Nutrient Cycle

2. Breakdown of rocks that releases nutrients into soil.
5. Key factor influencing decomposition rates.
10. Process by which producers convert CO2 into carbohydrates.
12. Water transfer from land to atmosphere via evaporation and transpiration.
14. Process involved in nutrient movement and sink formation.
17. Organism that converts organic matter into inorganic form (mineralization).
18. Bacterial process that converts atmospheric N2 into usable forms.
19. Burning these increases atmospheric sulfur and carbon dioxide.
20. Water drainage that moves nutrients across the landscape.
21. Element involved in protein folding and released by burning fossil fuels.
23. One process that recycles materials by wearing away land.

1. Process returning nitrogen from soil back to the atmosphere.
2. Essential to all living organisms and involved in evapotranspiration.
3. Small organism found in water and soil; affects decomposition rates.
4. Plant debris whose decomposition rate is influenced by temperature and moisture.
6. Complex polymer that inhibits fungal breakdown of leaf litter.
7. Another term for mineralization in the nitrogen cycle (production of ammonium).
8. Major component of nucleic acids; important for bones and teeth.
9. Part of the biosphere that releases a nutrient faster than it is absorbed.
11. Process producing ammonium from soil organic matter.
13. Process that returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from organisms.
15. Environmental condition that affects decomposition and evapotranspiration.
16. Element that relies on bacteria to become usable by organisms.
22. Global sum of all ecosystems where elements cycle.