Biogeochemical cycle

A biogeochemical cycle, or more generally a cycle of matter, is the movement and transformation of chemical elements and compounds between living organisms, the atmosphere, and the Earth's crust. Major biogeochemical cycles include the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle. In each cycle, the chemical element or molecule is transformed and cycled by living organisms and through various geological forms and reservoirs, including the atmosphere, the soil and the oceans. It can be thought of as the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles the biotic compartment and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the abiotic compartments are the atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere.
For example, in the carbon cycle, atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed by plants through photosynthesis, which converts it into organic compounds that are used by organisms for energy and growth. Carbon is then released back into the atmosphere through respiration and decomposition. Additionally, carbon is stored in fossil fuels and is released into the atmosphere through human activities such as burning fossil fuels. In the nitrogen cycle, atmospheric nitrogen gas is converted by plants into usable forms such as ammonia and nitrates through the process of nitrogen fixation. These compounds can be used by other organisms, and nitrogen is returned to the atmosphere through denitrification and other processes. In the water cycle, the universal solvent water evaporates from land and oceans to form clouds in the atmosphere, and then precipitates back to different parts of the planet. Precipitation can seep into the ground and become part of groundwater systems used by plants and other organisms, or can runoff the surface to form lakes and rivers. Subterranean water can then seep into the ocean along with river discharges, rich with dissolved and particulate organic matter and other nutrients.
There are biogeochemical cycles for many other elements, such as for oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus, calcium, iron, sulfur, mercury and selenium. There are also cycles for molecules, such as water and silica. In addition there are macroscopic cycles such as the rock cycle, and human-induced cycles for synthetic compounds such as for polychlorinated biphenyls. In some cycles there are geological reservoirs where substances can remain or be sequestered for long periods of time.
Biogeochemical cycles involve the interaction of biological, geological, and chemical processes. Biological processes include the influence of microorganisms, which are critical drivers of biogeochemical cycling. Microorganisms have the ability to carry out wide ranges of metabolic processes essential for the cycling of nutrients and chemicals throughout global ecosystems. Without microorganisms many of these processes would not occur, with significant impact on the functioning of land and ocean ecosystems and the planet's biogeochemical cycles as a whole. Changes to cycles can impact human health. 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 other environmental problems.

Overview

Energy flows directionally through ecosystems, entering as sunlight and leaving as heat during the many transfers between trophic levels. However, the matter that makes up living organisms is conserved and recycled. The six most common elements associated with organic molecules — carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur — take a variety of chemical forms and may exist for long periods in the atmosphere, on land, in water, or beneath the Earth's surface. Geologic processes, such as weathering, erosion, water drainage, and the subduction of the continental plates, all play a role in this recycling of materials. Because geology and chemistry have major roles in the study of this process, the recycling of inorganic matter between living organisms and their environment is called a biogeochemical cycle.
The six aforementioned elements are used by organisms in a variety of ways. Hydrogen and oxygen are found in water and organic molecules, both of which are essential to life. Carbon is found in all organic molecules, whereas nitrogen is an important component of nucleic acids and proteins. Phosphorus is used to make nucleic acids and the phospholipids that comprise biological membranes. Sulfur is critical to the three-dimensional shape of proteins. The cycling of these elements is interconnected. For example, the movement of water is critical for leaching sulfur and phosphorus into rivers which can then flow into oceans. Minerals cycle through the biosphere between the biotic and abiotic components and from one organism to another.
Ecological systems have many biogeochemical cycles operating as a part of the system, for example, the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, etc. All chemical elements occurring in organisms are part of biogeochemical cycles. In addition to being a part of living organisms, these chemical elements also cycle through abiotic factors of ecosystems such as water, land, and/or the air.
The living factors of the planet can be referred to collectively as the biosphere. All the nutrients — such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur — used in ecosystems by living organisms are a part of a closed system; therefore, these chemicals are recycled instead of being lost and replenished constantly such as in an open system.
The major parts of the biosphere are connected by the flow of chemical elements and compounds in biogeochemical cycles. In many of these cycles, the biota plays an important role. Matter from the Earth's interior is released by volcanoes. The atmosphere exchanges some compounds and elements rapidly with the biota and oceans. Exchanges of materials between rocks, soils, and the oceans are generally slower by comparison.
The flow of energy in an ecosystem is an open system; the Sun constantly gives the planet energy in the form of light while it is eventually used and lost in the form of heat throughout the trophic levels of a food web. Carbon is used to make carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, the major sources of food energy. These compounds are oxidized to release carbon dioxide, which can be captured by plants to make organic compounds. The chemical reaction is powered by the light energy of sunshine.
Sunlight is required to combine carbon with hydrogen and oxygen into an energy source, but ecosystems in the deep sea, where no sunlight can penetrate, obtain energy from sulfur. Hydrogen sulfide near hydrothermal vents can be utilized by organisms such as the giant tube worm. In the sulfur cycle, sulfur can be forever recycled as a source of energy. Energy can be released through the oxidation and reduction of sulfur compounds.
Although the Earth constantly receives energy from the Sun, its chemical composition is essentially fixed, as the additional matter is only occasionally added by meteorites. Because this chemical composition is not replenished like energy, all processes that depend on these chemicals must be recycled. These cycles include both the living biosphere and the nonliving lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere.
Biogeochemical cycles can be contrasted with geochemical cycles. The latter deals only with crustal and subcrustal reservoirs even though some process from both overlap.

Compartments

Biogeochemical cycles operate by moving substances, which may also undergo chemical rearrangements, through pathways in the biotic compartment and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the abiotic compartments are the atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere.

Biotic compartment

Biosphere

Microorganisms drive much of the biogeochemical cycling in the earth system.

Abiotic compartments

Atmosphere

Hydrosphere

The global ocean covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface and is remarkably heterogeneous. Marine productive areas, and coastal ecosystems comprise a minor fraction of the ocean in terms of surface area, yet have an enormous impact on global biogeochemical cycles carried out by microbial communities, which represent 90% of the ocean's biomass. Work in recent years has largely focused on cycling of carbon and macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicate: other important elements such as sulfur or trace elements have been less studied, reflecting associated technical and logistical issues. Increasingly, these marine areas, and the taxa that form their ecosystems, are subject to significant anthropogenic pressure, impacting marine life and recycling of energy and nutrients. A key example is that of cultural eutrophication, where agricultural runoff leads to nitrogen and phosphorus enrichment of coastal ecosystems, greatly increasing productivity resulting in algal blooms, deoxygenation of the water column and seabed, and increased greenhouse gas emissions, with direct local and global impacts on nitrogen and carbon cycles. However, the runoff of organic matter from the mainland to coastal ecosystems is just one of a series of pressing threats stressing microbial communities due to global change. Climate change has also resulted in changes in the cryosphere, as glaciers and permafrost melt, resulting in intensified marine stratification, while shifts of the redox-state in different biomes are rapidly reshaping microbial assemblages at an unprecedented rate.
Global change is, therefore, affecting key processes including primary productivity, CO₂ and N₂ fixation, organic matter respiration/remineralization, and the sinking and burial deposition of fixed CO₂. In addition to this, oceans are experiencing an acidification process, with a change of ~0.1 pH units between the pre-industrial period and today, affecting carbonate/bicarbonate buffer chemistry. In turn, acidification has been reported to impact planktonic communities, principally through effects on calcifying taxa. There is also evidence for shifts in the production of key intermediary volatile products, some of which have marked greenhouse effects (e.g., N₂O and CH₄, reviewed by Breitburg in 2018, due to the increase in global temperature, ocean stratification and deoxygenation, driving as much as 25 to 50% of nitrogen loss from the ocean to the atmosphere in the so-called oxygen minimum zones or anoxic marine zones, driven by microbial processes. Other products, that are typically toxic for the marine nekton, including reduced sulfur species such as H₂S, have a negative impact for marine resources like fisheries and coastal aquaculture. While global change has accelerated, there has been a parallel increase in awareness of the complexity of marine ecosystems, and especially the fundamental role of microbes as drivers of ecosystem functioning.