oxidation class in the local snapshot and
    the replacement placeholder is reserved in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v64.
  llm_assisted: true