Biogeochemical
Cycles
Biological | Chemical | Geological
Biogeochemical
Cycles
Biological | Chemical | Geological
The transport and removal or deposition of vital atomic elements needed to understand the dynamic qualities of ecological systems is embodies in a study of nutrient cycles.
Biogeochemical cycles account for the characteristics, robustness and resilience of ecosystems to withstand stress, rapid change, or population explosions. Justus Leibeg over 150 years ago defined a "law of the Minimum," by which he understood that the material element, or nutrient, needed in only trace amounts -- but necessary to the viability of production is the most serious limiting factor.
For example, plants cannot photosynthesize without magnesium in their chloroplasts. Magnesium is not needed in large amounts but is a serious limiting factor and an example of the law of the minimum. This is particularly true in tropical climates.
Biological means produced by living things. Fuel, food, fiber and forage material are all produced by bacteria, fungi, planst or animals.
Chemical means of a compound or elemental character, referring to the trace matter, or nutrients that a living creature, or ecosystem needs to function properly.
Geological means both the time and the property of belonging to the earth's processes even in the absence of living things, elements predate life on earth. These elements are iron, silica,or magnesium and compounds such as methane and ammonia.
Different conditions or states of matter on Earth:
"Water is the driver of life" said Leonardo da Vinci.
Water is also the principle mover, together with the Earth's tectonic forces, of trace elements and nutrients through the air, onto the land, into rivers, and oceans and into the rocks of the planet. As the nutients pass from one state and one place to another they are made available for living organisms. This availability is largely, but not always, the work of bacteria.
Places on Earth
Air (atmospheric component) wind dispersal, precipitation and temperature transport.
Water (marine and aqueous component) current dispersal and removal by currents and evaporation.
Land (terrestrial component) evapotranspiration through vegetation, animal and bacteria transport.
Underground (subsurface component) animal and anaerobic bacteria transport.
Rocks (lithic component) tectonic (slow) and biological (less slow) transport.
Slow and fast cycles are moved by radiation heating water and carrying these nutrients throughout ecosystems.
The state of matter in which nutrients are moved by inorganic forces has an important influence on the availability of trace elements. Reservoirs or the total mass of these combounds on earth are characterized by either readily soluble and thus moving compounds as opposed to mosty insoluble and sluggish compounds. Slow cycles can also occur due to the number of states of matter that the compound element moves before it becomes available to bacteria.
gases are most readily distributed from place to place.
Any atomic elelments and compounds of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and carbon all have a gas phase.
liquids are readily moved by gravity from sources to sinks.
The hydrogen and oxygen compound of water exists in each of these states on earth and the changes occur in its condition or arrangement of molecules due to changes in temperature. Normally a s gas at high (evaporation point: 162° F) temperatures, water will freeze into a solid at 32° F, or will remain liquid in the middle range of these temperatures, like other elements and compounds.
solids are hard to transport from sinks where they accumulate.
Ice is a solid, but so are metals, minerals and crystals, the heaviest and often most massive of compounds and elements on earth. At high temperatures, such as in the core of the Earth, iron, normally a solid exists as a liquid. The viscous magama from volcanic explosions is an example of a super heated iron, mickel and mercury compound that is, at surface temperatures, a solid.
Nutrients are those compounds or elements called trace elements, because they are so scarce and they are needed only in the minutest amount, for necessary functions of life in ecological systems to sustain itself and other forms of life.
qualities versus quantities
They come in two quantities based on how much of the compound is needed for living things to finction in a healthy condition:
1. Major trace elements are: calcium, potassium, Magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, carbon, oxygen, sodium and nitrogen
2. Minor trace elements are: copper, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, boron, zinc, iodine, and iron.
Nutrients exist in two qualities related to the frequency of their availability for living creatures:
Fast cycling and readily available; oxygen, sodium and nitrogen, sulfur,
Slow cycling and scarcely available; calcium, potassium, Magnesium, phosphorus, carbon, copper, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, boron, zinc, iodine, and iron.
