Nutrients and autotrophs

Abstract

The inclusion of living components in models of nutrient kinetics changes the nature of these models from the simple systems reviewed in Chapter 2, in which compartments were passive recipients of nutrient molecules and had no control over their rate of input. Living organisms grow and actively incorporate energy and nutrients into their own biomass and biomass of their progeny. They acquire these nutrients by either uptake from the abiotic environment or consumption from the biomass of other organisms in the food web. The movement of nutrients in food webs thus becomes largely determined by biological and ecological processes, which can be far more complex than the geochemical processes that otherwise control the movements of material elements.