Nutrient Cycling

"..., enabling root penetration through compacted soil Without earthworms, soil compacts. Water runs off instead of infiltrating. Plant roots suffocate. Nutrient cycling slows. Agricultural productivity drops 30-50% in earthworm-deprived soils. Earthworms don't directly feed most organisms in the ecosystem."

"... is better compensated by other large bees than by small bees or flies, because different pollinators access different flower types. Seed dispersal, nutrient cycling, predation, and herbivory all exhibit similar functional redundancy, with multiple species contributing to ecosystem processes."

"...ms exhibit emergent regulation and relatively stable function despite constant species turnover, environmental variation, and disturbances. Consider nutrient cycling in a forest ecosystem. Nitrogen - essential for protein synthesis and often limiting for plant growth - cycles through the ecosystem via multiple pat..."

"Chapter 2: Nutrient Cycling - Closing the Loop Introduction In a pristine old-growth temperate rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, a massive Sitka spru..."

"... centuries despite storms, temperature swings, and predation events. Functional stability: The consistency of ecosystem processes (productivity, nutrient cycling, energy flow) regardless of species turnover. A forest might lose individual tree species to disease but maintain photosynthetic output if functional..."