Question

What is the difference between a photoheterotroph and chemoheterotroph, and what are examples of these?

Answer 1

 So, a chemoheterotroph is an organism that acquires energy from chemical bonds, and uses acquires organic carbon from an external source (usually, in this case, the energy and carbon come from the same source, e.g., glucose). A photoheterotroph is an organism that gains energy from photons, but gains carbon from an external organic source. Most bacteria, fungi, and animals can easily be described as a chemoheterotroph. A specific bacteria would be Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Photoheterotrophs would only be found in the prokaryote domains. An example would be Heliobacter. Just to note, there are very few genera of photoheterotrophs. Remember, they gain most of their energy from light (photons), and their carbon from an external organic source (i.e., they do not fix carbon).