How does the Nitrogen cycle impact the carbon, water, and phosphorus cycles?

How does the nitrogen cycle impact the carbon, water, and phosphorus cycles?

• Answer:

  "Typically, either phosphorus or nitrogen serves as a limiting nutrient within a given ecosystem, though water availability can (and often does) also serve to limit the primary productivity of an ecosystem." http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~sabedon/campbl54.htm Nitrogen is the nutrient needed by plants. Without nitrogen, plants would died. The carbon, water and phosphorous cycles all involve plants and their survival. WATER The nitrogen gets into the soil in a couple of different ways. A small quantity of the nitrogen found the soil by way of lightning. Lightning changes atmospheric nitrogen into nitrogen dioxide which is soluble in water. The nitrogen oxides dissolve in rainwater to form nitric acid which is absorbed by soil. (Rain is a part of the water cycle) CARBON All living things need nitrogen to develop and grow. Even though the earth's atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen, plants and animals cannot use it in this form because the nitrogen atoms are too firmly bound together in molecules. So plants must draw their nitrogen from nitrogen compounds dissolved in the soil, and animals get their nitrogen by eating plants or by eating other animals that eat plants. Plants get carbon by taking carbon dioxide from the air. They use the carbon dioxide and the energy from sunlight to make food. Animals get their carbon by eating those plants or by eating animals that have eaten those plants. When organisms breathe, they take oxygen from the air. During respiration, the oxygen reacts with food to provide energy. Respiration produces carbon dioxide which is released to the air. (Nitrogen is the nutrient needed by plants, which in turn give off carbon dioxide, part of the carbon cycle.) http://www.uen.org/themepark/cycles/chemical.shtml PHOSPHORUS Land plants need phosphate as a fertilizer or nutrient.