Symposium Introduction

In the biosphere, as in any ecosystem, is the water cycle, the planetary movement of air masses, as well as the biological cycle, characterized by the capacity - the number of chemical elements, there will simultaneously in the living matter in the ecosystem, and the speed -- number of living matter, formed and decaying in unit time. As a result, the Earth is supported by a large geological cycling of matter, where each element has its own characteristic rate migration in large and small rings. The velocities of all cycles of individual elements in biosphere intimately conjugate.

Established for many millions of years of cycles of energy and matter in self-sustaining biosphere on a global scale, although local (local) changes in the structure and characteristics of individual ecosystems (biogeocenoses), constituting the biosphere, can be significant.

Even in the early stages of evolution of living matter spread over the lifeless planetary space, occupying all the potentially available for the life of the place changing and transforming in their habitat. Already in ancient times, various life forms and species of plants, animals, microorganisms, fungi occupied the whole planet. Living organic matter, can be found in the depths of the ocean, and tops of the highest mountains, and in the eternal snows Subpolar, and in hot water sources of volcanic areas.

This ability to disseminate vital substance Vernadsky called "Vsyudnostyu life".