What is biosphere

  1. What is Biosphere?
  2. What is Biosphere? Definition, Resources, Importance, and Examples
  3. 1.5: The Biosphere
  4. Biosphere
  5. Biosphere Definition & Meaning
  6. The Biosphere


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What is Biosphere?

What is Biosphere Biosphere Definition The biosphere, which includes the ground and the air, is characterized as the region of the planet where organisms live. The biosphere is defined as the region on, above, and below the Earth’s surface where life exists. The biosphere is a narrow zone on the surface of the earth where soil, water, and air combine to sustain life. Life can only occur in this zone. From fungi and bacteria to large animals, there are several different types of life. The biosphere is characterized as an area that contains all living organisms and the products of their activities. As a result, it plays a critical role in the maintenance of ecosystems, i.e., the existence of species and their reciprocal interactions. And the biosphere is critical for climate regulation. Biosphere Resources The biosphere provides important resources. Many people rely on the biosphere for basic necessities including food, medicine, construction materials, and fuel. Indigenous peoples, in particular. Except for salt, all food comes from the biosphere, but established societies prefer to farm rather than forage. The biosphere is a relatively thin layer of the Earth’s surface that supports life, reaching from a few kilometers into the atmosphere to deep-sea vents. The biosphere is a global ecosystem made up of living organisms (biota) and the nonliving (abiotic) factors that provide them with energy and nutrients. The biosphere is a narrow zone on the surface of the earth where s...

Biosphere

The biosphere is made up of the parts of Earth where life exists. The biosphere extends from the deepest root systems of trees, to the dark environment of ocean trenches, to lush rainforests and high mountaintops. Scientists describe Earth in terms of spheres. The solid surface layer of Earth is the lithosphere. The atmosphere is the layer of air that stretches above the lithosphere. The Earth’s water—on the surface, in the ground, and in the air—makes up the hydrosphere. Since life exists on the ground, in the air, and in the water, the biosphere overlaps all these spheres. Although the biosphere measures about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from top to bottom, almost all life exists between about 500 meters (1,640 feet) below the ocean’s surface to about six kilometers (3.75 miles) above sea level. Origin of the Biosphere The biosphere has existed for about 3.5 billion years. The biosphere’s earliest life-forms, called prokaryotes, survived without oxygen. Ancient prokaryotes included single-celled organisms such as bacteria and archaea. Some prokaryotes developed a unique chemical process. They were able to use sunlight to make simple sugars and oxygen out of water and carbon dioxide, a process called photosynthesis. These photosynthetic organisms were so plentiful that they changed the biosphere. Over a long period of time, the atmosphere developed a mix of oxygen and other gases that could sustain new forms of life. The addition of oxygen to the biosphere allowed more compl...

What is Biosphere? Definition, Resources, Importance, and Examples

The biosphere is the region of the earth where life can exist and grow. It is the part of the planet where life is capable of existing. The biosphere is also known as the Ecosphere, which means the constitution of all the ecosystems exists worldwide. According to some definitions, the biosphere is practically a closed structure in terms of matter, with few inputs and outputs. It is an open system that uses What are Biosphere and Its Components? Earth was a barren planet with shallow seas and a thin band of gases before life appeared there. These gases were primarily Carbon dioxide, lithosphere (rock and soil), hydrosphere (water), and atmosphere make up this entirely inorganic state of Earth, which is known as the geosphere (the air). The early Earth received constant solar radiation, and over millions of years, chemical and physical processes created the earliest signs of life. The biosphere, or “zone of life,” an energy-diverting layer that uses the matter of Earth to create living substance, was created by this development of life in the thin outer layer of the geosphere. Components of Biosphere It is made up of the parts of the earth where life exists not only human but also plant and animal life. It includes deep forests to grassland from ocean to rain forests from mountains to plains. Scientists have described the place where life exists on Earth i.e. Biosphere as a combination of the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. Lithosphere It is the terrestrial compone...

1.5: The Biosphere

INTRODUCTION The biosphere is the region of the earth that encompasses all living organisms: plants, animals and bacteria. It is a feature that distinguishes the earth from the other planets in the solar system. "Bio" means life, and the term biosphere was first coined by a Russian scientist (Vladimir Vernadsky) in the 1920s. Another term sometimes used is ecosphere ("eco" meaning home). The biosphere includes the outer region of the earth (the lithosphere) and the lower region of the atmosphere (the troposphere). It also includes the hydrosphere, the region of lakes, oceans, streams, ice and clouds comprising the earth's water resources. Traditionally, the biosphere is considered to extend from the bottom of the oceans to the highest mountaintops, a layer with an average thickness of about 20 kilometers. Scientists now know that some forms of microbes live at great depths, sometimes several thousand meters into the earth's crust. Nonetheless, the biosphere is a very tiny region on the scale of the whole earth, analogous to the thickness of the skin on an apple. The bulk of living organisms actually live within a smaller fraction of the biosphere, from about 500 meters below the ocean's surface to about 6 kilometers above sea level. Dynamic interactions occur between the biotic region (biosphere) and the abiotic regions (atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere) of the earth. Energy, water, gases and nutrients are exchanged between the regions on various spatial and time sc...

Biosphere

The two components of the biosphere are called the abiotic and the biotic. The abiotic, or nonliving, portion of each ecosystem includes the flow of energy, nutrients, water, and gases and the concentrations of organic and inorganic substances in the environment. The second component is the biotic, or living organism, portion, which includes producers, consumers, and decomposers. The major cycles that occur in the biosphere are the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, sulfur cycle, phosphorus cycle, and hydrological (water) cycle. biosphere, relatively thin life-supporting stratum of Before the coming of life, geosphere; it consists of the The biosphere is a system All life on Earth depends ultimately upon green Stated another way, the abiotic, or nonliving, portion of each ecosystem in the biosphere includes the flow of energy, nutrients, water, and gases and the concentrations of organic and inorganic substances in the environment. The biotic, or living, portion includes three general categories of organisms based on their methods of acquiring energy: the primary producers, largely green plants; the consumers, which include all the animals; and the decomposers, which include the microorganisms that break down the remains of plants and animals into simpler components for

Biosphere Definition & Meaning

The lithosphere is the solid surface of the earth ( lith- meaning "rock"); the hydrosphere is the earth's water ( hydro- means "water"), including the clouds and water vapor in the air; and the atmosphere is the earth's air ( atmos- meaning "vapor"). The term biosphere can include all of these, along with the 10 million species of living things they contain. The biosphere recycles its air, water, organisms, and minerals constantly to maintain an amazingly balanced state; human beings should probably do their best to imitate it. Though the word has a new sound to it, it was first used over a hundred years ago. Recent Examples on the Web The lions were all part of Kajiado County’s Amboseli ecosystem, a UNESCO biosphere reserve site near Mount Kilimanjaro, according to the UN. — Amarachi Orie, CNN, 14 May 2023 The biosphere reserve also serves as the main freshwater source for 5 million people in Mexico City. — Naomi Schanen, Washington Post, 26 Mar. 2023 Unlike the imperiled biosphere, Earth's crust and mantle, which are charged with many of the baseline ingredients of humans, show no signs of decline. — Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 26 Oct. 2021 This emergent technosphere, as Duke University professor emeritus Peter Haff calls it, can be considered an outgrowth of the biosphere. — Jan Zalasiewicz, Scientific American, 1 Dec. 2016 The directorial debut for Mel Eslyn, Biosphere stars Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass as humanity’s sole remaining survivors, who also happen to be...

The Biosphere

The biosphere includes all life on our planet. It is not only all the things that are living, but also the remains of organisms that have died and not yet decomposed. It also includes the regions of the other parts of the Earth system (atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere) occupied by living organisms. For hundreds of years, people have recognized connections between living things and the climate (for example, cutting down the trees of a forest can change the temperature of the immediate area). Still, although the term “biosphere” was first coined in the 1920s by Russian scientist Vladimir I. Vernadsky, focused studies of the biosphere’s interactions with the rest of the planet were not underway until the 1960s and later decades. In the 1960s, scientists began actively exploring how biological processes, both natural and those due to humans, affect Earth’s atmosphere. For instance, in just a short amount of time, the length of a season, plants change the world. When it is spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere, more plants are around to photosynthesize and extract carbon from the atmosphere, decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide by about 3% by the time fall arrives. When many of the Northern Hemisphere plants drop leaves and become dormant in the autumn and winter, there is less photosynthesis occurring, leading to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in late winter and early spring. Dr. Charles Keeling began making his now-famous measurements of carbon dioxide in t...