Research Paper on:
Overview of the Nitrogen Cycle

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
and hydrogen as the most common chemical element in living tissues. However, until human activities began to alter the natural cycle nitrogen was only scantily available in the biological  world. As a result, that limitation served as one of the major restrictive factors that controlled the natural dynamics, bio-diversity, and functioning of many ecosystems. This essay examines issues  relevant to this critical element, how Man has tampered to increase its deleterious availability, the ramifications of his interference, and future resolutions to these problems (The Nitrogen Cycle and  Nitrogen Fixation, 2001 and The Importance of Nitrogen, 2001). The Earths atmosphere is approximately 79 % nitrogen gas, yet due to complex chemical  interactions most plants and animals cannot use nitrogen gas directly from the air as they do carbon dioxide and oxygen. Instead, all living organisms from the grazing animals to the  predators to the decomposers that ultimately secure their nourishment from the organic materials synthesized by plants must wait for nitrogen to be fixed. Nitrogen fixing as this process is called,  is what results when nitrogen is pulled from the air and bonded to hydrogen or oxygen in order to form inorganic compounds -- mainly ammonium (NH4) and nitrate (NO3).  It is then in these new combinations that the element becomes readily usable (The Nitrogen Cycle and Nitrogen Fixation, 2001 and The Importance of Nitrogen, 2001). The amount  of gaseous nitrogen being fixed at any given time by natural processes represents only a small addition to the pool of previously fixed nitrogen that cycles among the organic/ inorganic  components of the Earths ecosystems. Moreover, most of that nitrogen is unavailable -- locked up in soil organic matter (partially rotted plant and animal remains) -- that must be