The position of nitrate respiration in evolution.

Egami's hypothesis that oxygen respiration evolved from nitrate respiration, and this from nitrate fermentation, is not accepted. The reasons are: (1) Presumably there was no nitrate before O2 in the biosphere. (2) On mechanistic grounds, respiration (oxidative phosphorylation) is to be derived directly from photosynthesis (photosynthetic phosphorylation) rather than from any form of fermentation.