autotroph

Examples of autotroph in the following topics:

• Growth Terminology

  • Autotrophs reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) by adding hydrogen atoms to it.
  • Photoautotrophs are a type of autotroph.
  • Chemoautotrophs are also a type of autotroph.
  • Heterotrophs use the products formed by autotrophs to survive.
  • They use compounds formed by autotrophs (such as carbohydrates, fatty acids, and alcohols) as their food.

• Strategies for Acquiring Energy

  • Autotrophs (producers) synthesize their own energy, creating organic materials that are utilized as fuel by heterotrophs (consumers).
  • Photosynthetic autotrophs (photoautotrophs) use sunlight as an energy source, whereas chemosynthetic autotrophs (chemoautotrophs) use inorganic molecules as an energy source.
  • Autotrophs act as producers and are critical for all ecosystems.
  • Heterotrophs function as consumers in the food chain; they obtain energy in the form of organic carbon by eating autotrophs or other heterotrophs.
  • Unlike autotrophs, heterotrophs are unable to synthesize their own food.

• Carboxysomes

  • Carboxysomes are intracellular structures that contain enzymes involved in carbon fixation and found in many autotrophic bacteria.
  • Carboxysomes are intracellular structures found in many autotrophic bacteria, including Cyanobacteria, Knallgasbacteria, Nitroso- and Nitrobacteria.

• Organization of Ecosystems

  • Producers (autotrophs) do not usually eat other organisms but pull nutrients from the soil or the ocean and manufacture their own food using photosynthesis.
  • Within ecosystems, the biotic factors that comprise the categories above can be organized into a food chain in which autotrophic producers use materials and nutrients recycled by decomposers to make their own food; the producers are in turn eaten by heterotrophic consumers.
  • A food web depicts a collection of heterotrophic consumers that network and cycle the flow of energy and nutrients from a productive base of self-feeding autotrophs .
  • Although plants are the most common primary producers, autotrophic photosynthetic microbes (such as cyanobacteria and algae) can harness light energy to generate organic matter.

• Facultative Phototrophy

  • An autotroph or "producer", is an organism that produces complex organic compounds (such as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) from simple substances present in its surroundings, generally using energy from light (photosynthesis) or inorganic chemical reactions (chemosynthesis).
  • Autotrophs can reduce carbon dioxide to make organic compounds, creating a store of chemical energy.
  • Phototrophs, a type of autotroph, convert physical energy from sunlight (in case of green plants) into chemical energy in the form of reduced carbon.

• Photoautotrophs and Photoheterotrophs

  • An autotroph is an organism able to make its own food.
  • In an ecological context, they provide nutrition for all other forms of life (besides other autotrophs such as chemotrophs).
  • Most of the well-recognized phototrophs are autotrophs, also known as photoautotrophs, and can fix carbon.

• The Carbon Cycle

  • A good example of this connection is the exchange of carbon between autotrophs and heterotrophs.
  • Carbon dioxide is the basic building block that most autotrophs use to build multi-carbon, high-energy compounds, such as glucose.
  • Most terrestrial autotrophs obtain their carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, while marine autotrophs acquire it in the dissolved form (carbonic acid, H2CO3−).
  • Heterotrophs acquire the high-energy carbon compounds from the autotrophs by consuming them and breaking them down by respiration to obtain cellular energy, such as ATP.
  • Thus, there is a constant exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the autotrophs (which need the carbon) and the heterotrophs (which need the oxygen).

• Main Structures and Summary of Photosynthesis

  • In multicellular autotrophs, the main cellular structures that allow photosynthesis to take place include chloroplasts, thylakoids, and chlorophyll.
  • In all autotrophic eukaryotes, photosynthesis takes place inside an organelle called a chloroplast.

• Iron Oxidation

  • Ferric iron (Fe3+) is a widespread anaerobic terminal electron acceptor both for autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms.
  • The third type of iron-oxidizing microbes is anaerobic photosynthetic bacteria such as Rhodopseudomonas, which use ferrous iron to produce NADH for autotrophic carbon dioxide fixation.

• Energy Conservation and Autotrophy in Archaea

  • Other archaea, called autotrophs, use CO2 in the atmosphere as a source of carbon, in a process called carbon fixation.
  • Archaea can live in extreme environments and live off autotrophic sources.