Biosphere

The structure and function of ecosystems

“In the geological history of the biosphere is seen the boundless future of man, only if he understands it and does not use his intellect to work for self-annihilation”.

Vladimir Vernadsky “A few words about the noosphere”, 1944.

• “Not only will men of science have to grapple with the sciences that deal with man, but – and this is a far more difficult matter – they will have to persuade the world to listen to what they have discovered. If they cannot succeed in this difficult enterprise, man will destroy himself by his halfway cleverness.”

• Bertrand Russell

Living matter

In the series of empirical generalizations underlying the theory of the Biosphere, a place of prominence is held by the concept of “living matter”, which is the aggregate of all living organisms (animals, plants, microorganisms, fungi), numerically expressed in their elementary chemical composition, weight and energy.

LIVING MATTER

• Such an approach to living matter makes up the basis of biogeochemistry, one of the major scientific subjects of the general science of the biosphere.

Chemical composition of living matter

There are chemical 88 elements that could conceivably enter into the composition of living matter. Among the elements still undetected in living matter are four of the noble gases – helium, neon, krypton, and xenon, that undoubteadly occur there as atmospheric contaminants.

• It is improbale that any of the unidentified elements (platinum metals, and elements of atomic numbers in the range 49-91) is completely excluded from protoplasm.

The major biological elementsThe major biological elements: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen compose 96-99% of the live weight of nonskeletal tissues. These elements enter into the composition of the four main groups of protoplasmic molecules, namely, water (89.4% O and 10.6% H by weight), proteins (51.3% C, 22.4% O, 17.8% N, and 6.9% H), carbohydrates (49.4% O, 44.4% C, and 6.2% H), and lipids (69.0% C, 17.9% O, and 10.0% H).

• In terms of the number of atoms in living matter decreases in the order: hydrogen > oxygen > carbon > nitrogen.

• Skeletal or supporting structures may be composed of organic compounds such as cellulose, lignin, chitin, and sclero-proteins; or inorganic compounds such as calcium carbonate, silcon dioxide, and calcium phosphate.

Concentrations of elements

Concentrations of essential elements may vary by a factor 100,000 or higher. Some elements of unknown function occur in very small amounts. The cow liver cell , for example, contains only some 23 atoms of radium. The protistan (green algae) Euglena gracilis, on other hand, requires only 5000 molecules per cell of the essential cobalt-containing vitamin cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12).

The biological elements are generally those of low atomic weight: however, iodine, with an atomic weight of 127, is a notable exception ( because of funcition in thyroid gland).

• In the nickel-rich areas of the Ural Mountains, some abnormal forms of spreading anemone (Anemone patens)

. may contain up to 8 times more cobalt and 50 times more nickel than the same

species growing on normal soils•

Trace elements and isotopes

Many of the trace elements are incorporated into protoplasm by forming complexes with proteins, porphyrins, amino acids, mucopolysaccarides and other polyvalent compounds.

• There exists a stability sequence for the metal-ligand complexes that is largely independent of the nature of the ligand:

• Mn++ < Fe++ < Co++ Ni++ < Cu++ > Zn++.

A fractionation of isotopes does occur in most biological processes, with a preferential

accumulation of the lighter members of in the pairs C12 – C13 and S32 – S34.

Isotope ratios of natural materials provide useful data in determining the mode of origin of certain deposits, and in the case of O16 – O18 in carbonate shells, in determining paleotemperatures.

The average percentage by weight of elements in vegetation

El Percentage El Percentage El Percentage

O 70 Fe 2x10-2 Br 1x10-4

C 18 Mn 3x10-3 Mo 5x10-5

H 10.5 F 3x10-3 Y 4x10-5

Ca 0.5 Ba 3x10-3 Ni 2x10-5

N 0.3 Al 2x10-3 V 2x10-5

K 0.3 Sr 2x10-3 Pb 2x10-5

Si 0.15 B 1x10-3 Li 1x10-5

Mg 7x10-2 Zn 3x10-4 U 1x10-5

P 7x10-2 Rb 2x10-4 Ga 3x10-6

S 5x10-2 Cs 2x10-4 Co 2x10-6

Cl 4x10-2 Ti 1x10-4 I 1x10-6

Na 2x10-2 Cu 1x10-4 Ra 2x10-12

Heterogeneity of the living matter

Living matter is heterogeneous both in composition and in spatial distribution on the Earth’s surface. According to the estimates, the Earth is inhabited altogether by three million species of living organisms.

• Of these

• only 300,000 belong to species of plants and some autotrophic microorganisms which create the primary biomass;

• the remaining 2.7 million species of organisms are heterotrophic

• which use ready organic matter for food.

• Despite the relatively low species composition of the phytomass, they amount to 97-98 percent by weight of all the terrestrial biomass, and only 1-3 percent by weight accounts for the biomass of animals and microorganisms.

Living matter is distributed unevenly in the biosphere, forming regions of “concentration”(saturation)

and regions of “rarefaction” (dispersion) of life.

The near-surface areas of the land and oceans, where photosythesis takes place, are the most saturated with life. The soil, especially its fertile humic horizon, is a mighty accumulator of living matter in the biosphere.

Structure of the biosphere and its dissymmetry

The idea of “biosphere” as region of life was introduced in biology by Lamarck (1744-1829) early in the XIX century, and in geology, by E. Seuss (1831-1914) in late XIX.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)

• he first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all changes in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.

Eduard Suess (1831 – 1914)

• was an Austrian geologist who was an expert on the geography of the Alps. He is responsible for hypothesising two major former geographical features, the supercontinent Gondwana (proposed in 1861) and the Tethys Ocean.

The modern view on this phenomenon is:

• The Biosphere comprises the space of the Earth’s crust, which throughout the entire geological history,

at every stage of life evolution, was subjected to influence of living matter.

For this reason the biosphere extends by far more than tiny film of living matter on the earth: its upper boundary envelops the lower layers of the stratosphere, up to the height of the ozone screen (16-40 km) which protects living things from the effect of short-wave ultraviolet radiation; it includes the entire litosphere (sedimentary shell) and the hydrosphere. The lower boundary, including the region of “past biospheres”, goes down to an average of 16 km (the upper boundary of the mantle).

Earth’s biosphere

Dissymmetry of the biosphere

One of the most substantial feature of the Biosphere as well as of the entire planet is its dissymetry. The latter manifests itself above all in that 70,8 percent of the earth’s surface is occupied by oceans and seas, and 29.2 by land. It is only with such a relationship between these two major structures of the earth they counterbalance one another, considering the average depth of the oceans and the the average thickness of the continents composed of silicates.

                                                                                                                                   

Views of Earth's poles. The areas of the Arctic ocean and the Antarctic

continent are similar in size, and both are very cold, but many differences exist (modified from Stowe, 1983).

•The dissymmetry of the structure of the Biosphere consists in that the bottom of the oceans is predominantly of basalt, and the bedplate of the continents, of crystal rock;

•the continents at the depth os 3.8 km have a temperature of 115º C and the oceans at the same depth about 0º C.

• The continents are mainly situated in the Northern hemisphere, while the oceans in the Southern one, both hemispheres of the planet having a different curvature;

• different intensity of radioactive processes has been recorded under the oceans and seas.

Continental and oceanic crust

                                                              Above: Earth is a geologically active planet -- its mass is always slowly shifting around. These motions have a different characteristic time scales than

other mass movements, such as water flows. Scientists will use GRACE to study geologic, hydrologic, and glaciologic phenomena.

It becomes clear that the above-mentioned dissymmetry of the Earth’s crust also leads to a dissymmetry of the Biosphere, and first of all of its living matter, to its sharply uneven distribution and qualitative diversity in the global structures, and to different intensity of biological processes.

The cosmic charcter of dissymmetry of the Biosphere is more profoundly disclosed when analysing Biosphere in a historical aspect, in the duration of “geological time”. The scientists calculated that all the sedimentary deposits laid down between the Cambrian and Caenozoic period, would have give a huge crust of 120.6 km.

• Consequently, the entire 60-km granite crust was destroyed at least twice during this period under the influence of living matter, being transformed into sedimentary deposits it sunk to the subcrustal layers of the mantle, remelted and formed again granite rocks.

For this reason it is considered that the whole granite crust is a region of “past biospheres” and as a part of the total extension of the biosphere.

With such a historical approach to the Biosphere as a planetary shell which underwent an evolution over two thousand million years, and not only as a thin layer of living matter which now covers the earth, the cosmic origin of the Biospere is disclosed more profoundly and accurately; the role of cosmic radiation and of the Sun radiation – intransient, permanent life creators – stands out more prominently.

Biosphere matterV. Vernadsky emphasized that defining the biosphere only as a “region of life” (ecosphere by E. Odum) is insufficient and incomplete. Apart from living matter, there widely occurs in biosphere “biogenic matter”, such as organic and organomineral products created by living matter throughout the geological time: coal, oil shales, soil humus and, assumingly, oil. Biogenic matter is a trace of “past biospheres” of the Cambrian, Silurian, Ordovician, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Jurassic and other periods.

Academician Vladimir Vernadski (1863-1945)

The other important component of the Biosphere is the bioinert matter, the result of synthesis of

living and non-living (inert) matter:

all natural waters, sedimentary rock, the surface atmosphere,

the crust of weathering

and clay minerals.

• On the opposite pole of the matter is the crystal “inert matter” (magmatic and effusive rock extrusive from the earth’s interior).

• The profound difference between living and non-living nature is manifested at the level of space-time organization of these systems.

All living organisms have their own rythmus of the reactions processes, peculiar biological time, and, as compared to the laws of Eucleidean geometry, a more complex spatial structure described within the framework of Riemannian geometry (predominance of spherical surfaces, guinary and higher kinds of symmetry “forbidden” in crystal matter) and other differences.

• The important component of the biosphere, forming part of its matter, in addition to those enumerated, are radioactive matter, dispersed atoms and individual isotopes as well as matter from space, which for thousands of millions of years have been bombarding the earth.

Structure of the biosphere matter

Organization of the biosphere

What distinguishes the living organisms, “one of the most powerful geochemical forces on the planet” from the other material systems?

Living matter as a whole is the only component of the Biosphere in the process of evolution of which an increase and not a decrease in free energy takes place (The Law of Enthropy).

In the course of the biogenic current of atoms, thousands of millions of living things of such single free energy centres are involved in creating a new organization of the Biosphere matter and of its structural levels.

In the process of life evolution a perfection of both the individual organization of living things and of their environment, i.e. the soil, landscapes and surface atmosphere, occurs.

According to the first biogeochemical principle, the evolution of living matter is directed toward maximum manifestation of the aggregate organizing force of the organisms, which is reveald in their nourishment, respiration and reproduction.

Consequently, organization of the Biosphere is nothing but a manifestation of the bigeochemical functions of living matter and they function most effectively in the upper structural level of the Biosphere, in the region of “condensation of life”, in the ecosphere or in the the sphere of landscapes.

Organization of the biosphere, biogeochemical function of living matter

• Gas function• Concentration function• Reduction-oxidation function• Biochemical function• Mans biogeochemical function

The gas functionThe gas function is a mjor function of living matter determining the limits of the distribution of life over the planet and the entire tempo of reproduction of organisms. There is a constant exchange between living matter and the Biosphere gas component. of living matter.

• Basic geochemical features of of our planet are related to gas function.

• We are aware of the fact that oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, virtually all carbon dioxide, natural gases and odours are the derivatives

It is less known, that according to estimates, all atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is capable of

passing through plant photosynthesis

in just 200 years.

• Within a year living organisms displace in different ways much more volume of gas than that contained in the earth’s atmosphere. With such displacement, living matter produces, in addition to the indicated components, ozone-peroxide, hydrocarbon, hydrogen sulphide and other gaseous components.

The concentration function, concentration of the first kind

The concentration function is a manifestation of a new form of organization of matter. Living organisms are capable of accumulating from the habitat, on one hand, practically all the elements of the periodic system, including dispersed and rare elements (concentration of first kind),

Concentration of the second kind

• and on the other hand, of selectively accumulating separate chemical elements in quantities which sometimes hundreds of thousands times exceed their concentrations in the environment (concentration of the second kind, biomagnification).

Well known the organisms - concentrators are horsetails, ferns, grasses, diatome algae, and Radiolaria, which accumulate silicon; corals and various kinds of algae which concentrate calcium and which in dying off are transformed into organogenic limestones, etc.

• The remarcable fact is that the very creation of life on carbon base about three thousand million years ago was a vivid manifestation of the concentration function of living matter: as compared with the Earth’s crust and the lithosphere, plants contain almost 200 times more carbon and 30 times more nitrogen; the average carbon content in rock (“inert matter”) amounts to hundreths of a fraction of a percent, and in living organism, up to 10 percent.

Free-energy-rich living matter capable of performing geochemical work and chemical transformation forms basis of the reduction-oxiodationox function.Under the influence of living organisms there takes place an intensive migration of atoms in elements with a variable valence, such as compounds of iron, manganese, vanadium, chromium, sulphur, phosphorus and nitrogen. As a result, new organomineral compounds of iron and other metals constantly come into being in the biosphere, hydrogen sulphide is liberated, and sulphides and elementary sulphur are deposited.

Biochemical function

Important process occurs inside the living organisms; as a result of biosynthesis and metabolism, hundreds and thousends of complex biochemical compounds (proteins, carbochydrates, lipids, amino acids, etc.) are formed. This is the biochemical function which proceeds in specific thermodynamic conditions of a living cell, different from those of the environment.

Mans biogeochemical function

The Biosphere assumes new organizational forms under the influence of man’s geochemical activity.The above-considered functions of living matter, which lead to a definite organization of the biosphere, are displayed jointly, in the form of eternal cycles of matter and energy. The rates of cycles sharply differ, the same as the material components involved in the cycle; this depends on the real activities in which the cycle takes place and on its duration or the time when the process occur.

It is possible to present differences in space-time organization and cycle rates as “atom eddies” in the biosphere.

Cycles are not closed (open systems) and do not revert to the initial states: part of the atoms leave the cycle, are consolidated and reshaped by new forms of living organisms and by the vital activity elements.

This is the significance of the progressive development (evolution) of the Biosphere as a new planetary shell and carrier of a new form of movement of matter.

The differences between the “atom eddies” in the Biosphere shows the correlation of the rates of matter cycles, as a function of time.

The lowest cycle rates, amounting to thousands of millions of years, are inherent in rarefied cosmic space on in “slow” cosmic time; as is well known, hydrogen and helium nuclei are typical representatives of cosmic matter.

The cycle rates of matter in the duration of the “geological time” or of the planetery time similar to the terrestrial one are considerably higher and reach millions of years.

The spectrum of chemical elements and compounds involved in the cycle is considerably richer in this case.

The origin of life on earth and at the same time of a new biological form of matter movement gave rise to the formation of the Biosphere and a drastic acceleration of cycle processes.

The new biological space, the time of living matter, formerly non-existent in the history of earth, radically changed the organization of matter and the structure of the earth’s crust and brought out quantitatively new “atom eddies” to the “stage”.

Atom eddies in the biosphere

Transition to the Noosphere

The progress of science and technology in the historical time results in a new evolutionary change of the biosphere. This new state is considered as the “noosphere”.

• The idea of “noosphere”, the sphere of reason, was introduced in 1927 by French mathematician and philosopher Le Rois and the palaentologist Telyard de Charden. The initial foundation for them was the biogeochemical description of the processes in the biosphere, first outlined by V. Vernadsky in 1922-1923 in his lectures at the Sorbonne University.

Biogeochemical functions of man bring about the formation of new forms of the Biosphere organization.

This is first of all manifested in sharp acceleration and intensification of the cycles of matter and energy involved in the sphere of man’s economic and cultural activity.

New chemical elements and compounds hitherto unknown in the Biosphere are being produced now in thousands of millions tons, such as native iron or pure aluminum which never existed on our planet, while the number of new artificially developed chemical compounds, especially polymers, synthetic materials, etc. already reached enormous figure of 600,000-800,000 names.

It is well known that many areas of the world are seriously polluted by different waste gases, aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides, dioxines, etc.Most of them are byproducts of technologies, many of them specially created as economically useful products but having ecologically harmful impact on the living organisms including man.

Noosphere “chemical composition”