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Photosynthesis

Using light energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar, releasing oxygen.Source: OpenStax, 2018Source: Bassham et al., 1950

Step 1 of 7ReadingProcess

How Photosynthesis connects

Photosynthesis happens in

Photosynthesis involves

  • Molecule

    ATP

    The molecule cells use to carry energy. Most of it is made by ATP synthase, a rotating molecular machine.

Photosynthesis uses

  • Molecule

    Rubisco

    The enzyme that captures carbon dioxide in photosynthesis, often called the most abundant protein on Earth.

    Open in Plant Lab

Photosynthesis includes the example

  • Process

    C4 photosynthesis

    A carbon-concentrating form of photosynthesis that evolved many separate times, in plants such as maize.

Photosynthesis makes possible

  • Process

    Primary production

    Carbon fixed by plants, algae and photosynthetic microbes: about 105 billion tonnes a year worldwide, roughly half on land and half in the ocean.

Photosynthesis is involved in

  • Process

    Carbon cycle

    The movement of carbon among the air, oceans, living things, soils and rocks.

Photosynthesis is used by

  • Organism or group

    Phytoplankton

    Microscopic photosynthetic organisms drifting in sunlit water. Ocean producers account for roughly half of the carbon fixed on Earth each year.

Photosynthesis is related to

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Sources & further reading

The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.