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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 ...
An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by organisms in interaction with their environment. [2]: 458 The biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.
The cycles are interconnected and play important roles regulating climate, supporting the growth of plants, phytoplankton and other organisms, and maintaining the health of ecosystems generally. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels and using large amounts of fertilizer can disrupt cycles, contributing to climate change, pollution, and ...
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 ...
A nutrient cycle is the movement and exchange of organic and inorganic matter back into the production of matter. The process is regulated by the pathways available in marine food webs, which ultimately decompose organic matter back into inorganic nutrients. Nutrient cycles occur within ecosystems.
Ecosystem processes, such as primary production, nutrient cycling, and niche construction, regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment. Ecosystems have biophysical feedback mechanisms that moderate processes acting on living ( biotic ) and abiotic components of the planet.
Ecosystem services are ecologically mediated functional processes essential to sustaining healthy human societies. [6] Water provision and filtration, production of biomass in forestry, agriculture, and fisheries, and removal of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere are examples of ecosystem services essential to public health and economic opportunity.
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.