Biogeochemical Cycles

Free Response

Describe nitrogen fixation and why it is important to agriculture.

Hint:

Nitrogen fixation is the process of bringing nitrogen gas from the atmosphere and incorporating it into organic molecules. Most plants do not have this capability and must rely on free-living or symbiotic bacteria to do this. As nitrogen is often the limiting nutrient in the growth of crops, farmers make use of artificial fertilizers to provide a nitrogen source to the plants as they grow.

What are the factors that cause dead zones? Describe eutrophication, in particular, as a cause.

Hint:

Many factors can kill life in a lake or ocean, such as eutrophication by nutrient-rich surface runoff, oil spills, toxic waste spills, changes in climate, and the dumping of garbage into the ocean. Eutrophication is a result of nutrient-rich runoff from land using artificial fertilizers high in nitrogen and phosphorus. These nutrients cause the rapid and excessive growth of microorganisms, which deplete local dissolved oxygen and kill many fish and other aquatic organisms.

Why are drinking water supplies still a major concern for many countries?

Hint:

Most of the water on Earth is salt water, which humans cannot drink unless the salt is removed. Some fresh water is locked in glaciers and polar ice caps, or is present in the atmosphere. The Earth’s water supplies are threatened by pollution and exhaustion. The effort to supply fresh drinking water to the planet’s ever-expanding human population is seen as a major challenge in this century.

Discuss how the human disruption of the carbon cycle has caused ocean acidification.

Hint:

Human activity has greatly increased the amount of carbon dioxide gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. The oceanic and atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are linked so that when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase, the amount of dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean also increases (partial pressure of oxygen). When carbon dioxide dissolves in water it produces the weak acid bicarbonate. Since the Industrial Revolution the pH of the ocean has dropped 0.1 pH units, a 30% increase in acidity.