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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.
Most of the well-recognized phototrophs are autotrophic, also known as photoautotrophs, and can fix carbon. They can be contrasted with chemotrophs that obtain their energy by the oxidation of electron donors in their environments. Photoautotrophs are capable of synthesizing their own food from inorganic substances using light as an energy source.
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 .
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.
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. Seven natural autotrophic carbon fixation pathways are currently known.
Chloroflexales is an order of bacteria in the class Chloroflexia. [1] The clade is also known as filamentous anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (FAP), [2] as the order contains phototrophs that do not produce oxygen.
An autotroph is an organism that can convert abiotic sources of energy into energy stored in organic compounds, which can be used by other organisms.Autotrophs produce complex organic compounds (such as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) using carbon from simple substances such as carbon dioxide, [1] generally using energy from light or inorganic chemical reactions. [2]
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]