phosphorus cycle

• Phosphorus is not found in the atmosphere but still plays a very important role in plants and animals on earth
• Phosphorus

  • Essential for plant and animal growth
  • Essential for the health of microbes inhabiting the soil
  • Important for the production of DNA and RNA
  • Helps to make up cell membrane
  • Important for the production of ATP
• Phosphorus cycle

  1. Weathering

  2. Absorption by plants and animals

  3. Returning to the environment by decomposition

  4. Sediment to rocks
• Weathering

  Phosphorus is found in rocks, weathering along with rain breaks down the phosphorus in rocks and it travels to the soil and into water sources
• Absorption by plants and animals

  • Plants, fungi, microorganisms are able to absorb phosphorus and then grow
  • Some phosphorus makes its way to the ocean and fresh water, and animals are able to drink this water and absorb the phosphorus
  • Plants absorb the water along with the phosphorus and then the animals eat the plants and the phosphorus moves into the animal
• Returning to the environment by decomposition

  • Animals excrete waste and decomposers are able to use the phosphorus in the waste material
  • When the plants and animals die, the bacteria convert the organic phosphorus into inorganic phosphorus in a process called mineralization
• Sediment to rocks

  • Some of the phosphorus gets buried in sediment which over time becomes rocks, and the cycle continues
  • Some of the phosphorus in the soil gets washed to the ocean where similar process takes place
• Humans have had a significant impact on the phosphorous cycle

  • Fertilizers containing phosphorus is added to the soil, which helps the plant grow
  • However, when the levels of phosphorus are too high, the overabundance of plant nutrients serves and drives excessive growth of algae
  • When these algae die, they can be toxic to the plants and animals in the ecosystem
• phosphorus cycle