CARBON CYCLE
•It is one of the most important cycles of the earth and allows for
carbon to be recycled and reused throughout the biosphere and all of
its organism.
•The carbon cycle was initially discovered by Joseph Priestley
(English Chemist & Teacher)* and Antonie Lavoisier (French Chemist
& Biologist)** and popularized by Humphry Davy (English Chemist)***.
* Joseph Priestley discovered Oxygen. In 1774 he prepared Oxygen.
**Antonie Lavoisier is known as “Father of modern Chemistry”. He recognized and named
Oxygen (1778) & Hydrogen (1783). He helped to construct the metric system.
*** Humphry Davy has discovered several elements including Na, K.
Carbon Cycle and Energy Flow
•Carbon is a basic constituent of all organic compounds and is
involved in the fixation of energy by photosynthesis.
•Carbon is so closely tied to energy flow that the two are inseparable.
•The ecosystem productivity has been expressed in terms of grams of
carbon fixed per square meter per year (g C/m2 /yr).
• It is now usually thought of as five major reservoirs of carbon
interconnected by pathways of exchange. These reservoirs are:
•The atmosphere
•The terrestrial biosphere, which is usually defined to include
freshwater systems and non-living organic material, such as soil
carbon.
•The oceans including dissolved inorganic carbon and living and
non-living marine biota.
•The sediments including fossil fuels.
•The Earth's interior, carbon from the Earth's mantle and crust is
released to the atmosphere and hydrosphere by volcanoes and
geothermal systems.
•The carbon cycle depends on the relative amounts of carbon residing in
each pool and on the rates of flux among the pools.
• The oceans contain the largest carbon pool (38,000 x 1015 g), followed by
soil (1,500 x 1015 g) and land plants (560 x 1015 g).
•Atmospheric carbon, primarily in the form of carbon dioxide and
methane, accounts < 1% of global carbon (720 x 1015 g).
*Flux means flow of energy from one reservoir to other.
•Photosynthesis draws CO2 from the air and water into the living
component of the ecosystem.
•Just as energy flows through the grazing food chain, carbon passes to
herbivores and then to carnivores.
•Primary producers and consumers release carbon back to the
atmosphere in the form of CO2 by respiration.
•The carbon in plant and animal tissue eventually goes to the dead
organic matter reservoir.
•Decomposers release it to the atmosphere through respiration.
Atmosphere
Plant biomass
Litter/soil
organic
matter
Carbon cycle in the terrestrial ecosystem.
The carbon cycle in aquatic ecosystem.
•The plants take up carbon during photosynthesis and release carbon
during respiration.
•The difference between take up in photosynthesis (GPP) and release by
respiration (R) is the net primary productivity - NPP (in units of carbon).
•The difference between net primary productivity and carbon lost through
consumers and decomposer respiration is the net ecosystem productivity.
Biological Pumping
•Globally, the oceans take in more carbon than they release into the
atmosphere and are thus considered to be carbon sinks.
•The dynamics of the flux of carbon dioxide at the air-sea interface is
controlled entirely by physical and biological processes within the vast
deeper waters of the ocean.
•Winds at the ocean’s surface ensure a rapid flux of carbon dioxide
across the surface waters, creating a situation in which the partial
pressure of carbon dioxide in the air is nearly in equilibrium with just
below the ocean's surface.
•Processes that move the products of primary production from the
surface waters into deeper waters, referred to as biological pumping.
(In ocean biogeochemistry, the biological pump is the sum of a suite of
biologically-mediated processes that transport carbon from the surface
euphotic zone to the ocean's interior.)
•Land plants take more carbon from the atmosphere in the
process of primary production (120 x 1015 g C/yr) than they
return via respiration (60x 1015 g C/yr). However, terrestrial-
atmospheric carbon exchange is roughly balanced in the long
term.
•Plants transfer the products of primary production to the soil
in the form of litter and dead organic material at the rate of
about 62 x 1015 g C/yr and much of that is returned to the
atmosphere by respiration and decomposition in the soil.
•The rate at which carbon cycles through the ecosystem is
determined by a number of processes, particularly the rates of
primary productivity and decomposition.
•Both processes are strongly influenced by environmental conditions
such as temperature and precipitation.
•In warm, wet ecosystems such as a tropical rain forest, rates of
productivity and decomposition are high and carbon cycles through
the ecosystem quickly.
•In cool, dry ecosystems, the process is slower. In ecosystem where
temperature are very low, decomposition is slow and dead organic
matter accumulates.
•In swamps and marshes, where dead material falls into the water,
organic material does not completely decompose. Stored as raw
humus or peat, carbon circulates very slowly. Over geologic time,
this buildup of partially decomposed organic matter in swamps and
marshes has formed fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas).
•Similar cycling takes place in freshwater and marine environments.
Phytoplankton uses the carbon dioxide that diffuses into the upper
layers of water or is present as carbonates and converts it into plant
tissue.
•The carbon then passes from the primary producers through the
aquatic food chain. The carbon dioxide produced through respiration is
either reutilized or reintroduced to the atmosphere by diffusion from
the water surface to the surrounding air.
•Significant portions of carbon can be bound as carbonates in the
bodies of mollusks and foraminifers.
•Some of these carbonates dissolve back into solution, while some
become buried in the bottom mud at varying depths when the organisms
die.
•Isolated from biotic activity, this carbon is removed from cycling.
Incorporated into bottom sediments, over geologic time it may appear in
coral reefs and limestone rocks.
Diurnal Fluctuation in Carbon Cycle
•The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fluctuates
throughout the day.
•For example, in a forest, at daylight, when photosynthesis begins, plants
start to withdraw carbon dioxide from the air, and the concentration
declines sharply.
•By afternoon, when the temperature is increasing and relative humidity
is decreasing, the rate of photosynthesis declines and the concentration
of carbon dioxide in the air surrounding the canopy increases.
•By sunset, photosynthesis ceases, carbon dioxide no longer is being
withdrawn from the atmosphere, respiration increases, and the
atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increases sharply. A similar
diurnal fluctuation takes place in aquatic ecosystems.
Seasonal Fluctuation
•There is a seasonal fluctuation in the production and utilization of
carbon dioxide that relates both to temperature and to the timing of
the growing and dormant seasons.
•With the onset of the growing season, when the landscape is
greening, the atmospheric concentration begins to drop as plants
withdraw carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.
•As the growing season reaches its end, photosynthesis declines or
ceases, respiration is the dominant process, and atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide rise.
•Although these patterns of seasonal rise and decline occur in both
aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, the fluctuations are much greater
in terrestrial environments.
