Why do photosynthesis and respiration work together

It is a series of complex biochemical reactions where all the energy stored in glucose which stores a lot is transferred to other molecules, which can use it more efficiently. Photosynthesis can be thought of as the opposite reaction. Photosynthesis absorbs energy, rather than emits energy. The two are clearly dependent on each other. Without photosynthesis, there wouldn't be any glucose or oxygen which kick off the respiration reaction. Photosynthesis requires the products from respiration, and respiration requires the products from photosynthesis.

How are cellular respiration and photosynthesis dependent on each other? Apr 7, During the light-dependent reactions, the plant absorbs sunlight, breaks down water molecules, assembles the energy-storing molecules ATP and NADPH the reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, or NADP , and releases oxygen as a waste product.

The light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis go a little something like this. Sunlight hits a chlorophyll molecule in one of the thylakoid membranes, exciting an electron, which leaves the chlorophyll molecule. Carrier proteins move this electron along the thylakoid membrane. Chlorophyll is a pigment—a light-capturing molecule—that absorbs light from the sun. See those little stacks inside the chloroplast?

Those are stacks of thylakoids, called grana sing. The thylakoid membranes are located within the chloroplasts of plant cells. Image from Visible Biology. The chlorophyll molecule—specifically chlorophyll a, in this case—is part of a complex called photosystem II.

This vacuum is powerful enough that photosystem II splits a water molecule to restore the electron. Humans can't split water in a lab the same way plants can, so the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis are truly remarkable and unique!

Plants primarily get water from the soil. In vascular plants, tissue called xylem brings water from the roots to the leaves the main site of photosynthesis. Vascular tissues are located at the center of dicot roots. Water molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

After a water molecule is broken down, its hydrogen ions are used to create ATP. The oxygen atom from each disassembled water molecule joins up with another to form O 2 oxygen gas , which is released as a waste product through openings in the leaves called stomata.

Stomata can be found on the upper and lower surfaces of monocot leaves. The electron that has been moving along the thylakoid membrane eventually arrives at another chlorophyll-containing protein complex called photosystem I. At this point, it joins forces with another excited electron. Once the light-dependent reactions are complete, energy from sunlight has successfully been converted into chemical energy, which will be used in the next series of steps in photosynthesis—the light-independent reactions—to assemble sugar molecules.

An enzyme called RuBisCo combines a molecule of carbon dioxide with a molecule called ribulose biphosphate RubP , which contains five carbon atoms.

The result is a 6-carbon molecule, which is broken down into two 3-carbon molecules 3-phosphoglycerate. Two molecules of G3P are used to make one molecule of glucose which, if you recall, has six carbon atoms.

Two of these are used to produce a molecule of glucose and the rest are recycled back into RubP, so the cycle can continue. Humans, like other animals, are heterotrophs. Cellular respiration is the process that breaks down glucose and produces ATP a form of stored energy that cells use to carry out essential processes. In organisms that carry out aerobic cellular respiration—that is, cellular respiration that uses oxygen—there are three main steps involved in breaking down glucose to produce ATP: glycolysis, the citric acid cycle Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain ETC.

The first phase of cellular respiration, glycolysis, is the initial breakdown of glucose into pyruvate—one molecule of glucose produces two molecules of pyruvate. In fact, two ATP molecules are required to begin glycolysis in the first place.

You can read more about metabolism in the absence of oxygen in this chapter from OpenStax Biology 2e. Glycolysis takes place in the cytoplasm of animal and plant cells, whereas the subsequent steps of cellular respiration take place in the mitochondria.

Plants that lose their leaves in winter store food produced during the summer by photosynthesis. They store enough food to last them over winter, and to provide energy reserves for new growth in the spring. They are called deciduous plants. Respiration and photosynthesis in plants. Photosynthesis and respiration in plants Plant cells respire, just as animal cells do.

Here is the word equation for aerobic respiration: curriculum-key-fact. Respiration but no photosynthesis.