1. Matter Cycles through Ecosystems.
ALL ECOSYSTEMS NEED CERTAIN MATERIALS.
WATER CYCLES THROUGH ECOSYSTEMS
CARBON CYCLES THROUGH ECOSYSTEMS
NITROGEN CYLCLES THROUGH ECOSYSTEMS

2. All Ecosystems Need Certain Materials
Living things depend on their environment to meet their needs.
All of the materials an organism takes in are returned to the ecosystem, while the organism lives or after it dies.
The movement of matter through the living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem is a continuous cycle. Matter never leaves an ecosystem, it just changes form. The most important cycles in ecosystems are: WATER, NITROGEN and CARBON DIOXIDE.

3. Water Cycles thru Ecosystem
Water is stored on Earth’s surface in Lakes, Rivers, & Oceans. Also found underground, & a lot in glaciers and polar ice sheets.
Water is part of living things, and is constantly moving through the environment: WATER CYCLE.
Water is made of Hydrogen & Oxygen; it constantly is changing form (gas-liquid-solid). Usually is gas in atmosphere (vapor), condenses to fall as precipitation (snow, sleet, rain, hail), and evaporates back to vapor into atmosphere.
Animals release water vapor when breathing (respiration) and plants do it through transpiration.

5. Carbon Cycles thru Ecosystem
Carbon is an element found in all living things. It is through Carbon Dioxide gas (CO2) that carbon enters the living parts of an ecosystem.
Plants use CO2 to make sugar (in photosynthesis). Sugars are carbon compounds important as a food source to supply energy to organisms for growth & life. Energy is released from food via respiration in organisms. Carbon then gets cycled back into atmosphere as CO2 gas. When living things die, the rest of carbon that makes up living matter gets released.
Earth’s ocean has a lot more carbon in it than air does. CO2 is dissolved in water, used by algae to make food via photosynthesis.
Marine organisms also release CO2 through respiration and carbon on the ocean floor when they die.

7. Nitrogen Cycles thru Ecosystem
Nitrogen is another element important to life that cycles thru ecosystems. 4/5 of air you breathe is clear, colorless nitrogen gas. But we can’t get it from the air, instead we get it from plants.
Plants absorb compounds of nitrogen with roots from soil (also can’t get pure N from air).
Lightning “fixes” or breaks apart pure nitrogen into a form plants can use (it falls to ground with rain). But most soil nitrogen comes from “nitrogen-fixing bacteria” that live around roots of plants & in oceans to change gas nitrogen into usable nitrogen compounds.
Also, decomposers break down dead matter in oceans & soil to release nitrogen, used again by living things.
Some nitrogen goes back to atmosphere by certain bacteria, releasing nitrogen gas.