Concept
Statements |
Emphasis
in
your teaching
|
General
importance
|
1.
Carbon moves through and between ecosystems as CO2 (low energy)
and reduced (high energy) organic (carbon-containing) molecules.
|
|
|
2. One class of organisms, known as primary producers or autotrophs, transforms
CO2 into reduced organic molecules; this process requires energy.
|
|
|
3. Energy
enters ecosystems primarily as sunlight (electromagnetic energy). The
process by which autotrophs use light is used to generate
reduced CO2 is known as photosynthesis.
|
|
|
| 4. The
most common form of photosynthesis, the form used by most photosynthetic
bacteria and plants, involves the light-driven extraction of
electrons from water; these electrons are used to generate
reduced CO2. A by-product of this reaction is O2. |
|
|
| 5. Organisms that
cannot use energy to generate reduced CO2 are known as heterotrophs. Heterotrophs require a source
of reduced CO2 to survive and grow. They obtain this reduced
CO2 by eating other organisms or the by-products of other organisms. |
|
|
6.
During aerobic respiration energy is extracted from reduced
CO2 by the removal of elections; these electrons are delivered
to O2 to form H2O.
|
|
|
| 7. Aerobic
heterotrophs (animals, fungi, non-photosynthetic, non-autotrophic
bacteria and archaea) take in organic molecules and O2 and
release CO2. |
|
|
| 8.
Methanogenic heterotrophs (archaea) take in organic molecules
and release CH4; Methanotrophic heterotrophs oxidize CH4 to
form CO2. |
|
|
| 9. Aerobic autotrophs perform both photosynthesis
in the light and respiration (all the time). |
|
|
| 10. Reduced organic molecules. ATP and related
molecules carry energy around within the cell. |
|
|
| 11.
Carbon moves between organisms and between the cells within
an organism (via the circulatory system if an organism has
one) as CO2 or organic molecules (food and to a lesser extent,
waste). |
|
|
| 12.
The total amount of reduced organic molecules present within
organisms is know as biomass. |
|
|
| 13. Autotrophs move carbon in and out of the biomass
(with generally a net increase), while heterotrophs move it out
(with a net decrease). |
|
|
| 14. The atmosphere and oceans contain pools of
CO2, pools of reduced carbon are found in buried sediments, in
rocks, dissolved in the ocean, and as methane hydrates. |
|
|