BIOL 11000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Nitrogen Fixation, Chon, Sulfur

• School: Purdue University
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIOL 11000
• Professor: Sean Humphrey

Document Summary

Cycling of chonps: each element has a reservoir, cycle between reservoir and organism, reservoir of element organism = incorporation, organism reservoir = return. Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen: cycling of c, h, and o connects photosynthesis and respiration, found in all biomolecules, co2+h2o (o2) + (ch2o)n, photosynthesis producers/energy stored energy released/respiration producers and consumers. This is a symbiotic relationship: fixation provides minor source of nitrogen globally (5%, nitrogen recycling, decomposers reclaim usable n from dead organisms and waste products. Through several steps organic n is converted to ammonia or a nitrate ion. Plants take ammonia and nitrate from soil and incorporate it into biomolecules. Animals get useful n from plants and return it through waste products and decomposition (cycle restarts: nitrogen sources, 5% from fixation, 95% needed for living things, n can also be returned to the air as n via denitrification.