Biology › Section S · Ecosystems and conservation › Topic S.3
Biogeochemical cycles
Energy passes through an ecosystem once, but every atom in your body has been used before. Water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur loop between living things, air, water and rock, and human activity is now speeding up several of those loops.
In this topic
- Reservoirs, fluxes and residence time
- The water cycle
- The biological carbon cycle
- The slow carbon cycle and human change
- Worked example: is the forest a carbon sink?
- Nitrogen fixation
- Returning nitrogen to the air
- Worked example: following one nitrogen atom
- Phosphorus and sulfur
- Overloading the cycles
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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