Nitrikaye Undergoes Nitrogen Cycle

By: Micaela Monterey

Hello, I am Nitrikaye, a nitrogen, today I will share to you how the process of nitrogen
cycle been effective. Catch up my story. First and foremost, did you all know that 78% of the
atmosphere was a Nitrogen. I am one of the elements that helps to produce proteins.
Unfortunately, most organisms, like animals cannot breathe nitrogen directly.
I need to travels down from the air to the soil through the form of precipitation. That’s
why, to make me usable to plants. I need to undergo Nitrogen Fixation. This is the first step
wherein I need to go into the soil under the plants where a fixing bacteria and I will meet. These
bacteria separates the molecules into atoms and combine them with hydrogen to make
ammonia. But still it is not usable because ammonia is toxic to plants. Ammonia need to
undergo the process of Nitrification combined with oxygen, wherein the bacteria in the soil
turns ammonia into nitrates. Nitrates can also found in the fertilizers that are used to treat the
plants. After that, the plants or also known as the producer absorbs the nitrates to make
proteins that is needed by the plants to survive through Assimilation. The nitrogen-containing
molecules are passed to the consumers such as animals when the plants are eaten. They may
be incorporated into the animal's body or broken down and excreted as waste, such as the
urea. When a plant or an animal dies, the decomposition takes place, in the process of
Ammonification. This process will makes me goes back into the ground and another bacteria
will turns me back into ammonia.  After that Denitrification occurs where, the bacteria converts
the ammonia back into the gasses as a nitrogen and hydrogen to went back into the
atmosphere and this will repeat the process that I need to go through the cycle again from
where I started. In some instances, I can be lost from plants and soil in terrestrial environments
via other routes, including runoff that carries the nitrogen in fertilizers, manure and nitrogen in
the soil and leaching from soils into lakes and streams. Eventually some of these nutrients reach
the oceans as rivers flush them onto the ocean surface.