Nutrient cycles

A nutrient cycle (or ecological recycling) is the movement and exchange of organic and inorganic matter back into the production of living matter. The process is regulated by food web pathways that decompose matter into mineral nutrients. Nutrient cycles occur within ecosystems. Ecosystems are interconnected systems where matter and energy flows and is exchanged as organisms feed, digest, and migrate about. Minerals and nutrients accumulate in varied densities and uneven configurations across the planet. Ecosystems recycle locally, converting mineral nutrients into the production of biomass, and on a larger scale they participate in a global system of inputs and outputs where matter is exchanged and transported through a larger system of biogeochemical cycles.

Particulate matter is recycled by biodiversity inhabiting the detritus in soils, water columns, and along particle surfaces (including 'aeolian dust'). Ecologists may refer to ecological recycling, organic recycling, biocycling, cycling, biogeochemical recycling, natural recycling, or just recycling in reference to the work of nature. Whereas the global biogeochemical cycles describe the natural movement and exchange of every kind of particulate matter through the living and non-living components of the Earth, nutrient cycling refers to the biodiversity within community food web systems that loop organic nutrients or water supplies back into production. The difference is a matter of scale and compartmentalization with nutrient cycles feeding into global biogeochemical cycles. Solar energy flows through ecosystems along unidirectional and noncyclic pathways, whereas the movement of mineral nutrients is cyclic. Mineral cycles include carbon cycle, sulfur cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle, phosphorus cycle, oxygen cycle, among others that continually recycle along with other mineral nutrients into productive ecological nutrition. Global biogeochemical cycles are the sum product of localized ecological recycling regulated by the action of food webs moving particulate matter from one living generation onto the next. Earths ecosystems have recycled mineral nutrients sustainably for billions of years.

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