BIOA02H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 48.3: Carbon Cycle, Nitrogen Cycle, Primary Production

• School: UTSC
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIOA02H3
• Professor: Ivana Stehlik

Document Summary

Biogeochemical cycles cycles of carbon and other biologically important elements; these link organisms and their environment in the chemical cycling of the raw materials needed for life. These cycles provide fundamental ecological circuitry of life, sustaining life in all its diversity over long timescales. The biological carbon cycle shapes ecological interactions and re ects evolution. Organisms cycle carbon through terrestrial and marine biomes. All ecological complexity of ecosystems and biomes begins with primary producers, the autotrophic organisms that convert co2 into organic molecules. On land, primary production is dominated by single phylogenetic group of photosynthetic organisms, vascular plants. Tremendous variety of forms observed among plants in diff biomes re ects evolutionary adaptation to differing environments. In oceans, distinct groups of algae and cyanobacteria convert co2 to organic molecules and the diversity of these primary producers re ects adaptations to physical and chemical features of diff water masses.