Contrasting Environments Tropical Rain Forest and Desert.

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James Bolton 9HS

Contrasting Environments

Tropical Rain Forest Desert

B - Biomass P - Precipitation

L - Litter W - Weathering

S - Soil Ro - Run off

5a.)

The rainforest is an energetic ecosystem. This means that the rainforest vegetation grows quickly and when dead, decomposes extremely quickly. This is why the tropical rainforest spider diagram looks the way it does. The amount of nutrients in which the rainforest litter (dead leaves, bark, trees, plants etc) store holds is quite small reason being is that when it falls to the ground because of the energetic ecosystem it decomposes quickly into the soil therefore the litter gives nutrients to the soil and this is why the soil has more nutrients in its structure (this is shown by it having a larger circle). There are not really any seasons in the rainforest; leaves fall all year round and therefore can't fall in mass. Precipitation occurs frequently in the rainforest and it passes nutrients onto litter. Precipitation is mechanical and therefore the relative time of which nutrients pass onto the store of litter is quite fast. The precipitation (rainfall, snow, sleet etc) has no nutrients being passed on to it by biomass, litter and soil hence no arrow leading to it and no circle. The soil has a large nutrient store because when the litter decomposes it passes a large amount of nutrients onto the soil therefore the soil has a larger circle than the litter and there is a wide arrow pointing from the litter to the soil showing that the litter decomposes and gives nutrients to the soil very quickly because the rainforest is an energetic ecosystem even though the litter has a small circle. The soil takes the quickest time to pass nutrients to the biomass (vegetation etc) because biomass takes its main source of nutrients from the soil (it takes water and decomposed litter nutrients). It takes it from the soil incredibly fast because the rainforest is dense and has a lot of vegetation and therefore needs a lot of nutrients to survive. Biomass has the largest store of nutrients because the rainforest is dense and has lots of vegetation. This gives little nutrients to the litter very slowly because litter comes from the vegetation and therefore when the biomass gets nutrients it takes time to spread the nutrients throughout the biomass. Litter also has nutrients in it until it has fully decomposed into the soil. Overall all these factors contribute to the small size of the litter store in the rainforest.
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5b.)

"X" has a wide arrow because the nutrient flow between the soil and biomass is extremely quick. This happens quickly because of the speed of the nutrients coming into the soil from the litter. This in turn happens quickly because the heat and large quantities of rainfall increase the speed of decomposition. Also the size of the biomass is great and the amount some vegetation needs to grow is just as great and this is why this is known as an energetic ecosystem and therefore the rainforest takes in the nutrients very quickly. Therefore the speed ...

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