Cycles In Nature
• What is MATTER?
• What are the phases, or states, of
matter?
• Give 3 examples of matter:
• Give 3 examples of non matter:
•Matter in the form of nutrients
also moves through the
organisms at each trophic level.
But matter cannot be replenished
like the energy from the sunlight.
•Elements that make up the bodies
of organisms alive today are the
same atoms that have been on
Earth since life began. Matter is
constantly recycled.
• Were going to learn about three
different types of cycles that occur
natural within our ecosystems.
1. water cycle
2. carbon cycle
3. nitrogen cycle
Draw the water cycle
Evaporation
• Evaporation is when the sun heats up
water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and
turns it into vapor or steam. The water
vapor or steam leaves the river, lake or
ocean and goes into the air.
Transpiration
• Do plants sweat?
• Well, sort of.... people perspire (sweat) and
plants transpire. Transpiration is the
process by which plants lose water out of
their leaves. Transpiration gives
evaporation a bit of a hand in getting the
water vapor back up into the air.
Condensation
• Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes
back into liquid, forming clouds. This is called
condensation.
• You can see the same sort of thing at home...
pour a glass of cold water on a hot day and
watch what happens. Water forms on the
outside of the glass. That water didn't somehow
leak through the glass! It actually came from the
air. Water vapor in the warm air, turns back into
liquid when it touches the cold glass.
Precipitation
• Precipitation occurs when so much water
has condensed that the air cannot hold it
anymore. The clouds get heavy and water
falls back to the earth in the form of rain,
hail, sleet or snow.
Collection
• When water falls back to earth as
precipitation, it may fall back in the
oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on
land. When it ends up on land, it will
either soak into the earth and become part
of the “ground water” that plants and
animals use to drink or it may run over
the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or
rivers where the cycle starts all over again.
• Explain how the water cycle works in a
few paragraphs. I will be looking for the
following key terms:
1. condensation
2. transpiration
3. precipitation
4. evaporation
5. respiration
Matter is cycled, Energy is
NOT!
Carbon cycle
• The process in which carbon is passed
from one organism to another, then to the
abiotic community, and finally back to
plants. Carbon travels through different
trophic levels in an environment.
Organic: contains carbon
Inorganic: no carbon
•Draw the carbon cycle
•Answer questions 1-5
on page 13.
•All life requires nitrogencompounds, e.g., proteins and
nucleic acids.
•Air, which is 79% nitrogen gas
(N2), is the major reservoir of
nitrogen.
• But most organisms cannot use
nitrogen in this form.
• Plants must secure their nitrogen in
"fixed" form, i.e., incorporated in
compounds such as:
– nitrate ions (NO3−)
– ammonia (NH3)
– urea (NH2)2CO
• Animals secure their nitrogen (and all
other) compounds from plants (or
animals that have fed on plants).
• Four processes participate in the
cycling of nitrogen through the
biosphere:
nitrogen fixation
decay
nitrification
denitrification