Life is found mainly in the biosphere, the thin contact zone between lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. It is life that actively stores energy and matter between the spheres.
All these spheres affect each other and have evolved together since the beginning of the earth for approx. 5 billion years ago. Without life, the composition of the atmosphere would be similar to that of our neighboring planets Mars and Venus, ie. consist for the most part of carbon dioxide. When photosynthesis developed, it was a disaster for many organisms that were adapted to oxygen-free conditions. The production of oxygen and the use of carbon dioxide as an organic building material has led to an increase in the oxygen content in the atmosphere and a reduction in the carbon dioxide content. With increasing oxygen content in the atmosphere, a protective ozone layer could be built up in the stratosphere, which was a prerequisite for life to be able to rise out of the water and colonize the land surfaces. Carbon dioxide is found today in completely different places than a few billion years ago.
Life in the biosphere thus actively affects the global cycles of matter, water and energy.
