The Carbon Cycle

Most of the chemicals that make up living tissue contain carbon. When organisms die the carbon is recycled so that it can be used by future generations. The model that describes the processes involved is called the carbon cycle.

The element carbon is the present in all living organisms. It 's recycled through various processes

Carbon dioxide is an atmospheric constituent that plays several vital roles in the environment. It is a greenhouse gas that traps infrared radiation heat in the atmosphere. It plays a crucial role in the weathering of rocks. It is the carbon source for plants. It is stored in biomass, organic matter in sediments, and in carbonate rocks like limestone..

Paragraph1 photosynthesis involves chemical reactions in which

The acid is decarboxylated inside the bundle sheath cells and the CO2 is concentrated inside these cells. Rubisco is flooded with CO2and sugars are made in abundance using the Calvin cycle. Concentrating carbon dioxide in the bundle sheath cells minimizes photorespiration.

The carbon cycle is important in ecosystems because it moves carbon, a life-sustaining element, from the atmosphere and oceans into organisms and back again to the atmosphere and oceans. If the balance between these latter two reservoirs is upset, serious consequences, such as global warming and climate disruption, may result.

Nitrogen is essential for the formation of amino acids to make proteins. The nitrogen cycle describes the ways in which nitrogen is recycled

Nitrogen is essential for the formation of amino acids in proteins. The nitrogen cycle is a model that explains how nitrogen is recycled.

There 's lot of nitrogen in air – about 78% of the air is nitrogen. Because nitrogen is so unreactive, it cannot be used directly by plants to make protein. Only nitrates are useful to plants, so we are dependent on other processes to convert nitrogen to nitrates in the

Nearly every ecosystem depends upon photosynthesis and every ecosystem depends upon decomposition. In the process of photosynthesis, plants use light, water, carbon dioxide, energy, and nutrients to produce living biomass. Ultimately, it is the process of decomposition that returns the water, carbon dioxide, and nutrients back to nonliving state so that they are once again usable to plants. Only a small part of the biomass fixed by producers is actually eaten by consumers. In general, only a small fraction of the primary consumers are eaten by secondary consumers, and so on. (It depends upon the ecosystem, in some aquatic ecosystems, a pretty significant fraction of every trophic level is consumed by the next, but this is the exception rather than the rule). Animals are very good at getting away from predators, and many harbor toxins or other defensive mechanisms. Plants are likewise well defended, by spines, toxic compounds, durable coverings, and the like. Thus, parts of living organisms may be undigestable, well-defended, or otherwise unavailable to the consumers in a community. Ultimately though, everything dies, and dead organic material accumulates in communities in the form of leaf litter, detritus, dead bodies of other organisms, and the undigestable parts of plants and animals left over in animal feces. Decomposition is an essential process in every ecosystem. Without it,