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All nutrients (or elements) flow through from the nonliving to the living and back to the nonliving components of the ecosystem in a cyclic path
Major reservoirs are atmosphere and oceans Global in nature, important gases
Oxygen 21% Nitrogen 78% Carbon of carbon dioxide 0.03%
Sedimentary
Major reservoirs are soil, rocks and minerals Rock phase and salt solution phase Salt solution is the available form
Phosphorus Metals, eg Calcium, Magnesium, etc
Common features:
Involve biological and non-biological processes Driven by the flow of energy through ecosystem Tied to water cycle (water is the important medium; Without water cycle, biogeochemical cycle would cease).
Carbon to carbon dioxide, release back to atmosphere Nutrient to gaseous form (denitrification) Loss of organic matter from ecosystem by washout (from terrestrial to aquatic) Herbivores between aquatic and terrestrial
Harvesting may be replaced by fertilization Loss of nutrient (e.g.Leaching) may be balanced by inputs (weathering of rocks and minerals)
Moose (feed on aquatic plants, deposit nutrient in terrestrial ecosystem in the form of feces) Hippopotamus (move organic matter from terrestrial to aquatic)
Internal cycling
Lakes
Forests
Carbon cycle
CO2 high in winter and decline with onset of photosynthesis (May to June, in Alaska)
Carbon budget of Earth is closely linked to atmosphere, land and ocean and mass movement around planet.
Nitrogen cycle
Nitrogen is essential to life Starts with nitrogen fixation from atmosphere Plants can only utilize nitrate or ammonia Atmospheric deposit
Nitrogen fixation High energy (lightning, 0.5 kg N ha-1) Biological Bacteria, 10 kg N ha-1.
Dryfall+wetfall
No atmospheric reservoir (rock and natural phosphate deposits) Permanent loss of phosphorus to oceans Input limited to weathering of rocks Terrestrial systems can be limited by phosphorus availability Phosphorus is more abundant in marine and freshwater systems
Particular Dissolved organic phosphorus
Phosphorus can sink as particulate phosphorus and become locked in bottom sediment
Depletion of surface layers
All elements are components of living organisms and constituents of organic matter Thus all cycles are linked: Chemically Energetically Biologically Stoichimetry: quantitative relationship of elements in combination. Example: C:N ratio, 8 to 15 for microbes, 30 for leaf, etc C:N:P ratio
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