Energy flows and nutrient cycling

Question 1

What is photosynthesis and what is it used for?

Answer 1

Plants capturing light energy from the sun and use it to make carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.
The way in which plants grow and increase their biomass.

Question 2

How are nutrients used within an ecosystem?

Answer 2

Required for plant growth.
Recycled from one store to another.
E.g. leaves fall from trees, decompose, and nutrients are returned to the soil.

Question 3

What is the Gersmehl diagram?

PRACTICE DRAWING SEPARATELY

Answer 3

Represents the cycle of nutrients within the main stores of a biome.
Circles of proportionate size are drawn to represent the stores of nutrients within the biomass, litter and soil.
Nutrient transfers, inputs and outputs are represented by arrows of varying thickness, depending on the transfers.

Question 4

What do the inputs of the Gersmehl model include?

Answer 4

Nutrients e.g. carbon and nitrogen dissolved in precipitation and minerals from weathered parent rock.

Question 5

What do the outputs of the Gersmehl model include?

Answer 5

Loss of nutrients from the soil by leaching and by surface runoff.