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Photoautotrophs are organisms that can utilize light energy from sunlight and elements (such as carbon) from inorganic compounds to produce organic materials needed to sustain their own metabolism (i.e. autotrophy). Such biological activities are known as photosynthesis, and examples of such organisms include plants, algae and cyanobacteria.
In contrast to photoautotrophs, photoheterotrophs are organisms that depend solely on light for their energy and principally on organic compounds for their carbon. Photoheterotrophs produce ATP through photophosphorylation but use environmentally obtained organic compounds to build structures and other bio-molecules.
Photoautotrophs evolved from heterotrophic bacteria by developing photosynthesis. The earliest photosynthetic bacteria used hydrogen sulphide . Due to the scarcity of hydrogen sulphide, some photosynthetic bacteria evolved to use water in photosynthesis, leading to cyanobacteria .
These include photoautotrophs (which use sunlight) and lithoautotrophs (which use inorganic oxidation). Heterotrophs, such as animals and fungi, are not capable of carbon fixation but are able to grow by consuming the carbon fixed by autotrophs or other heterotrophs. Six natural or autotrophic carbon fixation pathways are currently known.
For example, most plants are photolithoautotrophic, since they use light as an energy source, water as electron donor, and CO 2 as a carbon source. All animals and fungi are chemoorganoheterotrophic , since they use organic substances both as chemical energy sources and as electron/hydrogen donors and carbon sources.
Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria are divided into two genera. There are two marine (Erythrobacter and Roseobacter) and six freshwater (Acidiphilium, Erythromicrobium, Blastomonas (synonym: Erythromonas), Porphyrobacter, Roseococcus, and Sandaracinobacter) genera of these bacteria. [3]
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For example, a 15.2% decrease in community respiration was observed in Cep Lake, Czechia—alongside preferential glucose and pyruvate uptake—is attributed to facultative photoheterotrophs preferring light-energy during the daytime, given fitness benefits mentioned previously.