HW3-2391

From Environmental Technology

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1. The currents at a beach continually remove and bring sand in so that, over an extended period, the beach does not appear to change. How is this an example of a dynamic equilibrium? Is it an example of a negative feedback mechanism? Why or why not?

• The currents remove sand and bring sand in, which are the rate of change in one direction is the same as the rate of change in the opposite dirrection.
• This is an example of negative feedback mechanism because it triggers a respoce that counter reacts or reverses the changed condition. In other words the sand does not appear to change but the sand that is removed is not necessarily the same sand that returns to the beach.

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2. Why might industrial polluters think the Gaia theory gives them permission to pollute the air, water, and soil indefinitely?

• The indistries think that the environment modifies organisms, and organisms modifies the environment. So when they pollute they think that the environment has a way of self-fixing itself, as well as the Earth basically readapts the organisms to fix problems that the industry creates. So in turn they think no matter how much they pollute or what they pollute that the Earth has a self fixing program.

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3.What is a biogeochemical cycle? Why is the cycling of matter essential to the continuance of life?

• This is the process in which matter, the material in which organisms are composed, moves in numeruos cycles from one part of the ecosystem to another- from oneorganism to another and from one living organisms to the abiotic environment and back again.
• We have to have these cycles to reproduce plants, which feeds animals and then return to the environment. If this does not happen then life would not continue.

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4.Describe how organisms participate in each of these biogeochemical cycles: carbon, nitrogen, phosphrous, and sulfur.

• In carbon the plants algae, and certain bacteria use photosynthesis to produce sugar. Then the animals ingest the sugar and in turn produce carbon.
• There are five steps in nitrogen cycle. First the conversion of nitro gases to ammonia, then nitrification is when the ammonia is converted to nitrate, then assimilation is when biological conversion of nitrates and ammonia into protiens or other compounds by plants, then ammonification is the converson of organic nitrogen to ammonia, and finally dentrification is when this process dentrifies bacteria reverse the action of nitro-fixing and nitrifing bacteria by returning nitrogen to the atmosphere.
• In phosphorus it moves through the food web as one organism consumes another dissolved phosphorus enters aquatic community through absorption and assimilitation by algae and plants, which are then consumed by plankton and larger organisms.
• In sulfur cycle a tiny fraction of globial sulfur is present in living organisms, where it is an essential component of protiens.

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5.How are photosynthesis and cellular respiration involved in the carbon cycle?

• The plants use photosynthesis to produce sugar and the the animals eat the sugar and in turn produce carbon.