During photosynthesis, molecules in leaves capture sunlight and energize electrons, which are then stored in the covalent bonds of carbohydrate molecules. That energy within those covalent bonds will be released when they are broken during cell respiration. How long lasting and stable are those covalent bonds? The energy extracted today by the burning of coal and petroleum products represents sunlight energy captured and stored by photosynthesis almost 200 million years ago.
Plants, algae, and a group of bacteria called cyanobacteria are the only organisms capable of performing photosynthesis. Because they use light to manufacture their own food, they are called photoautotrophs (“self-feeders using light”). Other organisms, such as animals, fungi, and most other bacteria, are termed heterotrophs (“other feeders”) because they must rely on the sugars produced by photosynthetic organisms for their energy needs. A third very interesting group of bacteria synthesize sugars, not by using sunlight’s energy, but by extracting energy from inorganic chemical compounds; hence, they are referred to as chemoautotrophs.
It is convenient to divide the photosynthetic process in plants into four stages, each occurring in a defined area of the chloroplast: (1) absorption of light, (2) electron transport leading to the reduction of NADP+ to NADPH, (3) generation of ATP, and (4) conversion of CO2 into carbohydrates (carbon fixation).
The amitochondriate eukaryotes may have genes that have been derived from purple alphaloproteobacteria because they do not have the mitochondria which is needed to optimize energy production in the presence of oxygen, can live and exist in a condition with little to no oxygen which is a characteristic of proteobacteria and hence are anaerobes obtaining energy by anaerobic respiration. They may have also undergone the endosymbiont theory but due to their environment which has little to no oxygen. They do not have a need for the mitochondria organelle and in the process lose this organelle.
