How is the cycling of matter different from what happens to energy in an ecosystem?

At the end of the last unit, we learned about supporting services of ecosystems. Supporting services includes primary production, soil formation, and nutrient cycling. These are part of something we call the cycling of matter. Matter is a substance that takes up space. You are made of matter. This computer is made of matter. The air is also made of matter. Matter cannot be created, and it cannot be destroyed. Matter changes forms, such as when water changes to ice or to steam, and it cycles through biotic organisms and abiotic factors in nature. For example, carbon is in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and make sugar with it. Animals (including humans) eat the plants and break down the sugars and exhale carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is a continuous, unending cycle. ou now know about ecosystem services, and that one of those services is called supporting services. This is the one that has to happen for all others to take place. One of the examples of supporting services we talked about was nutrient cycling. Nutrient cycling is also an example of the cycling of matter.

Carbon is a nutrient, or a substance that nourishes an organism. In other words, organisms need carbon to survive. Living organisms need many other nutrients to survive, and they all cycle through nature. This means the nutrients move through living and non-living things over and over again, and it never ends.

Other nutrients that are necessary for survival and cycle through nature are hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur. You may have guessed that we get hydrogen and oxygen from water and air. Nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur are elements that make up proteins. We get nitrogen, phosphorous, and sulfur from things we eat, especially meats. But The energy in an ecosystem is used by the organisms in that ecosystem. In the case of the sun as energy, nothing happens because the sun always supplies energy.