Photosynthesis occurs inside which cellular organelle

How is vsepr used to classify molecules? What are the units used for the ideal gas law? How does Charle's law relate to breathing? What is the ideal gas law constant?

How do you calculate the ideal gas law constant? How do you find density in the ideal gas law? New York: J. Wiley and Sons, All rights reserved. Part B: courtesy of M. Feist, University of Montpellier. Coleochaete orbicularis. Both the gametophyte and the background are bright green. The gametophyte has an irregular circular shape and a scalloped edge. It is divided into many box-like segments cells , each with a visible, round nucleus inside. Panel b shows a Chara gametophyte.

The organism has branching, tendril-like leaves reaching from a primary stalk. The green leaves are punctuated with small, round, yellow structures. A green liverwort gametophyte, In panel c, is protruding from the soil. Its four primary stems each diverge into two halves and then branch again at their termini, so that each has a forked end.

Panel d shows a hornwort gametophyte. Each green stem resembles a single blade of grass. Panel e shows moss gametophytes with sporophytes protruding from the ground. The gametophytes have small green leaves, and the sporophytes are thin, unbranched, brown stalks. Each sporophyte has a fluorescent orange, oviform capsule called a sporangia perched on top of its stalk. Panel f shows six clubmoss sporophytes emanating from the ground.

Some stand vertically out of the soil, and some curve or have fallen horizontally. They have many stiff, protruding, spine-like, green leaves. The sporangia are small yellow balls at the base of the leaves. Panel g shows fern sporophytes with many stems covered with small, elongated, symmetrical green leaves. Panel h shows a whisk fern sporophyte with long, straight, green stems beaded with yellow, round synangia along their lengths.

In panel i, a horsetail sporophyte is shown. It has a single long stem, which is surrounded by a skirt of green leaves at its base and an elongated, yellow cone at the top. In Panel j, a large Cycas seed plant sporophyte is shown. Long fronds emanate upwards from the plant's trunk, and in the center of them there is a large mass called the cone. Panel a is a photomicrograph of a gametophyte of a microscopic green alga called Coleochaete orbicularis. Most living things depend on photosynthetic cells to manufacture the complex organic molecules they require as a source of energy.

Photosynthetic cells are quite diverse and include cells found in green plants, phytoplankton, and cyanobacteria. During the process of photosynthesis, cells use carbon dioxide and energy from the Sun to make sugar molecules and oxygen. These sugar molecules are the basis for more complex molecules made by the photosynthetic cell, such as glucose. Then, via respiration processes, cells use oxygen and glucose to synthesize energy-rich carrier molecules, such as ATP, and carbon dioxide is produced as a waste product.

Therefore, the synthesis of glucose and its breakdown by cells are opposing processes. Figure 2 2 in the sky represents the process of photosynthesis. Two arrows are directed outwards from the trees towards the atmosphere. One represents the production of biomass in the trees, and the other represents the production of atmospheric carbon dioxide CO 2.

Arrows emanating from a tree's roots point to two molecular structures: inorganic carbon and organic carbon, which may decompose into inorganic carbon.

Inorganic carbon and organic carbon are stored in the soil. This CO2 can return to the atmosphere or enter rivers; alternatively, it can react with soil minerals to form inorganic dissolved carbonates that remain stored in soils or are exported to rivers. B The transformations of organic to inorganic carbon through decomposition and photosynthesis continue in rivers; here, CO2 will re-exchange with the atmosphere degassing or be converted to dissolved carbonates.

These carbonates do not exchange with the atmosphere and are mainly exported to the coastal ocean. Organic carbon is also exported to the ocean or stored in flood plains. C In the coastal ocean, photosynthesis, decomposition, and re-exchanging of CO2 with the atmosphere still continue. Solid organic carbon e. Dissolved inorganic and organic carbon are also exported to the open ocean, and possibly deep-ocean waters, where they are stored for many centuries. Indeed, the fossil fuels we use to power our world today are the ancient remains of once-living organisms, and they provide a dramatic example of this cycle at work.

The carbon cycle would not be possible without photosynthesis, because this process accounts for the "building" portion of the cycle Figure 2. Photosynthesis occurs in the chloroplast, an organelle specific to plant cells. If you examine a single leaf of a Winter Jasmine leaf, shown in Figure below , under a microscope, you will see within each cell dozens of small green ovals. These are chloroplasts , the organelles which conduct photosynthesis in plants and algae.

Chloroplasts closely resemble some types of bacteria and even contain their own circular DNA and ribosomes. In fact, the endosymbiotic theory holds that chloroplasts were once independently living bacteria prokaryotes.

So when we say that photosynthesis occurs within chloroplasts, we speak not only of the organelles within plants and algae, but also of some bacteria — in other words, virtually all photosynthetic autotrophs.

High power microscopic photo of the upper part of a Winter Jasmine leaf. Viewed under a microscope, many green chloroplasts are visible. Each chloroplast contains neat stacks called grana singular, granum.

The grana consist of sac-like membranes, known as thylakoid membranes. These membranes contain photosystems , which are groups of molecules that include chlorophyll , a green pigment. The light reactions of photosynthesis occur in the thylakoid membranes. The stroma is the space outside the thylakoid membranes, as shown in Figure below. This is where the reactions of the Calvin cycle take place. In addition to enzymes, two basic types of molecules - pigments and electron carriers — are key players in this process and are also found in the thylakoid membranes.