6.  A more familiar example of the cycling of matter is the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between plants and animals.  We know that plants consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in the process of photosynthesis. Oxygen is a plants waste product while carbon dioxide is like a nutrient.

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Why Biogeochemical Cycles Are Important Biogeochemical cycles help explain how the planet conserves matter and uses energy. The cycles move elements through ecosystems, so the transformation of things can happen. They are also important because they store elements and recycle them.

Cycles of matter are called biogeochemical cycles, because they include both biotic and abiotic components and processes. Components that hold matter for short periods of time are called exchange pools, and components that hold matter for long periods of time are called reservoirs.

How Matter Moves Through Ecosystems

1. Decomposers release nutrients when they break down dead organisms.
2. The nutrients are taken up by plants through their roots.
3. The nutrients pass to primary consumers when they eat the plants.
4. The nutrients pass to higher level consumers when they eat lower level consumers.

Human activities have greatly increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and nitrogen levels in the biosphere. Altered biogeochemical cycles combined with climate change increase the vulnerability of biodiversity, food security, human health, and water quality to a changing climate.

Since the mid-1900s, humans have been exerting an ever-increasing impact on the global nitrogen cycle. Human activities, such as making fertilizers and burning fossil fuels, have significantly altered the amount of fixed nitrogen in the Earth’s ecosystems.

The main matter-cycling systems involve important nutrients such as water, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus….The three main factors upon which life on the earth depends are:

• The one-way flow of solar energy into the earth’s systems.
• The cycling of matter.
• The force of gravity.

Nutrients move through the ecosystem in biogeochemical cycles. A biogeochemical cycle is a circuit/pathway by which a chemical element moves through the biotic and the abiotic factors of an ecosystem. It is inclusive of the biotic factors, or living organisms, rocks, air, water, and chemicals.

The Phosphorus Cycle Phosphorus is also reciprocally exchanged between phosphate dissolved in the ocean and marine organisms. The movement of phosphate from the ocean to the land and through the soil is extremely slow, with the average phosphate ion having an oceanic residence time between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

Which biogeochemical cycle does NOT include a major path in which the substance cycles through the atmosphere? The phosphorus cycle does not involve the atmosphere because it is usually in a liquid state at a room temperature. This is the reason why it cycles only through water, sediments, or soil.

The biogeochemical cycle that recycles water is the water cycle. The water cycle involves a series of interconnected pathways involving both the biotic and abiotic components of the biosphere.

The Water Cycle. The chemical elements and water that are needed by organisms continuously recycle in ecosystems. They pass through biotic and abiotic components of the biosphere. That’s why their cycles are called biogeochemical cycles.

Biogeochemical cycles are basically divided into two types: Gaseous cycles – Includes Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and the Water cycle. Sedimentary cycles – Includes Sulphur, Phosphorus, Rock cycle, etc.