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There is much overlap between the terms for the biogeochemical cycle and nutrient cycle. Most textbooks integrate the two and seem to treat them as synonymous terms. [5] However, the terms often appear independently. The nutrient cycle is more often used in direct reference to the idea of an intra-system cycle, where an ecosystem functions as a ...
Food webs depict the pathways of mineral nutrient cycling as they flow through organisms. [6] [18] Most of the primary production in an ecosystem is not consumed, but is recycled by detritus back into useful nutrients. [54] Many of the Earth's microorganisms are involved in the formation of minerals in a process called biomineralization.
A biogeochemical cycle, or more generally a cycle of matter, [1] is the movement and transformation of chemical elements and compounds between living organisms, the atmosphere, and the Earth's crust. Major biogeochemical cycles include the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle. In each cycle, the chemical element or molecule is ...
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving (abiotic), physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight. Ecosystems are functional units consisting of living things in a given area, non-living ...
Ecosystems are dynamically interacting systems of organisms, the communities they make up, and the non-living components of their environment. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production , nutrient cycling , and niche construction , regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment.
By breaking down dead organic matter, decomposers release carbon back to the atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form that can be readily used by plants and microbes. Ecosystems provide a variety of goods and services upon which people depend, and may be part of.
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Nutrient cycling is the movement of nutrients through an ecosystem by biotic and abiotic processes. [26] The ocean is a vast storage pool for these nutrients, such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus. The nutrients are absorbed by the basic organisms of the marine food web and are thus transferred from one organism to the other and from one ...