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BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES biogeochemical cycle the complete path a chemical takes through the four major components or reservoirs of earths system, i.e., atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere Some Environmental Questions that can be Answered by the Science of Biogeochemical Cycles 1. What factors place limits on the abundance and growth of organisms and their ecosystems? 2. How can people improve the production of a desired biological resource? 3. What are the sources of chemicals required for life and how might we make these more readily available? 4. What physical and chemical processes control the movement and storage of chemical elements in the environment? 5. How are chemical elements transferred from the solid earth to the water, atmosphere, and life forms? 6. What determines the concentrations of elements and compounds in the atmosphere? 7. Where the atmosphere is polluted as the result of human activities, how might we alter a biogeochemical cycle to lower the pollution? 8. What determines whether a body of water will be biologically productive? Examples of Biogeochemical Cycles 1. hydrologic or water cycle 2. carbon cycle 3. nitrogen cycle

4. phosphorus cycle hydrologic cycle collects, purifies, and distributes the earths fixed water supply Major Processes in the Hydrologic Cycle 1. evaporation conversion of water to water vapor 2. condensation conversion of water vapor to droplets of liquid water 3. transpiration process in which water, after being absorbed by the root system of plants and passing through their living structure, evaporates into the atmosphere as water vapor 4. precipitation water that falls on the earth (e.g., rain, dew, snow) 5. infiltration movement of surface water (from precipitation) into rock or soil through cracks and pore spaces 6. runoff water that flows over the land rather than infiltrating into the ground Effects of Human Activities to the Hydrologic Cycle 1. Water evaporates quickly when it is used for cooling in power plants and for irrigation. This rapid evaporation can affect local atmospheric conditions. 2. Urban complexes with paved surfaces increases runoff and reduces infiltration. Demand for groundwater in cities is usually high but urban developments actually increase the gap between supply and demand. carbon cycle the way in which carbon is converted into organic molecules that are used and released from organisms

Carbon is the basic building block of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, and other organic compounds necessary for life. Land plants get their carbon by absorbing carbon dioxide gas, which makes up about 0.04% of the atmosphere, through pores in their leaves. Phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that float in aquatic ecosystems, get their carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide that has dissolved in water. Carbon from cellular respiration and combustion is taken in by plants. Through the process of photosynthesis, carbon is converted into the basic energy supply. As living things use off the energy via cellular respiration, some carbon is released back into the environment. Others which are temporarily locked in plant or animal tissues are released when they die and are decomposed, which helps return the carbon to the earth and eventually to the atmosphere. Effects of Human Activities to the Carbon Cycle 1. The burning of fossil fuels has released large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This results to releasing carbon that is stored in a form that is not accessible to living things. 2. The conversion of natural ecosystems (e.g., forests) that tend to store carbon for long periods with agricultural ecosystems that only store carbon temporarily has also disrupted the carbon cycle. nitrogen cycle involves the flow of nitrogen atoms through organisms in an ecosystem Nitrogen gas constitutes about 78% by volume of the atmosphere. Plants cannot use the nitrogen in the

atmosphere. It must first be converted into nitrate or ammonium ion. The process of converting nitrogen to a compound useful to plants is called nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen needs to be fixed by a special group of microorganisms known as nitrogen-fixing bacteria and this happens during decomposition. Lightning and volcanic eruption can also fixed nitrogen to a lesser extent. Some nitrogen-fixing bacteria live in the soil and are called free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Others live in nodules in the roots of plants known as legumes (e.g., peas, beans, clover) and are called symbiotic nitrogenfixing bacteria. Major sources of nitrogen-containing materials are the wastes of organisms and decomposition products of dead animals and plants. The so-called ammonifying bacteria convert the nitrogen-containing wastes into ammonia and ammonium salts. Other special bacteria convert the ammonia and ammonium salts into nitrites and nitrates. These bacteria are called nitrifying bacteria or nitrifiers and the process is known as nitrification. The nitrates are then assimilated through the roots of many plants and used in their metabolism or growth processes. Another set of microorganisms which are called denitrifying bacteria or denitrifiers break down nitrogen-containing substances and release the nitrogen back into the atmosphere through the process of denitrification. phosphorus cycle the series of stages in the flow of phosphorus in ecosystems The major source of phosphorus is rock. Natural processes such as weathering and erosion of rocks bring phosphate minerals into rivers that empty these into the sea where marine algae absorb them. From there, the

food chain in the sea passes these to marine birds which eventually drop the phosphorus-rich deposits (guano) on land. Some of these are mined in certain areas as fertilizer. Phosphates which remain in the sea become sediments or deposits and thus do not circulate anymore except if geological events such as tsunamis raise these sediments above sea level. The decomposition of dead plants and animals also enables phosphorus to circulate to some extent. Phosphorus released by the slow breakdown or weathering of phosphate rock deposits is dissolved in soil water and taken up by plant roots. However, most soils contain only small amount of phosphorus because phosphate compounds are fairly insoluble in water and are found only in certain kinds of rocks. Thus, phosphorus is the limiting factor for plant growth in many soils and aquatic ecosystems. Effects of Human Activities to the Nitrogen and Phosphorus Cycles 1. The use of large amount of fertilizer containing nitrogen and phosphorus has caused major changes in the two cycles. These nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) can enter the aquatic ecosystems during precipitation resulting to the so-called cultural eutrophication. Cultural eutrophication is the rapid aging of bodies of water due to human activities. 2. The use of detergents containing phosphorus also causes cultural eutrophication.