Reservoirs
Unlike carbon and nitrogen, phosphorus uniquely lacks a significant reservoir in this specific physical zone
What is the Atmosphere?
This slow process breaks down rocks at the earths surface. The first step into adding new phosphorus into the ecosystem
What is weathering?
Plants and algae represent this specific trophic level
What are primary producers?
Because it is locked in rocks and enters ecosystems so slowly, phosphorus acts as this type of nutrient, controlling the overall pace of primary production
What is limiting nutrient?
What holds the majority of the Earth's phosphorus pool?
What is rocks?
This water-driven physical movement carries dissolved phosphate from terrestrial soils down into lakes, rivers, and coastal ecosystems
What is runoff?
Consumers in higher trophic levels cannot absorb phosphate from the soil; they must obtain it through this specific pathway
What is consumption?
If an aquatic ecosystem receives a sudden, massive influx of phosphorus, this metric of the ecosystem will spike dramatically, often causes and explosive growth of algae.
What is primary productivity?
Aquatic sink where phosphorus sits heavily
What is the ocean seafloor?
The biological process where primary producers absorb inorganic phosphate from their surroundings to build biological molecules.
What is assimilation?
These crucial organisms return organic phosphorus into its inorganic form in the soil by breaking down dead organic matter and waste.
What are decomposers?
When decomposers run out of organic matter or oxygen while processing excess nutrients like phosphorus, it can create these oxygen-starved aquatic regions.
What are dead zones?
Form of Phosphorus found in rocks and dissolved in water
What is phosphate?
The massive long term geological process that uses Earths crustal movements to elevate old marine sediment layers into mountains on dry land.
What is geological uplift?
Unlike carbon, phosphorus circulates through this type of local system on a much shorter time scale.
What is terrestrial?
Because the phosphorus lacks an atmospheric phase, its movement across the globe relies entirely on the movement of water, gravity, and these biological entities.
What are living organisms?