nutrient cycle
Matter's biological loop
A nutrient cycle is the movement of essential elements—carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus—through ecosystems as organisms consume, transform, and release them.
Plants absorb nutrients from soil, animals eat plants, decomposers break down dead matter, and nutrients return to soil or atmosphere to begin again.
Human activity has disrupted the nitrogen cycle through fertilizer overuse.
- decompositionBreakdown into simpler parts
- dead leavesFallen, withered foliage
- nitrogenElement seven, colorless gas
- nitrogen fixationConverting inert gas to ammonia
- carbonSixth element, atomic symbol C
carbon sink · photosynthesis · decay · soil · bacteria · fungi · compost · phosphorus · ecosystem · food web · food chain · humus · microbes · respiration · roots · leaf litter · mineralization · uptake
- ecologyhabitat, ecosystem, balance, niche, food webs
- ecosystemecosystem, ecosystems, biome, habitat, food chain
- Natural Processesphotosynthesis, decomposition, evaporation, erosion, precipitation
- foodchainproducer, consumer, predator, prey, apex predator
- Earth systemsbiosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, geosphere
- biogeochemical cyclesbiogeochemistry, mineralization, evaporation, precipitation
nutrient cycledissipation
Gradual loss or scattering
throughput · energy flow · leaching · open system · outflow
nutrient cyclenutrient depletion
Loss of essential substances
eutrophication · desertification · ecosystem collapse · dead zone · barren soil
nutrient, cycle, nutrients, nutrient-rich, nutrition, nutritional, nutritionally, nutritious, nutritiously