Cycles of Matter in the Food System - Nitrogen

1. How does the nitrogen cycle naturally?

Goes from the atmosphere → to the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in soil or nodules in plants → turns into ammonium → that either turns into nitrifying bacteria (nitrites; nitrates) or straight to plants → consumed by animals or turns into denitrifying bacteria → back into the atmosphere or goes to decomposers or secondary consumers → turns back into ammonium

2. What are the sources of the nitrogen?

Natural sources of nitrogen include the atmosphere, instream sources (e.g. salmon carcasses and litter fall), and vegetation (e.g. from N-fixing plants). Also be produced by natural biogeochemical processes that occur in watersheds, rivers and streams, such as the decomposition of plants and organisms.

3. What are the sinks of the nitrogen?

destruction in the stratosphere

4. How does the food system affect the cycle of the nitrogen? What impact does that have on our ecosystem?

Primary consumers take in the nitrogen that has been distributed to the producers and the nitrogen that the primary consumers took in is either passed to the secondary consumers that eat them or to decomposers after they die. It keeps the nitrogen flowing constantly because every organism dies eventually, so that nitrogen that was originally consumed by the primary consumers will eventually return to the place that it got the nitrogen from

5. What role does nitrogen play in the food system? How is the nitrogen used and transformed in the food system?

Without nitrogen, producers, such as legumes, wouldn't be able to help the soil they're in gain the benefits from photosynthesis. Nitrogen plays a big part in photosynthesis because the nitrogen-fixing bacteria inside soil goes hand in hand with plant. If the nitrogen didn't exist or were in small amounts the bacteria wouldn't benefit from it and the plant wouldn't be as healthy as it would with the nitrogen.

6. How does the ecosystem respond to the changes caused by the cycle of the nitrogen?

Plants become healthier because nitrogen is a limiting nutrient.

7. What changes need to be made to maintain the health of our ecosystem with regards to your specific matter?