Page 58 - The Manga Guide to Biochemistry

Since Kumi eats beef, the carbon can also move from the cow to Kumi.

Mmm...I love a tasty cheeseburger!
So carbon really moves around a lot, doesn’t it? Is this movement the

biogeochemical cycle?

Yep! The entire Earth is carrying out this cycle on a gigantic scale.

Carbon other human

Dioxide activities
photosynthesis
respiration

predation

burying consumption

fossil
fuel

Wow! So the rice, potatoes, and apples that I eat were originally related to
carbon dixiode that somebody else exhaled.

And it’s not just carbon. Hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and sulfur (S)
cycle around the Earth as well, going from organism to organism, getting emit-
ted into the atmosphere, dissolved into the ocean, or buried deep underground.

When this cycle works smoothly, the ecosystem and the global
environment are healthy.

44 Chapter 2