Nitrogen Cycle - The Processes of The Nitrogen Cycle

The Processes of The Nitrogen Cycle

Nitrogen is present in the environment in a wide variety of chemical forms including organic nitrogen, ammonium (NH₄+), nitrite (NO₂-), nitrate (NO₃-), nitrous oxide (N₂O), nitric oxide (NO) or inorganic nitrogen gas (N₂). Organic nitrogen may be in the form of a living organism, humus or in the intermediate products of organic matter decomposition. The processes of the nitrogen cycle transforms nitrogen from one form to another. Many of those processes are carried out by microbes, either in their effort to harvest energy or to accumulate nitrogen in a form needed for their growth. The diagram above shows how these processes fit together to form the nitrogen cycle.