Cycles Of Life

by Smil, Vaclav

• ISBN13: 9780756773502
• ISBN10: 0756773504
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Diane Pub Co

Summary

In Cycles of Life, Vaclav Smil explores the crucial insight that, through their participation in biogeochemical cycles, living organisms act as a tremendously important agent of change in their environment. He shows, for example, how the composition of the atmosphere has been affected by microscopic organisms of the ocean; climate by the Earth's vegetation; soil chemistry by microbes teeming on and beneath the planet's surface.

Author Biography

Vaclav Smil is a professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

Table of Contents

Preface
The Biosphere: Realm of Life	p. 1
Putting Life into Cycles	p. 19
How the Cycles Work	p. 41
Changing the Carbon Cycle	p. 79
Reactive Nitrogen in the Biosphere	p. 111
Sulfur in the Environment	p. 141
Balancing the Accounts	p. 171
Cycles and Civilization	p. 193
Equations	p. 205
Further Readings	p. 209
Sources of Illustrations	p. 211
Index	p. 215
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