Plants and Oxygen
With this
thought comes a Question: What do plants take in during respiration, oxygen or
carbon-dioxide?
Noteworthy: Plants
do not breathe, only animals breathe (breathing occurs only with creatures that
has lungs and plants do not have one). Ergo,
it is better to ask the question as seen above.
Understanding
concepts like Photosynthesis, Respiration and Breathing will proffer
viable answers to the aforementioned Question.
Photosynthesis: It is a biological process with which
plants and other photosynthetic organisms converts light energy from the sun,
into chemical energy stored in carbohydrate molecules as food or fuel for their
activities. The photosynthetic process and product (oxygen; carbohydrate
molecules; and water) is aided and synthesized respectively from carbon-dioxide
and water with light energy present. Forgetting that Photosynthesis is not Respiration
but rather a means with which plants and other photosynthetic animals makes
their own food, it has being concluded that plants takes in carbon-dioxide and
gives out oxygen during respiration.
--Photosynthetic
Equation--
Carbon-dioxide (6CO2)
+ Water (6H2O) → Carbohydrates + Oxygen (6O2)
Note: The above equation requires light energy particularly
from the sun and chlorophyll for the photosynthetic process to be complete.
Respiration: The
movement of oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues and the
transport of carbon-dioxide from the cells to the external milieu, denotes the
percept of respiration (a physiological definition). Notice here that
respiration is somewhat the reverse of photosynthesis. But cellular respiration
is a metabolic process by which an organism obtains energy by reacting oxygen
with glucose (energy), to give water, carbon-dioxide and 38ATP (energy) --cellular respiration is an obvious reverse
of photosynthesis--.
Consider
the formula of cellular respiration below and notice the reverse
Glucose + Oxygen (O2) →
Carbon-dioxide + Water (H2O).
Observe
from the concept and equation about cellular respiration above that the energy
produced as an end product after the photosynthetic process particularly in
photosynthetic organisms like plants, is been used up during cellular respiration.
But in animals that are void of the ability to make their own food (lacking
Chlorophyll), they get such energy needed for cellular respiration from the food
consumed and absorbed from primary producers (photosynthetic organisms e.g.
plants).
Now, just
as respiration occurs in animals throughout the day, respiration also occurs in
plants at all times with Oxygen (O2) taken in and carbon-dioxide
given out to the surrounding. But in plants, the exchange rate of these two
gases (oxygen and carbon-dioxide) with recourse to the process and end products
of both Photosynthesis and Respiration, is somewhat different at
noon and night where there is a vast change in the amount of sunlight. --notice the differences—
·
During the day with much sunlight energy readily
available, the Photosynthetic process
produces more oxygen than is needed for Respiration, ergo oxygen is released or
given out into the surrounding air.
·
At night where light energy is minimal or of naught,
and the photosynthetic process
becomes futile or ceases, no or less oxygen than is needed for respiration is
produced, hence oxygen is absorbed by plants from the surrounding.
Plants
respiration is as frequent and continuous as in animals until death and just as
animals breathes in Oxygen and breathes out carbon-dioxide, plants takes in
oxygen and gives out carbon-dioxide but not in like manner since plants do not
breathe.
(Hints: plants do not
breathe but absorbs and gives out these gases (Oxygen and Carbon-dioxide respectively)
during Photosynthesis and Respiration).
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