Not only does this process produce a product, which give autotrophs the sugars they need to survive, but it also emits oxygen, which is needed for the respiration of all animals. Photosynthesis also plays a major role by converting the suns energy into a form that can be used higher up along the food chain by heterotrophs. The process known as photosynthesis is used in plants, some protistas and some bacteria. In this process, sunlight is used , with water and carbon dioxide, to produce much needed sugars for the organism and oxygen for the environment.
The sugar, which also requires water and carbon dioxide produces ADP (adenosine diphosphate) that is then converted to ATP (adenosine triphosphate), ATP is the fuel needed for all living things. The process of photosynthesis is 6H O+6CO -SUNLIGHT-->C H O+6O, or six water molecules added to six carbon dioxide molecules combined with sunlight equals one molecule of sugar and six molecules oxygen.
The initial ingredients or reactants come from all different parts of the leaves, which collect it from the outside world. The carbon dioxide is brought in through opened stomates, from the atmosphere, the water is brought up through the root system, from the soil and the sunlight is absorbed through special pigments known as chlorophyll. Carbon dioxide is important in the formula for photosynthesis because it has the carbon molecules needed. The importance of water is that the process breaks up the water molecules, so that the molecules' hydrogen and oxygen atoms can be used to form glucose.
The structures used in photosynthesis are the chloroplasts, the stomates, the guard cells, the granum and the thylakoids, photo system 1 and 2, and the pigments, carotene, xanthophylls, and chlorophyll A and B. The chloroplast contains the stroma and grana. The guard cells dictate how open or closed the stomates are. The thylakoids are where the energized particles go. Grana are the stacks of thylakoids. Photo system 1 and 2 hold the pigments, which add energy to the electrons. These energized electrons are, like hot coals, too active to travel through the cell so they use the molecule NADP+ that with the electrons is converted to NADPH.
The Calvin cycle, which is the nighttime counterpart to light, dependent photosynthesis happens in the stroma itself. The stroma is the plasm, which fills the double membrane of the chloroplast and holds the thylakoids in place. The Calvin cycle is named after Melvin Calvin. The Calvin cycle does not require light, which is why it takes place at night.
Some other influential scientists who have researched photosynthesis are Joseph Priestley, Jan Van Helmont and Jan Ingenhousz. Joseph Priestley deduced that plants produced oxygen in1771. Van Helmont proposed that most of the mass of plants and trees were from the water they absorbed through the root system, an intense network that spanned beneath ground as far as the tree rose above. Ingenhousz stated that through an experiment he had conducted, that the plant would only photosynthesize in the light but when darkened the process would not carry on. This means that plants require sunlight to go through the process and survive.
