THE BASIC NEEDS FOR PHOTOSYNTHESIS
Plants, as well as some Protists and Monerans, can take small molecules from the environment and bind them together using the energy of light. The incoming light energy is transformed into the energy holding the new molecules together, and the organisms use those molecules as an energy "fuel." The basic process can be represented this way:
CO2 + H2O light > C6H12O6 + O2
Carbon Dioxide Water (sugar) Oxygen
In the case of water organisms, the carbon dioxide and water are from their immediate surroundings; for most land plants, the water is absorbed from the soil and the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The glucose is used for two major purposes: 1) it serves as an energy reserve for periods of darkness (don't forget that photosynthesizers, like any living things, require energy and get it through respiration processes, commonly aerobic respiration, and 2) it is used as a major component of structure: the cell walls that surround almost all photosynthetic cells are made of starches, huge molecules made up of hundreds, commonly thousands, of sugar molecules bound together. This is why plant fibers are great sources of nutrition if you can break them down, which is difficult - we humans can't, being limited to the simpler starches put into seeds and fruits and tubers as accessible energy stores.
Plants, as well as some Protists and Monerans, can take small molecules from the environment and bind them together using the energy of light. The incoming light energy is transformed into the energy holding the new molecules together, and the organisms use those molecules as an energy "fuel." The basic process can be represented this way:
CO2 + H2O light > C6H12O6 + O2
Carbon Dioxide Water (sugar) Oxygen
In the case of water organisms, the carbon dioxide and water are from their immediate surroundings; for most land plants, the water is absorbed from the soil and the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The glucose is used for two major purposes: 1) it serves as an energy reserve for periods of darkness (don't forget that photosynthesizers, like any living things, require energy and get it through respiration processes, commonly aerobic respiration, and 2) it is used as a major component of structure: the cell walls that surround almost all photosynthetic cells are made of starches, huge molecules made up of hundreds, commonly thousands, of sugar molecules bound together. This is why plant fibers are great sources of nutrition if you can break them down, which is difficult - we humans can't, being limited to the simpler starches put into seeds and fruits and tubers as accessible energy stores.