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Photosynthesis usually refers to oxygenic photosynthesis, a process that produces oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms store the chemical energy so produced within intracellular organic compounds (compounds containing carbon) like sugars, glycogen , cellulose and starches .
Cyanobacteria is the only prokaryotic group that performs oxygenic photosynthesis. Anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria use PSI- and PSII-like photosystems, which are pigment protein complexes for capturing light. [5] Both of these photosystems use bacteriochlorophyll. There are multiple hypotheses for how oxygenic photosynthesis evolved.
Chlorophyll a is the most common of the six, present in every plant that performs photosynthesis. Each pigment absorbs light more efficiently in a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum . Chlorophyll a absorbs well in the ranges of 400–450 nm and at 650–700 nm; chlorophyll b at 450–500 nm and at 600–650 nm.
Photosynthesis is the main means by which plants, algae and many bacteria produce organic compounds and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water (green arrow). An autotroph is an organism that can convert abiotic sources of energy into energy stored in organic compounds , which can be used by other organisms .
The two main processes that contribute to ecosystem respiration are photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Photosynthesis uses carbon-dioxide and water, in the presence of sunlight to produce glucose and oxygen whereas cellular respiration uses glucose and oxygen to produce carbon-dioxide, water, and energy.
The following is a breakdown of the energetics of the photosynthesis process from Photosynthesis by Hall and Rao: [6]. Starting with the solar spectrum falling on a leaf, 47% lost due to photons outside the 400–700 nm active range (chlorophyll uses photons between 400 and 700 nm, extracting the energy of one 700 nm photon from each one)
In oxygenic photosynthesis, the first electron donor is water, creating oxygen (O 2) as a by-product. In anoxygenic photosynthesis, various electron donors are used. Cytochrome b 6 f and ATP synthase work together to produce ATP (photophosphorylation) in two distinct ways.
Oxygenic photosynthesis can be performed by plants and cyanobacteria; cyanobacteria are believed to be the progenitors of the photosystem-containing chloroplasts of eukaryotes. Photosynthetic bacteria that cannot produce oxygen have only one photosystem, which is similar to either PSI or PSII .