The whole world around us - material and spiritual, living and nonliving - is called in one word - Nature, the mother of all that exists on and around the Earth. The most important element of the Earth’s natural world is the biosphere. The composition of the biosphere includes, firstly, all living organisms, starting from the simplest unicellular bacteria and ending with such a complex system as humans, and secondly, the so-called planetary substance formed by the interaction of living organisms and inanimate nature.
Thus, the biosphere consists of:
- living matter (in a generalized, collective sense) ;,
- nutrients (the result of the vital activity of organisms is coal, gas, peat, etc.);
- inert substance (meteorites arriving from outer space, rocks ejected to the surface during volcanic eruptions, continental platforms, etc.);
- biocosal substance - the product of the interaction of living matter and inert (air, water, soil).
A biocosal substance, by definition, is a biospheric substance, which is a synthesis of the results of the work of living matter and inanimate nature. For example, manure is a residual product that animals produce in the process of consumption and processing of food. A person adds it to the soil as fertilizer. After complex chemical reactions, manure turns into humus. Both the composition of the soil and its chemical formula are changing.
The biocosal substance of the biosphere is soil, rocks, salty and fresh water contained in natural bodies of water.
The term “biosphere” was first used in the 18th century by the famous French botanist Lamarck. And the Austrian geologist Suess and the Russian scientist Vernadsky devoted more than one year of their life to the study of this part of the earth’s shell. In their opinion, the biosphere developed in an evolutionary way, and Vernadsky considered the biochemical energy of living matter, living matter to be its driving force. And it is the activity of living organisms that creates and transforms the surface shell of the Earth. Organisms themselves, as well as what they produce during their lives, becomes a significant geological lever that contributes to the destruction of rocks on the planet, the circulation of substances in nature, the change in the water and air envelope around our planet, i.e., in fact, development of the lithosphere, its upper layers. In these processes, biocosal substance plays one of the most important roles. Indeed, the state of soil and natural waters depends, in many respects, on the “work” of living matter, and weathering of the crust, geological shifts - on inert processes. The dynamic balance of both, their interaction provides the biosphere with biogeochemical energy.
It can be argued that the biocosal substance has a rather complex structure. Its base is of mineral origin, which, however, has undergone dramatic changes on the part of living organisms (composition of soil, water, air). Fossil biocosides such as shale, limestone, oil, silt, etc., which are the final product of the decay and processing of dead plants and animals by bacteria. Thus, the biocosal substance is considered as a product of the synthesis of living and nonliving in nature.
Biocosal substances form whole systems in nature that interact with each other. Their distinguishing feature is the mutual penetration of living, organic matter and inanimate, inert. When the cycle takes place in biocos systems, they do not return to their starting point in their state, but end up on a new one, i.e. develop progressively.
In turn, the biocos systems of the Earth form a single ecosystem. The types and quantity of living organisms inside it are determined by both the habitat and the metabolism and the energy released by them. Such a single ecosystem is the biosphere of our planet.