Biosphere development

Therefore, only about 17% of the total phosphorus mass, found in the granite layer of the lithosphere, would have to be lost during biosphere development. The distribution of P in various biospheric compartments is shown in Table 21. 

Last but not least, it should be strongly emphasized that the immense complex biosphere developed during a very long evolutionary process is very sensitive to rapid deviations above or below critical limits. Thus, hidden dangers exist to distort the above mentioned mechanisms by mankind s work to a point of no return leading to nearly complete destruction of the basis of life of all higher organized animals. 

The detailed theory of the biosphere was elaborated by V.I. Vernadsky (1863-1945), who had a personal acquaintance with Suess. Vernadsky gave the term of Suess a quantitative meaning and elaborated a biosphere-noosphere theory, where the biosphere appears as a self-regulating system and geological envelope. As George E. Hutchinson (1970) stated lt is essentially Vernadsky s concept of the biosphere, developed about 50 years after Suess wrote, that we accept today". 

That is why the biosphere develops the functions of living matter which, in turn, increase the level of complexity and introduce a degree of self-regulation and stability to the biosphere. The scientists of Vernadskian tradition, Vassoyevich and Ivanov (1977, p. 87), wrote in this connection ... 

Organisms also evolved powerful detoxifying mechanisms that remove toxic materials or convert them to non-toxic forms or nutrients. Examples of alterations to non-toxic forms are the conversions of hydrogen sulfide to sulfate and nitrite to nitrate. The prime example of development of the ability to use a toxic substance is the evolution of aerobic metabolism, which converted a serious and widespread toxin, oxygen, into a major resource. This development, as we have seen, greatly increased the productivity of the biosphere and generated the oxygen-rich atmosphere of today s Earth. 

The biosphere includes ecological niches where microbes peacefully co-exist with their eukaryotic host in the human this includes the concept of the micro-biome [14], which is defined as the totality of microbial organisms that co-habit with human beings. On the other hand, microbial colonization of human mucosal surfaces or prosthetic devices, often results in the development of biofilms, with significant deleterious effects on human health [15]. These are some of the challenges in infectious diseases that reflect the need to maximally utilize genomic sequence information and related sciences to better control microbial disease in human populations, and to develop anti-microbial agents with a better therapeutic index. 

As partly mentioned before, natural and anthropogenic induced variations of the atmospheric C02 concentration and of the 14C/ 12C and 13C/12C ratios have been observed. For a quantitative discussion of these variations in relation to possible causes, models for the carbon cycle dynamics have been developed [21-25]. Compared to the noble gas radioisotopes 39Ar and 81Kr, for which we only have to consider a well mixed atmospheric reservoir, we have a much more complicated system for 14C. The C02 in the atmosphere exchanges with the carbon in the biosphere and with the... 

Similar biogeochemical studies of cancer development have been carried out in the biosphere of the Middle Volga silicon sub-region (Kovalsky and Suslikov, 1980 Ermakov, 1993). The biogeochemical map of this sub-region is shown in Figure 2. 

This complex biogeochemical structure with non-optimal content of heavy metals and some micronutrients induces the development of various endemic diseases of humans and animals (Bashkin, 2002). The biogeochemical structure of the modern biosphere is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2. 

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