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GEE 1-ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
2nd Semester, A.Y. 2022-2023

Module 3: Biogeochemical Cycles and their Importance

I. LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon the completion of the course, you are expected to:
a) Discuss he concepts of the different biogeochemical cycles and elucidate why they are essential
to all living things on Earth.
b) Explain how human activities have impacted these cycles and the resulting potential
consequences on the planet.
II. LEARNING ACTIVITIES/RESOURCES
 Synchronous discussion.
 Watch the following videos on YouTube:
Water cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=iohKd5FWZOE&feature=related
Carbon cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vwa6qtEih8
Nitrogen cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdY4I-
EaqJA&feature=fvw
Red tide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi0j0Syj2a8
 Write an essay: Recently, there was a “fish kill” in the waters of the Baseco area in
Tondo, Manila which kills different species of fishes. Using your own scientific (exclude
political) viewpoints, what do you think is the reason behind this mortality?
Introduction (with Core Values/Bible Integration)

The Hydrological Cycle Description in the Bible:

Because water is a necessary component of life it is not surprising that the Bible has something
to say on the distribution and movement of water. The Bible does not raise these matters in a scientific
or explanatory manner. Rather, God speaks to His people using common language and common
concepts. Water is a common topic.The Book of Job makes a number of points on what we today call
the hydrologic cycle. But unlike the reflections of Thales, Job provides a clear description of the
concepts that underpin the hydrologic cycle:
“He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight” (Job 26:8).

“He draws up the drops of water, which distil as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their
moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind” (Job 36:27–28).
As noted earlier, these verses were not primarily provided as explanations of a hydrologic cycle.
Rather they were used as commonly understood images to illustrate God’s Kingdom, and in the
scripture listed above of God’s authority over mankind. In Job 28:26 God uses the water cycle to
demonstrate that He does not deal with His people by chance but that just as nature is bound by a set of
decrees so too is God’s Kingdom bound by laws. Job 38:33–34 reiterates His dominion over the earth
and these laws, challenging humanity to comprehend His authority. Having illustrated Job’s ignorance

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of these matters, Job 38:37 further highlights mankind’s weakness by focusing on their inability to
comprehend the most visible works of nature.
Though the purpose of these verses was to illustrate God’s Kingdom, nonetheless they contain some
powerful hydrologic concepts that were well beyond the thinking of natural philosophers and scholars
of the day. https://creation.com/the-bible-and-the-hydrologic-cycle

Body

A. GASEOUS CYCLE
Gaseous cycles include those of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and water.
a) Water cycle
o vital to all organisms and its availability influences rates of ecosystem processes.
b) The Carbon Cycle

o Carbon is important because organic molecules have a carbon framework.

c) The Nitrogen Cycle
o nitrogen is a component of amino acids, proteins, and nucleic acids. It may be
limiting plant nutrient.
d) The Oxygen Cycle
o oxygen is essential for aerobic respiration in animals. Oxygen (O2) is one of the
most important elements required to sustain life.

B. Sedimentary Cycle
Elements that are less mobile in the environment, such as phosphorus, sulfur, and trace elements
generally cycle on a more localized scale in the short term. Soil is the main abiotic reservoir of
these elements.
a) The Phosphorus Cycle
o Phosphorus is a component of nucleic acids, phospholipids, and ATP and other
energy storing molecules. It is a mineral constituent of bones and teeth.
b) The Sulfur Cycle
o Sulfur is an essential element for the molecules of living things.

The Water Cycle

 Water is essential for all living processes.

 The human body is more than one-half water and human cells are more than 70 percent water.
 Thus, most land animals need a supply of fresh water to survive. Of the stores of water on Earth,
97.5 percent is salt water.
 Of the remaining water, 99 percent is locked as underground water or ice. Thus, less than one
percent of fresh water is present in lakes and rivers.
 Many living things are dependent on this small amount of surface fresh water supply, a lack of
which can have important effects on ecosystem dynamics.

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 Humans, of course, have developed technologies to increase water availability, such as digging
wells to harvest groundwater, storing rainwater, and using desalination to obtain drinkable water
from the ocean. Although this pursuit of drinkable water has been ongoing throughout human
history, the supply of fresh water continues to be a major issue in modern times.

Only 2.5 percent of water on Earth is fresh water, and less than 1 percent of fresh water is easily
accessible to living things.

The various processes that occur during the cycling of water are illustrated. The processes include the
following:

 evaporation and sublimation

 condensation and precipitation
 subsurface water flow
 surface runoff and snowmelt
 streamflow

 The water cycle is driven by the Sun’s energy as it warms the oceans and other surface waters.
 This leads to evaporation (water to water vapor) of liquid surface water and sublimation (ice to
water vapor) of frozen water, thus moving large amounts of water into the atmosphere as water
vapor.
 Over time, this water vapor condenses into clouds as liquid or frozen droplets and eventually
leads to precipitation (rain or snow), which returns water to Earth’s surface.
 Rain reaching Earth’s surface may evaporate again, flow over the surface, or percolate into the
ground.
 Most easily observed is surface runoff: the flow of fresh water either from rain or melting ice.
Runoff can make its way through streams and lakes to the oceans or flow directly to the oceans
themselves.

Groundwater

 is a significant reservoir of fresh water.

 It exists in the pores between particles in sand and gravel, or in the fissures in rocks.

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 Shallow groundwater flows slowly through these pores and fissures and eventually finds its way
to a stream or lake where it becomes a part of the surface water again.

 Streams do not flow because they are replenished from rainwater directly; they flow because
there is a constant inflow from groundwater below. Some groundwater is found very deep in the
bedrock and can persist there for millennia. Most groundwater reservoirs, or aquifers, are the
source of drinking or irrigation water drawn up through wells. In many cases these aquifers are
being depleted faster than they are being replenished by water percolating down from above.

Rain and surface runoff

 are major ways in which minerals, including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, are
cycled from land to water.
 The environmental effects of runoff will be discussed later as these cycles are described.

 Water from the land and oceans enters the atmosphere by evaporation or sublimation, where it
condenses into clouds and falls as rain or snow.
 Precipitated water may enter freshwater bodies or infiltrate the soil.
 The cycle is complete when surface or groundwater reenters the ocean.

The Carbon Cycle

 Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in living organisms.

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 Carbon is present in all organicMabini Extension, Cabanatuan City

molecules, and its role in the structure of macromolecules is of
primary importance to living organisms.
 Carbon compounds contain energy, and many of these compounds from plants and algae have
remained stored as fossilized carbon, which humans use as fuel.
 The carbon cycle is most easily studied as two interconnected subcycles: one dealing with rapid
carbon exchange among living organisms and the other dealing with the long-term cycling of
carbon through geologic processes.

 Carbon dioxide gas exists in the atmosphere and is dissolved in water.

 Photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide gas to organic carbon, and respiration cycles the organic
carbon back into carbon dioxide gas.
 Long-term storage of organic carbon occurs when matter from living organisms is buried deep
underground and becomes fossilized.
 Volcanic activity and, more recently, human emissions bring this stored carbon back into the
carbon cycle.

The Nitrogen Cycle

 Getting nitrogen into the living world is difficult. Plants and phytoplankton are not equipped to
incorporate nitrogen from the atmosphere (which exists as tightly bonded, triple covalent N 2)
even though this molecule comprises approximately 78 percent of the atmosphere.
 Nitrogen enters the living world via free-living and symbiotic bacteria, which incorporate
nitrogen into their macromolecules through nitrogen fixation (conversion of N2).

 Organic nitrogen is especially important to the study of ecosystem dynamics since many
ecosystem processes, such as primary production and decomposition, are limited by the
available supply of nitrogen.

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 The nitrogen that enters livingMabini Extension, Cabanatuan City

systems by nitrogen fixation is eventually converted from
organic nitrogen back into nitrogen gas by bacteria.

 This process occurs in three steps in terrestrial systems: ammonification, nitrification, and
denitrification.

 First, the ammonification process converts nitrogenous waste from living animals or from the
remains of dead animals into ammonium (NH4+ ) by certain bacteria and fungi.

 Second, this ammonium is then converted to nitrites (NO 2−) by nitrifying bacteria, such
as Nitrosomonas, through nitrification. Subsequently, nitrites are converted to nitrates (NO 3−) by
similar organisms.

 Lastly, the process of denitrification occurs, whereby bacteria, such

as Pseudomonas and Clostridium, convert the nitrates into nitrogen gas, thus allowing it to re-
enter the atmosphere.

 Nitrogen enters the living world from the atmosphere through nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
 This nitrogen and nitrogenous waste from animals is then processed back into gaseous nitrogen
by soil bacteria, which also supply terrestrial food webs with the organic nitrogen they need.

Human activity can release nitrogen into the environment by two primary means: the combustion of
fossil fuels, which releases different nitrogen oxides, and by the use of artificial fertilizers (which
contain nitrogen and phosphorus compounds) in agriculture, which are then washed into lakes, streams,
and rivers by surface runoff. Atmospheric nitrogen (other than N 2) is associated with several effects on
Earth’s ecosystems including the production of acid rain (as nitric acid, HNO 3) and greenhouse gas

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effects (as nitrous oxide, N2O), potentially causing climate change. A major effect from fertilizer runoff
is saltwater and freshwater eutrophication, a process whereby nutrient runoff causes the overgrowth of
algae and a number of consequential problems.

The Phosphorus cycle

 Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for living processes; it is a major component of nucleic acids
and phospholipids, and, as calcium phosphate, makes up the supportive components of our
bones.
 Phosphorus is often the limiting nutrient (necessary for growth) in aquatic, particularly
freshwater, ecosystems.
 Phosphorus occurs in nature as the phosphate ion (PO43-).
 In addition to phosphate runoff as a result of human activity, natural surface runoff occurs
when it is leached from phosphate-containing rock by weathering, thus sending phosphates into
rivers, lakes, and the ocean. This rock has its origins in the ocean.
 Phosphorus is also reciprocally exchanged between phosphate dissolved in the ocean and
marine organisms.
 The movement of phosphate from the ocean to the land and through the soil is extremely slow,
with the average phosphate ion having an oceanic residence time between 20,000 and 100,000
years.

 In nature, phosphorus exists as the phosphate ion (PO 43-). Weathering of rocks and volcanic
activity releases phosphate into the soil, water, and air, where it becomes available to terrestrial
food webs.

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 Phosphate enters the oceans inMabini Extension, Cabanatuan City

surface runoff, groundwater flow, and river flow. Phosphate
dissolved in ocean water cycles into marine food webs. Some phosphate from the marine food
webs falls to the ocean floor, where it forms sediment.
 Excess phosphorus and nitrogen that enter these ecosystems from fertilizer runoff and from
sewage cause excessive growth of algae. The subsequent death and decay of these organisms
depletes dissolved oxygen, which leads to the death of aquatic organisms, such as shellfish and
finfish. This process is responsible for dead zones in lakes and at the mouths of many major
rivers and for massive fish kills, which often occur during the summer months .

 Dead zones occur when phosphorus and nitrogen from fertilizers cause excessive growth of
microorganisms, which depletes oxygen and kills fauna. Worldwide, large dead zones are found
in areas of high population density
 A dead zone is an area in lakes and oceans near the mouths of rivers where large areas are
periodically depleted of their normal flora and fauna; these zones can be caused by
eutrophication, oil spills, dumping toxic chemicals, and other human activities.

The Sulfur Cycle

 Sulfur is an essential element for the macromolecules of living things. As part of the amino acid
cysteine, it is involved in the formation of proteins.
 Atmospheric sulfur is found in the form of sulfur dioxide (SO 2), which enters the atmosphere in
three ways: first, from the decomposition of organic molecules; second, from volcanic activity
and geothermal vents; and, third, from the burning of fossil fuels by humans.

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 Sulfur dioxide from the atmosphere becomes available to terrestrial and marine ecosystems
when it is dissolved in precipitation as weak sulfurous acid or when it falls directly to Earth as
fallout.
 Weathering of rocks also makes sulfates available to terrestrial ecosystems.
 Decomposition of living organisms returns sulfates to the ocean, soil, and atmosphere.
 On land, sulfur is deposited in four major ways: precipitation, direct fallout from the
atmosphere, rock weathering, and geothermal vents .
 Atmospheric sulfur is found in the form of sulfur dioxide (SO 2), and as rain falls through the
atmosphere, sulfur is dissolved in the form of weak sulfurous acid (H2SO3).
 Sulfur can also fall directly from the atmosphere in a process called fallout.
 Also, as sulfur-containing rocks weather, sulfur is released into the soil.
 These rocks originate from ocean sediments that are moved to land by the geologic uplifting of
ocean sediments.
 Terrestrial ecosystems can then make use of these soil sulfates (SO 42-), which enter the food web
by being taken up by plant roots. When these plants decompose and die, sulfur is released back
into the atmosphere as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas.

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At this sulfur vent in Lassen VolcanicMabini Extension, Cabanatuan City

National Park in northeastern California, the yellowish sulfur
deposits are visible near the mouth of the vent.

 Sulfur enters the ocean in runoff from land, from atmospheric fallout, and from underwater
geothermal vents. Some ecosystems rely on chemoautotrophs using sulfur as a biological energy
source.
 This sulfur then supports marine ecosystems in the form of sulfates.

Human activities have played a major role in altering the balance of the global sulfur cycle. The
burning of large quantities of fossil fuels, especially from coal, releases larger amounts of hydrogen
sulfide gas into the atmosphere. As rain falls through this gas, it creates the phenomenon known as acid
rain, which damages the natural environment by lowering the pH of lakes, thus killing many of the
resident plants and animals. Acid rain is corrosive rain caused by rainwater falling to the ground
through sulfur dioxide gas, turning it into weak sulfuric acid, which causes damage to aquatic
ecosystems. Acid rain also affects the man-made environment through the chemical degradation of
buildings.

Summary and Conclusion (With Life Application/Uses)

A biogeochemical cycle is a pathway through which a chemical substance moves
between biotic and abiotic compartments of an ecosystem. The main role of a biogeochemical cycle is
to recycle the elements on the earth. Biogeochemical cycle enables the transformation of matter from
one form to another form. The byproducts of biogeochemical cycles assist the functioning of
ecosystems. The types of elements recycled can be either micronutrients or macronutrients. Some
examples of biogeochemical cycles are carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorus cycle, water cycle, etc.
At the ecosystem level, biogeochemical cycles perform a variety of functions.

1. Biogeochemical cycles enable the transfer of molecules from one locality to

another. This allows the transformation of elements into utilizable forms. As an example,
during nitrogen cycle, atmospheric nitrogen is transformed into nitrates.
2. Biogeochemical cycles enable the transformation of nutrients from one form to
another. This allows the utilization of nutrients in specific forms by a particular organism.
As an example, different species of nitrogen-fixing bacteria utilize different forms of
nitrogen. Hence, nutrients do not become a limiting factor for growth.
3. Biogeochemical cycles facilitate the storage of elements – Different types of nutrient
reservoirs are produced by each of the different steps of the biogeochemical cycles.
4. Biogeochemical cycles assist in the functioning of ecosystems – The biotic and abiotic
components of the ecosystem are linked by the flow of nutrients through biogeochemical
cycles. Different types of organisms utilize different levels of nutrients.

References:

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WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY-PHILIPPINES

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Akre B, Brainard J, Goose H, Rogers-Estable, and Stewart R (2011): Introduction to
Environmental Science, FlexBook Platform, USA.

Course-notes.org. Chapter 54 – Ecosystems.

https://course-notes.org/biology/outlines/chapter_54_ecosystems

Fischer, M. (2018). Environmental Biology. Pressbooks. Retrieved from

https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/envirobiology/chapter/3-2-biogeochemical-cycles/

StuDocu. Chapter 54 – Ecosystems. https://www.studocu.com/sg/document/universidad-

catolica-de-santiago-de-guayaquil/biologia/summaries/chapter-54-ecosystems/5228500/view

Pfattheicher, S., Sassenrath, C., and Schindler, S. (2015). Feelings for the Suffering of Others
and the Environment: Compassion Fosters Proenvironmental Tendencies. Retrieved:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916515574549

Wikipedia. (2020). Oxygen cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_cycle

Assessment:
Multiple Choices: Choose the correct answer. Write only the letter on the space provided:

1._____The carbon reservoir most affected as a direct result of human activity is the;
a. deep ocean
b. vegetation
c. atmosphere
d. photosynthesis
2.____Bacteria turn atmospheric nitrogen into a form of nitrogen usable by plants through the process
of;
a. bacteria fixation
b. nitrogen fixation
c. denitrogenation
d. nitrogenation
3._____Which cycle most likely includes sunlight, photosynthesis and respiration?
a. water cycle
b. carbon cycle
c. oxygen cycle
d. nitrogen cycle
4.____Lightning, legmes and bacteria are a part of the ;
a. water cycle
b. nitrogen cycle
c. carbon cycle
d. phosphorus cycle
5. ____Which process is not a way that carbon in dead organisms is returned to the carbon cycle?
a. becoming fossil fuel

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b. combustion
c. decomposition
d. photosynthesis
B. Answer the following questions comprehensively:
1. How does the biogeochemical cycles contribute to the ecosystem?

2. Which biogeochemical cycle is the most important for life on Earth?

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