1.

1 Material Cycles and Life Processes

Earth is the only planet in our solar system that provides a suitable environment for
life as we know it. Even our nearest planetary neighbors, Mars and Venus, do not meet
these requirements. Maintenance of these conditions requires a constant recycling of
materials between the biotic (living) and abiotic (nonliving) components of ecosystems.

The hydrologic cycle redistributes water

The path of water through our environment, known as the hydrologic cycle, is perhaps
the most familiar material cycle, and it is discussed in greater detail in chapter 17. Most of
the earth’s water is stored in the oceans, but solar energy continually evaporates this water,
and winds distribute water vapor around the globe. Water that condenses over land
surfaces, in the form of rain, snow, or fog, supports all terrestrial (land-based) ecosystems.
Living organisms emit the moisture they have consumed through respiration and
perspiration. Eventually this moisture reenters the atmosphere or enters lakes and streams,
from which it ultimately returns to the ocean again.
As it moves through living things and through the atmosphere, water is responsible for
metabolic processes within cells, for maintaining the flows of key nutrients through
ecosystems, and for global-scale distribution of heat and energy. Water performs countless
services because of its unusual properties. Water is so important that when astronomers
look for signs of life on distant planets, traces of water are the key evidence they seek.

Everything about global hydrological processes is awesome in scale. Each year, the
sun evaporates approximately 496,000 km3 of water from the earth’s surface. More water
evaporates in the tropics than at higher latitudes, and more water evaporates over the
oceans than over land. Although the oceans cover about 70 percent of the earth’s surface,
they account for 86 percent of total evaporation. Ninety percent of the water evaporated
from the ocean falls back on the ocean as rain. The remaining 10 percent is carried by
prevailing winds over the continents where it combines with water evaporated from soil,
plant surfaces, lakes, streams, and wetlands to provide a total continental precipitation of
about 111,000 km3.
 Fig 1.5 The hydrologic cycle. Most exchange occurs with evaporation from oceans
and precipitation back to oceans. About one-tenth of water evaporated from oceans falls
over land, is recycled through terrestrial systems, and eventually drains back to oceans in
rivers.

What happens to the surplus water on land—the difference between what falls as
precipitation and what evaporates? Some of it is incorporated by plants and animals into
biological tissues. A large share of what falls on land seeps into the ground to be stored for
a while (from a few days to many thousands of years) as soil moisture or groundwater.
Eventually, all the water makes its way back downhill to the oceans. The 40,000 km 3
carried back to the ocean each year by surface runoff or underground flow represents the
renewable supply available for human uses and sustaining freshwater-dependent
ecosystems.

Carbon moves through the carbon cycle

Carbon serves a dual purpose for organisms: (1) it is a structural component of organic
molecules, and (2) the energy-holding chemical bonds it forms represent energy “storage.”
The carbon cycle begins with the intake of carbon dioxide (CO 2) by photosynthetic
organisms. Carbon (and hydrogen and oxygen) atoms are incorporated into sugar
molecules during photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is eventually released during respiration,
closing the cycle. The carbon cycle is of special interest because biological accumulation
and release of carbon is a major factor in climate regulation.

The path followed by an individual carbon atom in this cycle may be quite direct and
rapid, depending on how it is used in an organism’s body. Imagine for a moment what
happens to a simple sugar molecule you swallow in a glass of fruit juice. The sugar
molecule is absorbed into your bloodstream where it is made available to your cells for
cellular respiration or for making more complex biomolecules. If it is used in respiration,
you may exhale the same carbon atom as CO2 the same day.

Can you think of examples where carbon may not be recycled for even longer periods
of time, if ever? Coal and oil are the compressed, chemically altered remains of plants or
microorganisms that lived millions of years ago. Their carbon atoms (and hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, etc.) are not released until the coal and oil are burned. Enormous
amounts of carbon also are locked up as calcium carbonate (CaCO3), used to build shells
and skeletons of marine organisms from tiny protozoans to corals. Most of these deposits
are at the bottom of the oceans. The world’s extensive surface limestone deposits are
biologically formed calcium carbonate from ancient oceans, exposed by geological events.
The carbon in limestone has been locked away for millennia, which is probably the fate of
carbon currently being deposited in ocean sediments. Eventually, even the deep ocean
deposits are recycled as they are drawn into deep molten layers and released via volcanic
activity. Geologists estimate that every carbon atom on the earth has made about thirty
such round trips over the last 4 billion years.

How does tying up so much carbon in the bodies and byproducts of organisms affect
the biosphere? Favorably. It helps balance CO2 generation and utilization. Carbon dioxide
is one of the so-called greenhouse gases because it absorbs heat radiated from the earth’s
surface, retaining it instead in the atmosphere. Photosynthesis, accumulation of organic
matter in soils and wetlands, and deposition of CaCO3 remove atmospheric carbon
dioxide; therefore, expansive forested areas such as the boreal forests, and the oceans are
very important carbon sinks (storage deposits). Cellular respiration and combustion both
release CO2, so they are referred to as carbon sources in the cycle.
 Fig 1.6 The carbon cycle. Numbers indicate approximate exchange of carbon in
gigatons (Gt) per year. Natural exchanges are balanced, but human sources produce a net
increase of CO 2 in the atmosphere.

Nitrogen is not always biologically available

As the opening case study of this chapter shows, nitrogen often is one of the most
important limiting factors in ecosystems. The complex interrelationships through which
organisms exchange this vital element help shape these biological communities. Organisms
cannot exist without amino acids, peptides, nucleic acids, and proteins, all of which are
organic molecules containing nitrogen. The nitrogen atoms that form these important
molecules are provided by producer organisms. Plants assimilate (take up) inorganic
nitrogen from the environment and use it to build their own protein molecules, which are
eaten by consumer organisms, digested, and used to build their bodies. However, the most
abundant form of nitrogen, N2 gas (which makes up about 78 percent of the atmosphere),
is too stable to be broken up and used by plants.

How, then, do green plants get nitrogen? The answer lies in the most complex of the
gaseous cycles, the nitrogen cycle. Figure 1.7 summarizes the nitrogen cycle. The key
natural processes that make nitrogen available are carried out by nitrogen-fixing bacteria
(including some blue-green algae or cyanobacteria). These organisms have a highly
specialized ability to “fix” nitrogen, meaning they change it to less mobile, more useful
forms by combining it with hydrogen to make ammonia (NH 3). Other bacteria combine the
NH3 with oxygen, forming nitrite (NO2 –), then nitrate (NO3 –), which can be absorbed and
used by green plants. After nitrates have been absorbed into plant cells, they are reduced to
ammonium (NH4 + ), which is used to build amino acids that become the building blocks
for peptides and proteins.

Fig 1.7 The nitrogen cycle. Human sources of nitrogen fixation (conversion of
molecular nitrogen to ammonia or ammonium) are now about 50 percent greater than
natural sources. Bacteria convert ammonia to nitrates, which plants use to create organic
nitrogen. Eventually, nitrogen is stored in sediments or converted back to molecular
nitrogen (1 Tg = 10 12 g).

Members of the bean family (legumes) and a few other kinds of plants are especially
useful in agriculture because they have nitrogen-fixing bacteria actually living in their
root tissues. Legumes and their associated bacteria enrich the soil, so interplanting and
rotating legumes with crops such as corn that use but cannot replace soil nitrates are
beneficial farming practices that take practical advantage of this relationship. Nitrogen
leaves an organism and reenters the environment in several ways. The most obvious path is
through the death of organisms. Their bodies are decomposed by fungi and bacteria,
releasing ammonia and ammonium ions, which then are available for nitrate formation.
Organisms also release proteins when plants shed their leaves, needles, flowers, fruits, and
cones; or when animals shed hair, feathers, skin, exoskeletons, pupal cases, and silk,
excrement, or urine, all of which are rich in nitrogen. Urinary wastes are especially high
in nitrogen because they contain the detoxified wastes of protein metabolism. All of these
by-products of living organisms decompose, replenishing soil fertility.

In oxygen-poor conditions, denitrifying bacteria may convert nitrate (NO3 –) into N2

and nitrous oxide (N 2 O), both gaseous forms that return to the atmosphere.
Denitrification occurs mainly in waterlogged soils that have low oxygen availability and a
high amount of decomposable organic matter. Because wetlands lose so much nitrogen to
the atmosphere, carnivorous plants often occur in wetlands. These plants acquire nitrogen
by capturing and decomposing insects in their leaves.

In recent years, humans have profoundly altered the nitrogen cycle. By using synthetic
fertilizers, cultivating nitrogen-fixing soybeans and other crops, and burning fossil fuels,
we have more than doubled the amount of nitrogen cycled through our global environment.
As you are aware, this excess nitrogen input destabilizes rivers, lakes, and estuaries. In
terrestrial systems, nitrogen enrichment encourages the spread of weeds into areas such as
prairies, where native plants adapted to nitrogen-poor environments compete poorly
against quick-responding weeds. In addition, N2O is an important greenhouse gas.

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient

Minerals become available to organisms after they are released from rocks. Two
minerals of particular significance to organisms are phosphorus and sulfur. Phosphorus is
a primary ingredient in fertilizers. Why? At the cellular level, energy-rich, phosphorus
containing compounds, such as ATP, are primary participants in energy-transfer reactions.
Phosphorus is also a key component of proteins, enzymes, and tissues. The amount of
available phosphorus in an environment can, therefore, have a dramatic effect on
productivity. Abundant phosphorus stimulates lush plant and algal growth, making it a
major contributor to water pollution.
The phosphorus cycle is not really a cycle on the time scale of the other cycles
discussed here, because phosphorus has no atmospheric form. Instead, phosphorus travels
gradually downstream, as it is leached from rocks and minerals, taken up by the food web,
and eventually released into water bodies that deliver it to the ocean. Phosphorus may
cycle repeatedly through the food web, as inorganic phosphorus is taken up by primary
producers (plants), incorporated into organic molecules, and then passed on to consumers.
Eventually, phosphorus washes down river to the ocean. Deep sediments of the oceans are
significant phosphorus sinks of extreme longevity. Over geologic time, these deposits may
be uplifted into mountains or continents, where they become available to terrestrial life
again. Phosphate ores that now are mined to make detergents and inorganic fertilizers
represent exposed ocean sediments that are millions of years old. As with nitrogen, we
have dramatically accelerated the movement of phosphorus in our environment. Aquatic
ecosystems often are dramatically affected, as excess phosphates stimulate explosive
growth of algae and photosynthetic bacteria populations, upsetting ecosystem stability.

Fig 1.8 The phosphorus cycle. Natural movement of phosphorus is slight, involving
recycling within ecosytems and some erosion and sedimentation of phosphorus-bearing
rock. Use of phosphate (PO4−3) fertilizers and cleaning agents increases phosphorus in
aquatic systems, causing eutrophication. Units are teragrams (Tg) phosphorus per year.
Sulfur is both a nutrient and an acidic pollutant

Sulfur is a minor but essential component of proteins, so it is important to living

organisms. Sulfur compounds are important determinants of the acidity of rainfall, surface
water, and soil. Most of the earth’s sulfur is tied up underground in rocks and minerals
such as iron disulfide (pyrite) or calcium sulfate (gypsum). This inorganic sulfur
is released into air and water by weathering, emissions from deep
seafloor vents, and by volcanic eruptions. The sulfur cycle is
complicated by the large number of oxidation states the element
can assume, including hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S), sulfur dioxide (SO
2 ), sulfate ion (SO 4 −2 ), and sulfur, among others. Inorganic
processes are responsible for many of these transformations, but
living organisms, especially bacteria, also sequester sulfur in
biogenic deposits or release it into the environment. Which of
the several kinds of sulfur bacteria prevail in any given
situation depends on oxygen concentrations, pH, and light levels.

Fig 1.9 The sulfur cycle. Sulfur is present mainly in rocks, soil, and water. It cycles
through ecosystems when it is taken in by organisms. Combustion of fossil fuels causes
increased levels of atmospheric sulfur compounds, which create problems related to acid
precipitation.

Human activities also release large quantities of sulfur, primarily through burning
fossil fuels. Total yearly anthropogenic sulfur emissions rival those of natural processes,
and acid rain caused by sulfuric acid produced as a result of fossil fuel use is a serious
problem in many areas. Sulfur dioxide and sulfate aerosols cause human health problems,
damage buildings and vegetation, and reduce visibility. They also absorb UV radiation and
create cloud cover that cools cities and may be offsetting greenhouse effects of rising CO2
concentrations.