Is what I wrote below a good summary for the nitrogen cycle?
Nitrogen starts off in the atmosphere (about 78% nitrogen). Nitrogen is needed for the production of DNA and RNA, amino acids and proteins. Nitrifying bacteria in the soil captures the nitrogen as nitrates. Plants take up the nitrates as they grow. People and animals eat the plants. People, animals, and plants die. Their remains are consumed by denitrifying bacteria. The nitrogen is then released back into the atmosphere, and the whole process starts again.
Nitrogen starts off in the atmosphere (about 78% nitrogen). Nitrogen is needed for the production of DNA and RNA, amino acids and proteins. Nitrifying bacteria in the soil captures the nitrogen as nitrates. Plants take up the nitrates as they grow. People and animals eat the plants. People, animals, and plants die. Their remains are consumed by denitrifying bacteria. The nitrogen is then released back into the atmosphere, and the whole process starts again.
1 Answer
Looks pretty good to me. You might consider a diagram like the one below.
Explanation:
The thing about all of the biogeochemical cycles, including nitrogen, is that they aren't like a factory producing chips or something in a cyclical fashion, like the chip goes from step 1, then step 2 and so on. All of these cycles are ongoing process that involve probably trillions of interactions of say, nitrogen compounds, that are going on constantly in the Earth System and they are all happening in a dynamic sense all the time. There is no step 1, step 1, etc in a linear sense such that the "whole process starts again". The term "cycle" is a bit misleading in this sense.
You might want to change your last sentence a bit to reflect this dynamic nature of the nitrogen cycle.
